Defiance of the Fall

The intense friction between fire and ice generated a deep groan. It joined the gathering storm, and the clamor could be mistaken for the roars of the ancient masters who'd become part of the lamentable tapestry of the Imperial Graveyard. Iz paid it no heed as she observed the expanding spatial cracks and the frigid chill pouring out of them.

Kaltosa Lu had displayed a surprising ability to rally the forces of the ancient battlefield, infusing the resentment with purpose and Dao. The disarray had been tricked into compliance, and the flimsy dimensional barriers had been bolstered by pervasive cold. Nevertheless, hours of dogged pursuit were about to bear fruit.

The poisonous chill couldn't withstand the enshrined flames of the Vermillion Song, the Fire-attuned Cosmic Vessel prepared for the mission. The final blockade was about to collapse, and the Centigrade Elemental's cumbersome Foundry Vessel couldn't hope to match her ship in raw speed.

"I'll test their fate myself," Iz said as she prepared the fiery sigils to teleport her into range.

"The followers of the Empyrean Throne move as one," Salou rejected. "A test of fate goes both ways."

Iz briefly closed her eyes before nodding. She had decided to target the Lu Clan, so she would have to see it through. Even if that meant seeing her subordinates fall. Understanding didn't alleviate the discomfort. Years of mock practice had done little to prepare her for the burden of command when the stakes became real, despite Iz having discovered this shortcoming long ago.

She remained quiet, unable to vocalize the simple orders as the spatial cracks grew larger. The silent presence of subordinates behind her felt different this time. She'd led this group through tribulations before, but those were training excursions arranged by her family.

They had already proven themselves fated by rising above, claiming their place after fierce competition. If they fell now, it would be her commands and choices that caused it. And yet, there was nothing but flickering flames and burning conviction in their eyes as they silently waited for the orders that she struggled to issue.

Her actions represented the will of the Empyrean Throne, and the ripples would spread to every corner of the Multiverse. Was she doing the right thing? For the right reasons? Or was she still walking a dream, treating the lives of others like fleeting dreams?

It wasn't just the lives of her followers that were at stake. The Centigrade Pryer's connections were far-reaching, and he'd always been fiercely vengeful to protect his corner of the Heavens. A war between the Elementals and the Empyrean Quadrant would impact trillions of lives.

Were they truly unfated, or were their fates stolen by the blaze of her incompetence?

This couldn't go on. Her family was putting themselves against the top forces of the Multiverse to send her here. The greatest sin would be not doing her utmost after asking for this. Even if her decisions were wrong, she'd have to make them right through sheer force of will.

"Our target is Kaltosa Lu, this generation's controller of the [Grand Centigrade Foundry]," Iz said, her voice steadily gaining conviction as her hair ignited with radiant flames.

The cleansing heat of the Empyrean Throne illuminated the deck, dispersing the creeping frost.

"The Pryer's agents have been moving in the shadows for years, silently gathering seals and slaying the competition. Our sources believe they are one of the top four factions in terms of accumulated seals. Meanwhile, our Empyrean Quadrant only has two sealbearers with the trial approaching. Their accumulation follows a crooked path, and it falls to us to right this wrong.

"They shall escape no further. The Empyrean Flame will test their fate, and we'll claim our right should they fail," Iz said. "You have two targets; the Man-grade foundries and the Pryer's sealbearers. Our priority is seizing fate, so those who unearth a seal will claim it for themselves. Choose your opponents accordingly."

"Yes, Young Miss!"

Iz nodded, turning back toward space cracking like a mirror. She could hear the whispers of the millions of streams of competing Dao. It was time.

"[Crow's Descent]!"

Ten streaks of fire fused into a majestic three-legged crow that crashed right into the crumbling dimensional barrier. The final vestiges of cohesion crumbled before its keening call. The following spatial collapse could be considered a death trap even for a Monarch. And yet, not a sliver of the chaotic mix of energies targeted the crow.

The Heavens held few secrets when your affinities and comprehension reached a certain level. Iz navigated their avatar through one of the few paths of life in the storm, continuously adjusting the crow's aura to manipulate the surroundings. A corridor of space formed under the urging of flames, shifting the location of the exit by dozens of miles.

The crow emerged in a tremendous explosion of space and resentment. The backlash destabilized the powerful barriers of the mountain-sized Foundry Vessel waiting on the other side, and the burning crow snuck inside. Heat and purpose rained down on the deck as the crow dropped the sun caught in its third leg. The avatar released one final call to war before splitting into the fighters within.

Iz sent out a few orders before focusing on the matter at hand—the Centigrade Elemental who'd drowned the sun's rays with a river of interlocked arrays. Any distracting thoughts were put aside as she looked down at Kaltosa Lu with a fiery chill in her eyes. The simplicity she'd searched for had been there all along, hiding in the furious gaze of her six-armed enemy.

"You witch! I gave you many opportunities to back down! Forget removing you from my list of potential wives. You've made my list of enemies," The elemental growled as the primordial runes across his body flickered with fury.

The Centigrade Elementals were an extremely rare existence, their population forever limited by the number of runes born from the long-gone Centigrade Constellation. The Pryer himself hoarded more than half the runes while the rest were recycled for his descendants. Every destroyed primordial rune was a tremendous setback for their race, a loss that could never be recovered.

Most Centigrade Elementals only had one rune to their name, where its unique pattern and the primordial powers it held became the basis for their cultivation. A singular rune was enough to become the foundation of a Heavenly Territory, and each added rune would provide an additional surge of power.

This power came at a price beyond the race's loss of another son or daughter. Each rune added another dimension of complexity to their path, no different than a bloodline or constitution. Kaltosa Lu had six despite only being a Late-stage Hegemon, proof of how much the race valued him and his incredible genius.

Seeing his burgeoning aura allowed Iz to feel something she hadn't since she finally caught Zac after years of pursuit. Excitement.

"The Empyrean Quadrant has never backed down from a challenge or threat," Iz said. "Show me your worthiness."

She wasn't deaf or ignorant to the truth behind the looks of the elementals who'd emerged to deal with her warriors. She knew what kind of reputation her family had, and she was aware that most of it was warranted. The uncles and aunts who always treated her with such care had stepped over a mountain of corpses to reach their height and to protect their way of life.

The world's hatred didn't matter. Theirs was the Empyrean Flame. Power was truth, and victory was fate.

There was no point in wasting time on words when their time was limited. The Vermillion Song couldn't endure the mounting pressure from the environment for much longer. They needed to seize what they could before retreating.

Two sets of wings unfolded behind Iz's back as her Natal Regalia, the divine armor forged from Stellar Flames, seeped out of her skin. Three halos emerged, each generating a Domain painted in her image. The waning heat of the fallen sun was reinvigorated as torrid heat spread across the deck, instilling her subordinates with power as they descended on their designated targets.

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Iz unleashed a destructive salvo, launching hundreds of flaming butterflies at the churning foundries. Kaltosa Lu wouldn't let her target his greatest advantage without a fight. Thousands of runes poured out of his incorporeal form, assembling into an Array Construct. A river of attuned matter rose from the foundries below, giving the creature form.

A wave of utmost frost dispersed the butterflies. Iz hadn't expected the attack to land. She only sought a first-hand understanding of the Foundry Vessel's operations and the elemental's methods. Iz felt like she was facing a true Lislake Nymph as she gazed upon the Array Construct, one of the long-lost second-generation species of their era.

The Lislake Nymphs had their bloodlines crumble after their natural habitat was destroyed, unable to sustain their race beyond their age like the Centigrade Elementals. The nymphs' descendants were nothing more than humanoid beasts, ignorant of the greatness buried in the depths of their blood.

Iz would be lying if she said she wasn't impressed by Kaltosa Lu's display. His arrays and control over the [Centigrade Furnaces] were exquisite to the point he managed to conjure a sliver of the nymph's original bloodline. The churning sky was rapidly freezing over, even trapping the inbound resentment in frigid stasis.

The Lislakes Nymphs' permafrost aura held the potential to freeze the Grand Dao. A D-grade construct couldn't mimic that feat, but it still posed a great threat to cultivators walking the path of flames. Even her Vermillion Bird heritage stirred, having sensed the cold of its ancient enemy.

The three primal pyres in Iz's Soul Aperture blazed into life as the bloodline avatars stirred within. The Magmatic World of her Earthly Daos held the beginning, the Zenith, and the end. She reached out, and the Dao answered. She guided wisps of Dao from the braziers. The flames understood her wish, combining with exacting precision.

Thousands of streams of mental energy were attracted by the glistening flame, forming a complex tapestry matching her inherited memories. The Hidden Nodes of [Apocalyptic Beginnings] and [Infernal Decree] provided further power and elevated the tapestry with Empyrean Authority and Primordial Might.

The two Middle-stage Earthly Daos that went into her creation wouldn't pale before Late Earthly Daos, let alone Kaltosa Lu's Dao Array of Middle-stage Daos.

The fiery tapestry entered her Origin Nexus, and a unique skill was born. An archaic cry shook the Foundry Vessel as an angry-red arrow created a river of flames in its wake. Its tip was crafted from the first stars and its feathers were of the vermillion bird.

The arrow pierced the heart of the nymph, utterly destroying the balance necessary to maintain it. The creature collapsed, unleashing a world of frost. Iz had already taken out [Empyrean Dawn] to meet the onslaught, and space tore as the three-meter lance's tip moved. Her wings fluttered, and she turned into a streak of flames that pierced the cold.

Hidden arrays tore under her lunging strike, and artificial matter was incinerated. Kaltosa Lu wouldn't stand around and let Iz close in. Countless mental threads spread into his surroundings. Each thought birthed a fully formed array thrumming with power. Together, they looked like a starry sky, and the destruction they unleashed represented Heaven's wrath.

Iz refused to relent, her momentum continuously building. She suddenly flickered, appearing right before her target. A Dao-infused stab shattered the elemental's body, but Iz knew it was just a surface wound. Kaltosa Lu had intentionally split into dozens of magic circles that formed an ever-changing array that encompassed half the deck.

Immense gravitational force and elemental decay transformed the frozen world into a taboo zone. Her radiant flames faced extinction from every direction under the suffocating force of Kaltosa Lu's living array. Iz scanned the whizzing streaks of runes with [Sungod's Third Eye]. Only six of them were actually her target, with the rest empty nodes or life-like clones snuck into the array as a diversion.

A premonition of danger forced her to burn a few of her feathers to shift away just before twelve pillars of utter destruction pierced through the domain. Each teemed with the paradoxical energy of elements and nature. Iz could tell that even she would have been seriously wounded if she had taken that strike head-on, and it was only the beginning of the attack.

The pillars generated a deadly resonance that turned the few safe spaces into the deadliest spots where twelve pulses were superimposed. Iz saw no option but to enter one of the pillars, relying on her Regalia and Dao. They weren't enough to nullify the damage, and painful streaks of turbulence burrowed into her body.

Destroying the complicated array wasn't a viable option. Her opponent far surpassed her understanding in the study of formations, and it was kept stable with his very lifesource. She couldn't even tell if the eyes she'd identified were real or traps designed to worsen her predicament. The only way to guarantee success was to destroy them all. It wouldn't just destroy the array but also kill the elemental who made up its heart.

Except, her only method to unleash enough destruction was to detonate her cultivation, and she was far from having reached that spot. Iz endured the agony as she scanned the storm. Finally, she caught onto a thread, and she burst forth with her stockpiled momentum.

Six bands of runes lit up on [Empyrean Dawn], and Iz felt her flames wane to give birth to a crackling sun at its tip. The target was one of the primordial runes hiding in a spatial pocket. A shimmering constellation of stars blocked the sun, but Empyrean Flames had already locked down the rune's path of escape.

The sun collapsed the moment it was rebuffed, unleashing a fiery shockwave that consumed everything in its path. Iz became one with the destruction, moving through the inferno like a vengeful wisp. She reformed, [Empyrean Dawn] already stabbing forward, its golden runes alight.

Another miss, yet Iz didn't back down. The bangle on her arm lit up, and Iz drew a sigil with the lance. Another Tapestry formed in the primal fires of her soul, and she stabbed forward. A volcanic pillar of red-hot fury barreled toward the Primal Rune struggling to escape.

At the same time, a beak as large as the Foundry Vessel pierced through the storm of resentment above, aiming straight for the foundries. It was the ultimate attack of the Vermillion Song, aimed to destroy the source of the elemental's fighting prowess.

"Idiot! Stupid!" Kaltosa's roar echoed from every direction. "Do you know what you're doing?! You're bringing disaster down on our heads!"

The foundries' low churn turned into a roar as twelve enormous runes appeared. They drew on their full capacity to block the strike. A pained groan confirmed it didn't come without a price.

Kaltosa Lu appeared in a puff of flames. He'd been forced to redirect much of his power to keep his vessel safe, exposing him to Iz's attacks. Unfortunately, he was too slippery, escaping into the closest chimney before she could follow up.

"Hateful! Spiteful!" an infuriated screech emerged from within, but he'd clearly had enough.

Rivers of Spatial Energy poured out of the intact foundries, triggering an acute sense of danger in Iz's heart. She knew he'd activated a powerful spatial shift. If she stayed any longer, she'd be dragged into the chaotic crack Kaltosa Lu was forcing. She wasn't confident in surviving such a foolhardy maneuver without the protection of a Cosmic Vessel's barriers, and there was no need to mention her subordinates.

"Retreat!"

Nine streaks of fire soared toward the Vermillion Song that had emerged just above. The ship sped off the second they'd boarded, using the Founrdy Vessel's commotion as cover. Iz looked at the ship escaping into another dimension with regret. She might have come out slightly ahead in their battle, but hoping for the deadly environment to finish the job was futile.

The Foundry Vessel was already releasing calming mists that disoriented the resentment while hiding their tracks. Soon after, her vantage was gone when Vermillion Song briefly sank into the Infernal Realm to escape. Their ship groaned under the strain from hostile flames, but Iz could sense none of the Lords were near enough to take charge. They safely left the Lower Plane soon after, having appeared in another section of the graveyard.

Iz turned to her subordinates, inwardly sighing upon seeing their numbers had dwindled by one. The others sported noticeable wounds, proving Kaltosa Lu's subordinates weren't just empty vases hiding behind their advanced array systems. Even then, the mission could be considered a success. Iz turned to Anderid, who'd led the charge of her budding cycle.

"You recovered a seal?"

"Yes, by your grace, I managed to become a Lightbringer of Ultom," Anderid said with a bow, the happiness evident in his eyes.

"Lightbringer," Iz said, slowly nodding. "I saw your battle. You carried yourself with skill and purpose."

"Thank you, Young Miss," Anderid said. "Do we follow?"

"What do you suggest?" Iz said, turning to the spindly man standing by the warrior's side.

"I urge patience," Tryponi said, his gaze calm despite having claimed a seal of his own. "Our pursuit had caused large upheavals, and we'll soon overstay our welcome by relying on the Infernal Realm. If we insist on continuing, we'll harm ourselves as much as our target."

"You're right," Iz nodded. "Set course for the depths. We'll resume our hunt after the graveyard has settled. One of their furnaces is damaged after forcing open a path. It should take at least twenty days to repair it. We'll give up if they manage to elude us that long."

Iz left her subordinates and walked over to Salou's side.

"Do you want my honest opinion?"

"Always."

"If your friend possessed your strength, then Kaltosa Lu would be dead now," Salou said.

Iz stifled the flicker of annoyance. Her guardian was correct. She was moving in the right direction, but she lacked that ruthlessness she'd seen in Zac. Where he risked everything, embracing ruin to bring down his foe. It was almost impossible to kill enemies like Kaltosa Lu without putting everything on the line.

"But you are making improvements," Salou continued. "Experience can be accumulated, while your foundations cannot emulated. So long as you continue down this path with purpose, you'll shine brighter than anyone else."

"Thank you," Iz said, gazing at the boundless expanse. "I'll keep searching for the answer."