Defiance of the Fall

on the ship was problematic.
He wouldn ’t be able to run rampant and simply cut his way through to the engineering bay.
If the captain suddenly showed up his only recourse would be to crush his token.

However, the real issue was the Shard.
Should he go for it?

It felt like the System was presenting him with an alternative to assaulting the 8th floor guardian.
He could either target the engineers and the engine to delay the ship, or he could snatch the Shard of Creation.

In a perfect world, he would be able to do both, but either action would no doubt expose his presence on the ship and result in a massive response.
With someone like the captain onboard he wasn’t very confident in completing either task, and doing both seemed nigh impossible.

The question was what he wanted the most.
The past levels had pushed him pretty hard, and he wasn ’t completely confident in a fight against a floor guardian of this power level.
But the rewards would no doubt be shocking as well.
The gains from the 7th floor had been extremely suited for him, and the completion reward for the 8th floor should be pretty amazing as well.

On the other hand, finding a Shard of Creation was once in a lifetime opportunity.
He had long thought about finding a counterweight to the Splinter in his mind in order to restrain it, and this was his chance.
This desire had only increased over the past weeks since his soul got infiltrated.

’

Shooting out bronze sparks every now and then to weaken the splinter was a patchwork solution at best, but sooner or later it wouldn ’t be enough.
It felt like he was a pressure cooker waiting to explode, and this might be his only option on hand.
The item was just the kind of thing he had envisioned, and Zac felt it wasn’t a coincidence he had been placed here.
It was a temptation that he could either follow or choose to ignore.

But did he even dare to absorb such a thing?

The ending of that poor sap who had fused with it previously sounded beyond horrifying, and he didn’t really have any means to counteract it apart from his Soul Strengthening Manual and the Miasmic Fractals inside his head.
He also didn ’t dare place his hopes on a second old master popping out of nowhere and giving him another set of fractals to house the Shard.

The optimal scenario was that the Shard would enter the miasmic cage and the two items would restrain each other.
The worst-case scenario was that some unexpected chain reaction would take place, causing a massive eruption in energies that would blow both him and the Little Bean into smithereens.

There was also the issue of agency.
The words of the Seer back on the 73rd level echoed in his mind.
He had said that Zac was just as much a pawn as he in the eyes of the System, and perhaps he was right.
It couldn’t be seen as a coincidence that the System first presented him with the Splinter of Oblivion at the specially created Hunt on his planet, and just a few months later put him next to a Shard of Creation out of a trillion possible scenarios.

What was the goal of the System here?

It felt like he was being led by the nose down a path rather than creating his own destiny, and he wasn’t sure for what purpose.
It was one thing if the System simply wanted to make him stronger, and found a suitable solution for him.
But everything he had heard about the System indicated that it wasn’t so benevolent, and also not hands-on to this degree.

Was the System treating him like a prize hog, feeding him with these two treasures? But to what end? Considering his Technocrat heritage he felt like it couldn’t be anything good.
Or was it the mysterious Draugr woman who somehow influenced his fate? He had no idea what cultivators standing at the peak were capable of.

But was there anything he could do about it, even if he was being manipulated? He needed power, and he had started down a road of no return the moment he got mixed up with the Splinter.
Things were already spiraling out of control, and this might be his only opportunity to strike a balance in his body.

’

Hesitation gnawed in his heart for a few seconds, but he eventually decided to go for it.
The Splinter was uncommonly silent in his mind, and he guessed it was because it sensed the presence of its opposite.
He needed to make this effect permanent by bringing the shard with him.

There were a lot of logical reasons to not take such a massive risk, but every fiber in his body told him to consume it.
It felt like he was a puzzle, and the Shard was the final piece to finish the image.
This wasn’t the decision he would have made before the integration, and it probably wasn’t even the decision he would have made just a few months ago.
But he had realized something during his climb.

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One needed to push oneself to achieve anything worthwhile.

On the surface it might have seemed that Zac had pushed himself beyond what was almost possible, but most of his actions had been forced out of need.
But here was a difference between risking your life to survive, and risking your life to push yourself to greater heights.
He had mostly done the former, but he knew that he needed to take some risks to keep his momentum going.

Things might very well turn to shit, but even the random cultivator on an unintegrated planet had managed to stave off the insanity for a few years.
If things truly didn’t work out he would still have time to save Earth and deal with the Dominators and even have a couple of years to find a way to rip both the items out of his body.

Besides, the very fact that he was probably being manipulated into consuming both these items felt like an indication that he wasn’t going to die from it.
Why would the System or some mysterious peak being go through all the trouble of manipulating his fate and the Tower of Eternity if the end result would be him simply dying? There were a lot of easier ways to kill a puny F-Grade warrior.

Since he had made his decision he could only walk forward, taking things as they came.