Defiance of the Fall

y and then tried to hide it.

Zac quickly scoured the area for any clues, but there was not much to go by.
Finally, he chose to stalk the foot of the mountain, hoping to find the person ’s hideout.
He caught a lucky break after twenty minutes as he noticed a man stealthily moving toward a building in the distance.
Zac didn’t approach though, instead opting to check it out from the distance.

The interiors were completely shrouded in darkness, but Zac already knew his target was inside unless there were hidden exits.
However, he was hesitating whether he should enter or just shout from outside.
If he entered he would need to break through the array protecting the building, which might give the person inside time to flee or crush his token.

But shouting from the outside would warn the occupant, and with Zac’s ladder positions he would be a fool not to flee.
In the end, Zac opted for the brute force tactic, and with a flash he slammed right into the array at the entrance with his movement skill.

He was surprised to find himself completely immobilized the moment he passed through the entrance.
It was a restriction array, and he hadn’t expected such a strong one to be placed down here so close to the foot of the mountain.
Zac belatedly realized this was likely the reason this hunter chose this place as a hideout.

A sudden sense of danger in his mind was all the warning Zac got before a sword swung with the intent to pierce his throat with immense speed.
However, while Zac was unable to move he could still rouse his Dao Seeds, and between 642 Endurance and the Dao of Hardness the stab barely drew blood.

The next moment Zac broke the array by force and gripped the shocked man by his neck with one hand as he snatched the token with his other.
It had been hanging by the man’s neck, easily accessible in case he needed to retreat quickly.

“I have some questions,” Zac said to the horrified man.

Ten minutes later Zac descended from the mountain once again with a crude map in his hands.
It was something John, the man from earlier, had drawn.
It detailed the surrounding area of five mountains in each direction, mainly with markers where other cultivators resided and good hiding spots.

With the drastic increase in monsters a shift had taken place on the surface while Zac was stuck down below.
There were very few battles now between cultivators, at least in the outer rim.
The people here had simply staked out a small area for themselves and used the remaining time to farm the beasts below as hard as they could.

These people had no chance of gaining any rewards from the ladders, but the great density of evenly powered monsters had turned the zone to a leveling paradise.
They had already gathered a decent chunk of wealth and felt no need to risk their lives to explore any further.

These people on the outer rim were mainly between levels 35 to 40, and killing beasts here was extremely beneficial as long as they didn’t get overrun.
And Zac was surprised to note that the levels on earth ’s power ladder had made a great leap.

’

Rank

Name

Level

1

Super Brother-Man

62

2

Salvation

58

3

Enigma

55

4

Thwonkin ’ Billy

54

5

’

Thea Marshall

54

6

Joker

54

7

Silverfox

53

8

Daoist Chosui

53

9

Guru Anaad Phakiwar

52

10

Thomas Fischer

’

52

…

100

Edmund

46

His lead wasn’t as immense anymore, with everyone in the top twenty having passed level 50.
Even though Salvation had been kicked out of the hunt pretty early he hadn ’t been idle, and he was now level 58, just five levels behind himself.
Thea hadn ’t had as impressive a performance for some reason, and she was overtaken by not one but two people.

Zac was a bit surprised since he knew just how efficient in hunting beasts she was.
With the conditions as they were, Zac would have thought that Thea would not only keep up with Salvation but possibly even pass him on the ladder.

His friend the Abbot had been relegated down to the 37th position, but he was surprised to see a new familiar face at the top ten.
It looked like Thomas Fisher must have somehow made a huge improvement to reach so far so quickly, since he wasn ’t even on the ladder before the hunt.

To reach the top 100 you needed to be at least level 46 now.
He hadn’t thought about it before, but he was relieved to see that he wasn’t listed twice.
That would have raised some questions he did not want to answer.

However, according to John things were likely not as calm closer to the core of the hunt.
He had occasionally heard sounds of battle carrying all the way over here, most notably a massive battle taking place three days ago.
John figured it was the fight that ended with Repubat Medhin disappearing from the ladder, and Zac was inclined to agree.

There had been another large battle happening just a few hours before Zac arrived as well, though John was unsure who that was between since no one disappeared from the ladder at that time.
It had only lasted for less than thirty seconds though, so John thought it was a lopsided one.

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But mostly there was a desperate fight for the top hundred in the gatherer ladder since that one would give out titles.
Just being able to kill one or two cultivators could increase one ’s gathered wealth manifold, skyrocketing them up on the ladder.
It was risky, but many of those remaining were willing to take that risk.

After Zac had found everything he needed he had crushed the token of John and sent him back to Earth.
He didn’t feel the need to steal his treasure as well since he was almost dead last in the gatherer ladder.
But Zac also wouldn ’t let him stay here since he had tried to kill him.

There was one danger for everyone though, not just those staying closer to the core.
There were roving squads of Medhin warriors that even assaulted the outer rims in search of treasure.
The Medhin Emperor was truly insatiable and had ordered his soldiers to gather everything from animal parts to looting weaker cultivators to increase his wealth.

Zac snorted when he thought about the image of the Medhin Emperor seeing himself get pushed down to 2nd spot again, being unable to regain his position.
The emperor was likely even scouring the trial ground for him.
But Zac had no intention of meeting that old monster.

He was simply content to hunt the stronger beasts and find cultivators from Earth.