Defiance of the Fall

Chapter 822: Calamity

As expected, the punishment for evolving a Dao firmly outside the System’s purview came with a harsher challenge. The System wasn’t shouldering any part of the tribulation this time around. Each rumble felt like a primal call of destruction, with each purple flash hidden within the clouds containing condensed wrath for going against the natural order.This was not a trial - it was a calamity.

The golden tree that had been conjured by his breakthrough shuddered from the pressure, Zac felt a pang of fear as he looked up at the vast energies that had accumulated. He couldn't stop the pang of primal fear to grip his heart. After all, only 5% of people who directly shouldered a tribulation survived.

Even then, Zac's heartbeat was steady and his gaze was calm. This time around Zac wasn’t accidentally stumbling into a breakthrough, he had prepared for this step for a long time. He wouldn't be one of those who had their path cut short. He was here to crash through Heaven's punishment in one go.

Five swirls beneath his feet continuously fed him with insights from the pond back in the [Hallowed Pools], fueling his aspiration as he reformed his Dao Field with the tree in the center. With his Dao on full display, it felt like this desolate pocket of space had become a lush forest full of verve. A clap of furious thunder greeted the arrival of Zac’s Dao, and he felt the vast presence fully focus on him as the errant arcs of purple lightning started to gather up.

This time, he wouldn’t swing at the lightning bolts like a lunatic. He had done his re

Not only that, he had remained conscious, albeit barely. The clouds slowly parted, their churning undulations filled with a sense of frustration and unwillingness. At the same time, the cosmos started to blur, and Zac found himself back in the bottom of the pond once more. This wasn’t teleportation, it was some sort of Space Melding, where two coordinates or two dimensions were fused into one.

Now wasn’t the time to think about that, and he rather focused on the storm of energy that entered his body, dragged into his mind by his glowing Dao Avatar. The divine tree was greedily drinking the rich water in the pond it completed its transformation. As Zac looked on, he was filled with an odd sense of discrepancy.

Not with the Dao itself, since it felt it was gradually becoming more and more in tune with his path. It was rather an odd spatial phenomenon, where he felt the tree was rapidly growing even though it stayed the same size inside his aperture. It was like that small avatar was the size of a mountain, yet it kept growing somehow.

His body was riddled with wounds, and his souls were covered in cracks. Yet he suppressed the pain after swallowing another set of pills, his mind fully occupied with observing his Dao Branch.

As the hours passed, the form of the tree didn’t change much. The most significant change was how the branches, which had previously formed almost a circle that enclosed the trunk in a protective bubble, were being raised into the air. Soon enough, they all pointed to the sky, giving Zac the feeling they were holding up the heavens themselves.

From the branches, leafy vines hung down toward its roots, their lazy movements filled with whispers of life. He couldn't hear anything from inside his aperture, but he still felt like he could hear a soothing rustle from the Dao Avatar, and he felt like he was transported back to his courtyard in Port Atwood.

Safe, secure.

Eventually, the process stopped, and the tree returned to root itself on one of the Divine Cores. Zac finally let himself relax, knowing he had perfectly passed the tribulation. A quick estimate proved he still had a few hours on the chamber, so he swam out of the pond and sat down on its shore, no longer requiring such massive bursts of energy.

Zac knew he needed to go over the state of his body, of his soul. However, there was one thing he needed to do before all that, and he quickly opened his Dao Screen.

[Branch of the Kalpataru (Early): All attributes +50, Dexterity +300, Endurance +800, Vitality +2250, Intelligence +50, Wisdom +250, Effectiveness of Vitality +25%]