Defiance of the Fall

”

Zac could only snort in response.
Ruined felt like an understatement after killing one of the young masters of the clan.

“The real issue is how you’ll deal with this.
Remember, we’ll only be inside here for a day.
By that point those guys might have amassed a small army outside to welcome our return,” the demon added.

“Well, can’t we just zap out the moment we leave the tower?” Zac asked.
“It’s a shame to leave so early, but there’s no option.
The 60-second limiter should have passed by now, right? Or maybe we can even leave right here?”

“We can’t leave the Tower straight to our homeworld,” Ogras said with a shake of his head.
“You can only use the token to leave the Tower, then you can use it again to leave this dimension.
And I don’t know how it works for us.
This situation is outside my general knowledge.”

“Maybe if we climb high enough they’ll back off?” Zac ventured.
“Or at least hesitate long enough for us to teleport out?”

“Wait!” Galau suddenly exclaimed as he turned to Zac looking like a drowning man finding a glimmer of hope.
“Pretty Peak is in the Base town! Can you ask her for help?”

“Pretty Peak? Who the hell is that?” Ogras said.

“The Peak family of the Allbright Empire!” Galau explained as he pointed at Zac.
“He clearly has a connection to them, and they are both strong and overbearing enough to make the Tsarun Clan back down.
Even the Zethaya might give them face if they know you are related.”

’

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Zac said, and he wasn’t lying.
”Who are the Peak family? ”

“Your bracer,” Galau said.
“It is no doubt made by someone from the Peak family.
They utilize a unique crafting method that’s easily distinguishable if you know what to look for.”

“So that spiel about the fear in our eyes the other day was all dogshit? You simply recognized the bracer this guy wore and figured we were strong?” Ogras snorted.

“Well… I did not really lie.
I simply didn’t explain all my reasons for employing you,” Galau coughed before his face once again was marred by despair.
“But what good did my planning do? No one will believe the authenticity of my climb after having seen your rampage.
You will no doubt reach the sixth floor, perhaps even conquering it.”

“Tell me what you know about the Peak family,” Zac said with interest, ignoring the complaints of Galau.

He had held back on mentioning Greatest and Average since he didn’t want to expose his connection to them, but it looked like it was for naught.
Galau had known about it since the start, and had even used the connection as a measure of his strength.

“It’s a unique family in the Allbright Empire.
It can’t really be called a clan since there are only a hundred members or so in the family.
But all of them are crazy strong.
The patriarch of the family is Ultimate, one of the four Marshalls of the Allbright Empire.
He is a friend of the emperor himself,” Galau said.

“What about Pretty? Is she Ultimate’s daughter?” Zac asked.

“No, grand-daughter.
Her father is Strongest, the eldest of the three sons of Ultimate.
The other two are Greatest and Fiercest,” Galau said.

“What’s with these names?” Ogras snorted.

Zac kept asking a bit about the family without making it obvious who in the family he had a connection with.
It turned out that the Peak family actually lived in the capital of the Allbright Empire, but most members were out battling.
Greatest had headed to the Red Sector in order to find dangerous criminals to fight.

’

The Red Sector was apparently one of the more remote zones of the Allbright Empire, and bordering it was a large unclaimed sector with a huge number of spatial anomalies.
It made both teleportation arrays impossible to construct while also making it extremely dangerous to travel with Cosmic Ships.

This had turned the sector to a mostly lawless no man ’s land where unorthodox forces, pirates, and other dangerous people hid.
The Allbright Empire often launched assaults on the area, but it was an absolute rat’s nest that was almost impossible to completely cleanse.

Apart from the Allbright armies, the Red Zone was also rife with bounty hunters and mercenary squads hoping to make a killing inside the unclaimed territory.
The numerous anomalies created a unique atmosphere that regularly gave birth to valuable treasures.
Sometimes extremely valuable items were even spat out through a spatial tear, coming from god knows where.

It was in that chaotic space that Greatest sought to hone himself through bloodshed.

Zac suddenly remembered the conversation between Greatest and Average.
He had mentioned asking the Red Emperor to allow Average to enter some Eternal Legion.
Was the Eternal Legion one of the punitive armies that regularly tried to clean out the pirates and other scum in the lawless zone?

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Zac ’s mouth turned upward slightly when he imagined that gaudy teenager being forced to fight ruthless pirates or crazy cultists while still at F or Early E-Grade.
Even strong E-Grade warriors should be at risk there, as people who had the ability to traverse between planets should be very powerful.

He wasn ’t all too worried about his safety though.
Greatest ’s family was a lot more impressive than he had imagined, and there was no doubt someone hiding in the shadows making sure that Average didn ’t actually kick the bucket.

But Zac knew that just because he had met those two during his Hegemony trial, there was no way that he could completely rely on them to clean up his mess.

“I truthfully have no connection with that family.
I only got this bracer through a chance encounter,” Zac said.
“I had never heard of Pretty Peak before today, so I doubt that she would extend a hand to help with our situation.”

Galau looked completely crestfallen, but Zac was internally delighted.
Greatest was from a force far stronger than he had expected, with multiple C-Grade powerhouses in its ranks.
Perhaps he could ask this Pretty for a way to save Earth from the Great Redeemer.