Defiance of the Fall

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When will you announce it? Vilari asked.

Zac didnt immediately answer but instead turned to Ogras.
How did the experiments go?

It worked just fine, Ogras nodded.
The little blue cheat came through.
The plan seems feasible, and we can start setting things up anytime.

And the other thing? Zac asked.

Here, Ogras said and threw over a box.
Three uses.

’

Perfect, Zac sighed in relief before turning to Vilari.
I just need to meet with the representatives of the Undead Empire.
We will go ahead with the integration no matter what their stance is.
But having some assurances would be better, especially for the Raun Spectrals who are in a tough spot right now.

Of course, Vilari nodded.

Zac turned back to Ogras.
Set everything up, and Ill send the location to Catheya today.
It should take them around a week to reach the planet we chose.

Do you want me to accompany you to the meeting? Vilari asked.

No, this time, I have something different in mind, Zac said with a shake of his head.

Do you need our help in some other ways? Joanna asked.

Just focus on your upcoming expedition.
Ogras and I are enough to deal with the preparations, Zac smiled.
Ten days.
Provided the meeting is fruitful, we will have a global announcement in ten days.

Alright, I guess its time to earn my pay, Ogras grunted as he got to his feet.
Im heading to SoLiv.

Perfect, Zac nodded.
I guess Ill go deal with things from my end.

It would be a busy week.

Long time no see, Zac smiled as his old friend stepped into the little meeting room he had placed in the middle of the forest.
You look nice.

It was true.
Zac didnt know what Catheya had been through since they met last, but it felt like every single aspect of her had undergone a subtle yet very noticeable elevation.
Her appearance had moved closer to perfection, in the same sense that Izs features were marked by the Dao.
She even carried herself with a level of grace that eclipsed her previous manner.
Just taking a few steps into the building had almost been enough to steal Zacs breath away.

It was not just her appearance either; her aura was incredibly condensed, eclipsing that of elites like Leyara and Ogras.
She still wasnt at the level of Iz, but it was far beyond her previous status as a decently talented Scion of the Empire Heartlands.
It looked like Catheya had encountered some lucky opportunities of her own since they last met, real significant ones at that.

What nice? Bastard, you know what kind of headache you created for me? Catheya huffed as she sat down opposite him.
Ive had the ancestors breathing down my neck for years because you had to go get swallowed up by a space fish, and now you dont even come meet me in person? You send this tin can in your stead?

’

Well, it was a gift from you, so I figured it was suitable, Zac joked.

This was the solution that he and Ogras had landed on.
As they saw it, there were only two ways to ensure a safe meeting when there were Monarchs in the mix.
Either he would have to meet Catheya with some sort of proxy, or he would have to take Catheya to a different world to shake off her handlers.

Ogras had argued for the latter, saying it would allow them to control the situation better.
They would set up a meeting, but only leave Catheya a Teleportation Token.
After shed arrived at some other corner of Zecia, Zac could teleport in, and they could have the meeting in peace.
Knowing there was no way for the Monarchs of the Undead Empire to get there in short order.

Ultimately, Zac had felt this method put Catheya in too much danger and had chosen the proxy method instead.
The problem was that no place on a planet was safe when C-grade cultivators were involved.
As long as they managed to pin down your location, they could be there at a moments notice, sealing you before you even had a chance at teleporting back home.

So he simply didnt stay on the planet.

Zacs vision was currently split into two.
One of them was the puppets sight, where he saw Catheya in the secluded meeting place on SoLiv Six, a central planet in the Kaldran Strait.
It was mostly a desolate wasteland because of its location.
The late E-grade planet was situated at one of the more narrow stretches of the border between the Undead Empire and the surrounding Empires, and it had been swept up in the struggle more than once.

Currently, it was tentatively under the control of the Empire of Light, but it was pretty much a penal colony and advance scouting station.
A few million people had been transferred over to harvest some of the local plants, and the Empire hoped their presence would at least give a small warning in the event of an invasion.
It was the perfect place to hold a clandestine meeting with the Undead Empire.
The undead delegates could get there in a week, moving from one of the closest frontier planets under their control.

While the puppet he got in the Twilight Ascent was sent down to the surface, Zac himself was hiding in the vast emptiness of space, remotely controlling it from a safe distance.
He wasnt using one of the standard Creator Vessels either, but something much better; the Yphelion.

He was currently sitting in a large room, its walls glistening in a beautiful mix of gold and black.
It wasnt a design choice by Zac, but rather a result of the materials that went into building the huge space catamaran.
Zac had provided a lot of Life- and Death-attuned materials for its upgrade, and after being purified and turned into alloys, they had mostly gained these colors naturally.
The few with different colors had been altered by the Creators to not clash with the theme.

The bridge of the Yphelion looked a bit different compared to the one of the Starflash.
For one, it was almost twice as big to accommodate a large floating sphere over five meters across.
It was the core of the reconnaissance arrays, and ten administrators were sitting around it, continuously sifting through the endless data it spat out.

After building the first batch of ships, Zac immediately switched production to his own Cosmic Vessel.
Thankfully, it had been completed with time to spare, which increased the chance of their plan to succeed drastically.
Now, the vessel was hidden in a debris field at the edge of SoLiv Sixs solar system.

Obviously, the puppet Catheya gave him couldnt be controlled over such vast distances.
It was hastily constructed by an E-grade craftsman inside the Twilight Ascent, limited both by materials and the creators skill.
But on the outside, they had no such limitations, and much of the internal machinery of the puppet had been replaced over the past weeks.

Even then, sending a signal across a whole solar system was easier said than done, which is why Zac had placed hundreds of repeaters between SoLiv Six and the debris field.
This technology was something hed tasked Ogras with testing out while he surveyed the neighboring planets around Earth.

It had worked perfectly, thanks to Calrins connections.
The only downside was that the signal would be drowned out in regions with too many people and arrays.
But there was no interference to speak of in a desolate forest of a mostly-deserted planet.
This way, Zac could meet up with Catheya with peace of mind.
Even if the Monarchs managed to trace the signal, there was no way for them to get close without the Yphelions powerful sensors picking something up.

In fact, Zac already knew that two Monarchs were hidden in the forest, both exhibiting energies at the Middle C-grade.
Not only that, but there was actually one more staying in the Cosmic Vessel that had ferried Catheya to SoLiv Six three hours ago.
It was proof of how seriously they were taking this meeting and how he had been right not to trust a powerful faction like the Undead Empire blindly.

The hidden traps of the [Boundless Vajra Sublimation] had engraved an important lesson on the dangers of the Multiverse deep into his bones, and it had paid off today.

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