Well, that was easier said than done. Whether he would be able to do so would depend on if his plans worked out in his favor.
He realized very early on in his first life what would happen. He then spent every fiber of his being scraping together what he could to just survive another day while gathering as much information as possible.
His original goal had been to make use of everything in his second life to gain the perfect result. Never did he think that he would end up being down to his last life like he was now.
At that moment, another person stumbled in from the outside.
The confusing aspects of Zarek and Priya's actions had already caught the attention of many, and unsurprisingly, they began to copy their actions.
This new person, though, was a surprising addition. It was the same young man Zarek had kicked a door into the face of.
Zarek couldn't help but chuckle to himself. He had actually managed to survive.
Rebirth truly came with too many variables. He had kicked his face in during his third life as well, and his second for that matter, but he had survived in neither.
This was something that Zarek had learned long ago. The butterfly effect was too strong, and worst of all, you could never tell what would trigger it.
It was less important to try and predict events, and more important to understand the underlying facts.
The only thing that Zarek could count on in this world was where Godsfall Tears would appear. And even then, he wouldn't dare to say so with 100% certainty.
Realizing that everyone around was touching pillars, and some were even fighting over them, the young man with barely dried streaks of blood rushing down his nose lunged toward a pillar as well.
Zarek kept Priya away from the mess. Those that didn't manage to awaken before the shitshow began would have far smaller odds of survival.
However, despite his best efforts, he knew that there would very soon be problems.
There would always be problems.
First, someone tried to approach them in secret. Most weren't fools. They had seen how decisively Zarek acted, and it became clear that he knew things that they did not.
The first to act was a young man with a crack running right through his glasses. He approached covertly, hoping to ingratiate himself, but he was directly stonewalled by Zarek, who sent him away.
Right now, he only had the bandwidth to protect Priya. He might have a great deal of experience, but his stats weren't where they needed to be, and he didn't have any of his favorite weapons. He couldn't waste time on others when he hadn't even made the effort to find and protect his friends.
Unfortunately, he knew that this would only come to cause problems.
The young man slinked back into the shadows and only watched, but his actions didn't go unnoticed by others.
Everyone had their own thoughts about how to approach this situation, but ironically it was the young man with the broken nose that actually spoke up first.
"Hey, asshole. If you know something, then shouldn't you be sharing?"
Zarek looked toward the young man. He looked absolutely ridiculous. His nose was slanted to one side, snot and blood were dried down his face, and his expression was twisted in anger.
The longer Zarek stared at him though, the more uncomfortable the latter felt.
The eyes were something he had never experienced before in his life, eyes of a man who had hundreds of years of experience in the body of an 18-year-old, eyes of a man who had seen unspeakable horrors.
It was when the young man was feeling the most pressure that Zarek suddenly grinned.
It was a genuine smile, one filled with a great deal of charm.
For some reason, the young man sighed a breath of relief, feeling the cold sweat on his back make what remained of his skin sticky.
However, Zarek's actual words made him freeze.
"You want advice on how to survive? Sure, I can give you some.
"Step one, if you want to copy everything I do, go right on ahead. If you have the skill, I'll even applaud you.
"Step two, stay away from pointy, pokey things. They tend to stab and that won't feel good.
"Step three, do your best not to piss me off. I can't guarantee that my sexy girlfriend will mellow out my mood enough for me not to send your head flying 50 feet."
Priya felt her heart constrict. Usually, she would be pinching Zarek for saying something like that, but it was hard to focus on being angry when they were being stared at from all sides like this.
She couldn't help but get closer to Zarek, wondering if this was the right thing to do. Maybe they should have taken a subtler approach to the pillars, or maybe they should have at least pretended to help everyone and split off when the time was ideal.
Her nervousness was practically bubbling over.
CLICK.
The sudden noise was glaring in the quiet.
And then they suddenly felt the floor slip out from under them.
Zarek held onto Priya's waist, his gaze flickering.
In reality, of his four lives, he had entered a different Godsfall Tear every time. If others knew which others he had been to, they would be baffled by this decision.
That was because this Godsfall Tear didn't have anything particularly special waiting at the end. In fact, it could even be said that there was nothing but trash for all their trouble.
No matter the iteration, the "winner" of this Godsfall Tear didn't accomplish very much at all. And yet, Zarek still chose it.
If he was going to try to break the mold, he was going to have to do it by doing exactly that.
There would be no winning if he didn't think outside of the box.
It was time to gamble.