Legacy of Hatred

The next morning, an anxious foundation expert accompanied Liam through the maze of stone corridors, eventually arriving at what looked like a dead end, only for the wall to open.

Countless sensations assaulted Liam’s perception as he crossed the passage. He heard the wall closing behind him, but his attention was on everything else.

Liam was on the edge of an enormous cave, in its lowest part. A smooth, stone floor and tall walls created a vast, square cage with no ceiling where the battle would unfold.

Rocky surfaces rose above the stone walls, their lower layers having stages carved into them, foundation experts crowding them. Most were drunk, shouting with jugs in their hands or women in their arms, creating a frenzied cacophony stemming from hundreds of voices.

Further above, the stages disappeared, replaced by holes with small plateaus. They were caves occupied by rooting experts, some serious, while others engaged in equally dissolute activities.

The caves expanded the higher they went, occasionally leaking suffocating presences. There were five of those, making it the biggest number of branching experts Liam had ever seen in one place.

Near the ceiling, hundreds of meters from the stone floor, the caves changed, having boulders before them, creating more private quarters that hindered Liam’s perception. Nevertheless, they felt empty.

Hundreds of looks converged on Liam, and for good reason. His presence was eye-catching, and his attire wasn’t innocent. The emotionless white mask hid his face, and his bare torso had much to study, too.

Liam’s impressive frame was in the open for everyone to see, but black symbols littered him all over, like tattoos that wanted to resemble inscriptions. They didn’t actually carry any Qi, but still served as an additional distraction.

That was the solution Grace had come up with. Without valuable items, hiding Liam’s identity entirely was simply impossible. Even with specific tools, the branching experts on the scene might look through them.

Using something even stronger, if the couple could find it, would alert branching experts. Besides, the battles would make it unreliable, so Grace had opted for that basic trick.

As for whether painting Liam and hiding his face would truly keep his identity a secret, that was unlikely, but playing with fire had long since become the norm for him.

Shouts about bets followed from the audience, but Liam focused on his opponents. The stone surfaces radiated a dim white halo, granting perfect visibility of the other five rooting experts in the open cage.

Apparently, each new fighter always had to go through a sort of battle royale to reveal his value so that more precise bets and match-ups could happen, and nothing even close to rules existed.

The fighters could use martial arts, items, and more freely. Killing was allowed, even welcomed to provide a better spectacle. Conceding was possible, but opponents could ignore that unless someone important from the audience intervened.

With the limitations Liam had imposed on himself, fighting in such a cruel environment was no different than courting death. Yet, that was exactly what he needed to improve quickly. If life had taught him anything, it was that he learned better when real danger was involved.

There was no real warning. A "Begin" spoken through a deep, emotionless voice resounded through the enormous cave, and all hell broke loose.

A cultivator on the other side of the cage, a rugged man in his thirties, snorted while slamming his arms on the floor. Rocky walls rose around him, tremors building up in their fabric, exploding to send debris everywhere.

A rooting expert nearby, an old woman with a crooked back, remained in her position, waving an arm, creating a pale-blue current that deflected the debris.

On the other side, a young man wielding a sword slashed furiously to deflect the storm, but wasn’t good enough to block everything, pebbles slamming on his body and piercing his flesh.

Another young man was distant enough to dodge, but just curled himself on the floor, trembling all over, hiding his head in his arms and weeping. Not much hit him, but what did bounced off his body, releasing clanging noises.

The last cultivator, a man wrapped in a tight dark robe and with his face mostly hidden behind cloth, moved instead, running diagonally through the cage, his knives crossed before his figure.

The swift dash put the cloaked man outside the debris’ range, but also in a crash course with Liam. He was his closest opponent away from the storm after all.

The cloaked man was fast by normal standards, but Liam had fifty-seven minor roots now and had long since established himself as an elite. In his eyes, that opponent was simply slow.

However, the rooting expert’s figure suddenly blurred, becoming harder to track, performing an abrupt sprint that perfectly matched that unusual phenomenon.

The cloaked man’s silhouette reappeared on Liam’s side, the opposite of where he had come from. His figure was lowered, his knives raised, acting both as a shield and an attack, leaving no openings.

Except that a big hand was already on the cloaked man’s elbow, seemingly having always been there.

Liam had been able to follow the entirety of the offensive. Nothing could escape his senses, and he had already faced that trick against Cecilia.

Moreover, Liam’s Qi mastery allowed him to move faster than fellow rooting experts. Even if they matched it, he would still benefit from the greater amount of energy circulating through his body.

Truth was, the cloaked man’s assault had been perfect. There was no real way to counter it. The only course of action would have been to summon a defensive technique or perform an evasive maneuver.

But Liam’s senses, speed, and power enabled an additional option. Despite what was meant to be a surprise attack, Liam had acted first. His opponent was one step behind him.

The basics of combat Liam had been taught involved destabilizing his opponents’ balance. Unless the expert could fly, removing his foothold would prevent most attacks.

Liam pulled the elbow in his grasp, spinning in the meantime. He felt a slight opposition, but his physical strength easily handled it.

The cloaked man left the floor, nothing in his power able to oppose that pull. Before he knew it, his back was on the wall, his figure horizontal inside a hole of his own creation.

The violent impact almost made the man faint, but not quite yet. The world in his squinted eyes spun, but he knew he had to get away. Everything in his battle experience said so.

The man protected his face with his knives while thrusting his waist forward to push himself out of the hole, only for a heavy blow to land on his abdomen, slamming him back inside, finally darkening his awareness.

Liam inspected the fainted man in the hole, his foot still lifted, soon claiming his attention.

’I don’t know how I feel about kicks,’ Liam thought.

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