Legacy of Hatred

Monstrous strength flooded every inch of Liam’s body, putting in danger the very weapons he was wielding.

A storm of sensations assaulted Liam’s brain, creating an unbearable cacophony when paired with the deafening hiss and the screams from the auditory hallucination. Still, despite the noise, his mind achieved an unmatched hyper-clarity.

The Core-Sheltering Pill Liam had eaten protected his cultivation’s integrity, but Qi blew nonstop from it, immersing his figure in gales of black energy. A dark patch expanded in the late afternoon’s sky, scarring it, poisoning the very air.

Liam had made plenty of improvements to his body-enhancing pills, but the Primal Urge remained superior due to its suicidal nature. It was a demonic art, summoning power beyond what bodies and cores could endure, but Liam needed all the edge he could get.

And yet, despite the physical, mental, and Qi turmoil, Liam didn’t move. At eighty-three minor roots, his being was beyond rank 2 martial arts, even demonic ones. He was in complete control of the technique that should have driven him insane, and he used that to glare at his prey.

Even with everything Liam had achieved in the last period, he remained outclassed on all fronts. Such was the nature of the cultivation journey.

Jessica might be a low-stage branching expert, but she remained a superior entity who had transformed through the breakthrough. Her Qi would be stronger. She would be faster. Her resilience defied the concept of mortality, and techniques of equal rank would always hit harder when she cast them.

Liam’s quasi-stage couldn’t overcome that inferiority. It could only close the gap alongside everything else he had developed and learned, but he would always remain weaker.

Against Dominic, Lancelot had exploited the fact that he was underestimating him, leading to Liam inflicting a fatal injury before the fight got serious.

None of that existed now. Liam was face-to-face with Jessica, wielding no element of surprise, having already hurt her enough for her to go all-out from the start. That would be a direct face-off, and the math was clear.

However, Liam had prepared. He had decided to kill Jessica ever since Grace had almost died, so he had developed a battle strategy around a single truth.

Back then, Lancelot had been able to hurt Dominic. The injuries were insignificant, but Liam was stronger than he had been, and he could work with that little. His entire path was about that.

On the other side, Jessica wasn’t sure she was seeing things right. The tide of blackness made her skin crawl, and that bloodshot glare put her in a mood that only fellow branching experts had been able to summon ever since she had reached that stage herself.

Jessica had been able to justify losing her arm on a fluke, on a mix of carelessness, suicidal techniques, and raw potential, but there was no denying it anymore. Liam might be weaker than her, but he posed a threat.

Others in Jessica’s situation would have felt insulted, seeing their instinctive reaction as an offense toward their superior state. Yet, not her. She had already lost too much at Liam’s hands. He was an enemy worthy of her respect and all her power.

Liam saw the future, or something along those lines. The Primal Urge’s hyper-clarity and the perception he had polished for battle noticed something, and his body reacted.

There was no warning or gesture. Furious winds blew from Jessica’s figure, displacing the very world in the might they carried. They were formless, but chaotic, the air they contained giving them the shape of a massive, forward beam.

The ground below opened, a shallow but vast and long groove cut through the land, carved by the pressure of the joint gales above. Their violence echoed through the world, lifting soil and whatever else was caught in their influence, as if a horizontal tornado had manifested in the area.

The spell was instantaneous, massive, and mighty. It was a rank 3 technique that expressed the best traits of Jessica’s wind core without sacrificing anything. It was nothing short of a perfect attack.

However, such things didn’t exist in the world. As violent and chaotic as the spell was, it was also fragmented. A denser attack could blow it apart, and a sharp expert could navigate its narrow but safer paths.

A shadow shot out of the massive gale, rising higher in the sky, leaving a trail of blackness that the echoing violence instantly dispersed. Liam flew on the fan, greatsword on his shoulder, his robe torn in multiple spots, revealing shallow injuries, but his bloodshot eyes remained on his opponent.

Jessica snorted, snapping her right arm at Liam. His ability to read the weakness in her rank 3 spell was praiseworthy, but the rank 3 weapon he was flying on was why he had successfully escaped it.

The air condensed and accelerated at Jessica’s gesture. Tens of wind slashes shot after Liam, filling the sky, creating an inescapable barrage of attacks. There was no dodging that. At most, Liam could retreat to escape his range, but the very opposite plan formed in his mind.

’You see what I see,’ Liam mentally hissed. ’Do it!’

The barrage of wind slashes was a rank 2 spell, a fast one, but Liam possessed something faster, meaning he could navigate it. After all, the fan was a high-tier rank 3 weapon, and its ability was speed.

The Primal Urge’s wild Qi release met its match as the fan started devouring it. Liam felt his body emptying at an unsustainable pace, but his massive reserves did slow down the process, albeit slightly.

As for Jessica, her expression grew somber at the scene she witnessed. Liam turned into a blur, darting through the maze of wind slashes, navigating that field of death at a speed she could barely follow.

That was a speed that matched Jessica’s. The only reason why Liam wasn’t already on her was that the slashes prevented him from descending into a straight line.

The world reflected in Liam’s bloodshot eyes was in slow motion. He felt the slashes’ consistency, the pressure caused by the air they displaced, and their speed from the faint sounds they released through the sky.

Yet, only one target existed in Liam’s gaze. He kept looking at Jessica, branding all the functions of her energy and body to his awareness, down to her very breath.

Cultivators weren’t perfect. They didn’t always unleash one hundred percent of their strength, with differences caused by issues as small as whether lungs were full. Of course, that made for tiny, basically insignificant lower power, but Liam needed all the edge he could get.

So, Liam kept glaring, dodging slashes mid-air. He darted left, right, up, and down, even ending up with his head pointing at the ground at times, but his eyes remained fixed on Jessica, waiting for the variable that could maximize his attack.

And then, the variable arrived. Jessica did something as basic as exhaling, but her body still relaxed ever-so-slightly, so Liam jumped.

A black, trembling membrane covered Liam as he leaped through the slashes, crashing into them. Despite being of equal rank, the Qi Repulsion failed to block Jessica’s spell completely, but only shallow marks opened on Liam’s body while he performed an aerial somersault.

With the Primal Urge’s boost, the greatsword’s additional weight, and gravity, Liam was nothing short of a cannonball, crashing through slashes without losing speed.

Yet, Liam remained slower than the fan, definitely slow enough for Jessica to cast a whole spell before she could even be in danger. She could claim victory in that very instant, but her face ended up paling.

For some reason, the fan was now in front of Jessica’s face, its blades’ tips having already pierced her skin.

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