Legacy of Hatred

Liam never had the chance to ambush Jessica, but he could take her by surprise as long as he laid the right traps.

The previous flight among the wind slashes had been a set-up. Liam had opted for a charge because retreat would have put him at a disadvantage against Jessica’s vastly superior ranged attacks, but he had added a strategy to the decision.

While the fan had indeed accelerated to navigate the wind slashes, it hadn’t used its full speed. Liam had made sure of that to catch Jessica by surprise. That was one of his few possible strategies against a superior opponent.

Nevertheless, the power of the branching stage wasn’t just for show, and Jessica’s unique properties aided her.

Dominic had been an immovable mountain, unbelievably solid and impenetrable. Instead, Jessica was air, swift and slippery. Such was the nature of her Qi, extending to her entire being.

Jessica shifted to her right at unbelievable speed, the world parting to aid her sharp gesture, helped by the pressure the fan was applying.

The fan had stabbed Jessica’s nose and kept cutting through her face as she slipped away. Its blades pierced her left eye, severing her ear in half alongside many of her grey strands.

While not unscathed, Jessica successfully dodged what should have been a deadly move, but the assault wasn’t over.

Liam had finished his somersault in that window. His hands were big enough to hold the greatsword and the rank 2 knife, and the former was now right above Jessica’s head.

There was no time to dodge, but Jessica could deflect. Her stump snapped up, creating a diagonal gale that would redirect the falling greatsword. The latter was no magical item after all. Jessica only needed the most basic defensive technique and her Qi’s nature to evade the attack and expose Liam.

Or so Jessica thought.

’What even is this?’ Jessica gasped internally, unable to make any sense of what her perception told her.

As soon as the diagonal gale touched the greatsword’s edge, Jessica became aware of the force behind it, and the equation was simply impossible. Gravity, the somersault, the jump, the weapon’s weight, and a rooting expert’s physical strength shouldn’t be able to generate such power.

And yet, Jessica could only flag that seemingly basic attack as a rank 3 martial art.

The greatsword pierced through the gale, not even budging before its deflecting properties. It slammed on Jessica’s left shoulder, breaking through it, until her superior Qi finally stopped it.

Nevertheless, that only dealt with the greatsword’s cutting power. It didn’t do anything against its blunt force.

Whatever Qi kept Jessica in the air crumbled under the immense pressure that had landed on her. She shot down, crashing into the ground, which erupted due to the violence generated in the impact.

Liam didn’t dare to stop. The hand with the knife left the greatsword’s handle to throw a Qi-Storage Pill in his mouth. He still had energy reserves despite using the fan’s ability, but he wouldn’t leave anything to chance, not now that the clock had started ticking.

The fan caught Liam before gravity could resume doing its work, but he had already closed his eyes, straightening up and lifting the greatsword at the sky, the wild black gales blowing out of his figure converging toward it.

There was no initiative to retain against a branching expert. Liam had moved first a few times due to a combination of hyper-clarity, polished senses, and surprise effect, but that wouldn’t last.

Liam also knew it would take far more to kill a branching expert, and he just wouldn’t last until then. The blows he had inflicted until now were simply part of a bigger strategy, a hunt meant to take down that superior opponent.

Time was the only variable. The hunt was theoretically possible, but its window was short, so Liam had to press on, no matter what he lost in the process.

An enormous cloud had covered the ground zero, but everything suddenly blew away. Violent gales shot everywhere from the figure standing at the center of a massive crater of shattered soil, as if she were the eye of a storm.

Jessica had a long cut on the left side of her face and was blind in one eye. A gory gap separated her left shoulder from her neck, but she had already stopped bleeding.

Yet, the sky had changed during that short window. A whirlpool of blackness spun in the air, with the lifted greatsword at its center. Liam kept his weapon lifted while hovering on the fan, his eyes still closed.

Alarm bells resounded in Jessica’s mind when she inspected the greatsword. It hadn’t changed color, but it had definitely darkened, and its hulking shape was shaking, as if it were the home of a violent process.

Still, Jessica faced the strange technique with no fear. The fan’s speed had surprised her, but that was over. Unless Liam had other tricks up his sleeve, his time in the spotlight was done, and that was extremely unlikely.

Jessica lifted her arms, and the storm around her froze, only to explode into several gales that rose into the sky, converging on Liam’s position.

However, Liam’s eyes snapped open at that exact moment, and he swung the greatsword down, the black whirlpool descending with him, hissing loudly at the strenuous physical effort.

Blackness took over the world, as if a wide brush had painted over the area between Liam and Jessica. Nothing seeped outside it, be it sound, shockwaves, or Qi. Everything was cut out of the world until that energy dispersed.

There was an audience, a big one made of the people who had followed Liam and those who had decided to ignore the assault on the huge building. There weren’t actual stages, but the area was flat enough to provide perfect visibility of a scene that shouldn’t exist.

Liam and Jessica were still in their respective positions, nothing having reached them, but that was the point. Trails of black energy were dispersing in the air, while the ground around Jessica was sizzling, some patches having turned into a slimy substance.

Those shades linked the repercussions to Liam, while nothing about Jessica’s spell had remained. A rooting expert had actually overpowered a branching expert.

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