Legacy of Hatred

There just wasn’t any way to beat branching experts head-on as long as they had access to techniques suitable to their stage. Liam could match that arsenal, but his attacks would always be weaker.

On top of that, Liam had his Qi reserves to take into account. While immense compared to the average rooting expert, rank 3 techniques would still empty his body and core in no time. The Qi-Storage Pill could compensate for that weakness, but they were no permanent solution.

With branching experts always moving faster than Liam, he wasn’t at liberty to eat pills whenever he wanted. That would create a window his superior opponents could exploit.

Lastly, there was an issue of poor match-up. Jessica’s core dealt with air, while most of Liam’s poison relied on smoke. He just wouldn’t be able to infect her with his usual tools.

Yet, Liam had taken all that into consideration. It was a hunt, one he had perfected in his mind ever since the idea had formed, and for which he had prepared before leaving the underground prison. He hadn’t been sure Jessica would have intercepted him, but he hadn’t been willing to bet on his luck.

The idea came straight from Horace’s battle against Elder Basil. A single poison wouldn’t have been able to deal with Jessica, especially since Liam only had one at her level, and her nature countered it.

However, a combination of different but complementary poisons could generate a chain reaction powerful enough to affect a superior opponent despite being of inferior rank. Liam didn’t believe it could have killed Jessica, but all he needed was a window to unleash his final blow.

Liam had long since amassed a large collection of poisons that could serve that purpose. The issue had been infecting Jessica. Since smoke wasn’t an option, he had to use his weapons and himself.

Liam had applied unique substances to both the fan and the greatsword. The knife already carried his venom, but he had added a fourth poison to its tip.

Then, Liam had added his Qi’s poisonous properties to the equation, which he had injected through the Phantom Talons. That was a total of five different substances, two more than his Master had used against Elder Basil, all in quantities too limited for Jessica to notice.

Even then, that had been the easy part.

Branching experts could shrug off rank 2 poisons rather easily. Their Qi was just too superior, confirmed by how Jessica had survived the Seven-Hellish-Steps-empowered headbutt without as much as a defensive technique.

Despite the unawareness, Jessica’s Qi would have eventually expelled the foreign substances, and Liam’s only solution had been to give it something else to prioritize. He had to inflict injuries to keep her energy busy.

Still, a branching expert remained an existence that defied reason and mortality. Liam just had no idea how long the foreign substances would have survived inside Jessica, so he had to complete their combination as quickly as possible.

When the talons and rank 2 knife had successfully stabbed Jessica, the combination had been complete. It had taken a bit for the chain reaction to affect her, but it did happen, creating the window Liam needed.

Liam honestly wished that his rank 3 Cloud Pill would have been enough as a finishing blow, but he wasn’t ready to bet on it. Instead, he would use it as a way to extend his window to launch the attack he knew would hurt.

The tides of black Qi stopped blowing from Liam’s figure as the fan brought him higher in the sky. The technique he had activated called upon the entirety of his energy, devouring it so quickly that nothing could escape his figure, but its effects were nothing short of amazing.

New flesh grew from Liam’s many injuries. The cuts closed, the holes saw dark tissues sealing them, and muscles covered the poor state of his torso, patching it up.

Liam had rank 2 healing pills, but the situation demanded something stronger and more immediate to restore him to a state where he could perform his finishing blow, and the answer was in the rank 3 Life Qi he had obtained from the Archbishop’s inheritance.

Healing-oriented martial arts were apparently extremely rare, but they all had insane Qi consumption. Liam had improved the Qi-Storage Pill to suit his unique needs, but the energy provided by the one he had just eaten vanished in a matter of seconds.

Nevertheless, the results more than compensated for that consumption. Liam almost recovered completely, the dark patches that had covered his injuries paling to match the color of his skin. He felt a deep exhaustion coming from his very soul, but his body could move properly.

Liam hissed between his teeth as he pulled himself up, landing on the fan while it continued to rise. He threw another Qi-Storage Pill in his mouth before summoning the Black Bow and spreading his arms.

’One to the Earth,’ Liam thought, that chant putting him in a trance-like focus that made all the new Qi circulating through his body shudder, as if waiting for him to continue.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the dark-purple cloud had expanded far beyond its intended size. Actually, that color didn’t come from poisonous fumes. Those had already dispersed.

However, the air itself still carried that ominous shade, as if it had been infected. The same went for the shattered ground and the mangled figure kneeling at its center.

Jessica couldn’t breathe. Dark-purple spots covered her all over, including her robe. Even part of her Qi had been infected and was eating her from the inside, attempting to spread its deadly effects.

Such was the power of a rank 3 poison. That level was beyond the world, unshackled to its limits, and Liam had made it specific to cultivators. Its main target wasn’t the soil, the air, or the Qi. It was an expert’s very cultivation.

Jessica saw it through her mental eye. Her branches were changing color while fighting off the infection. She had no antidotes or specific healing technique, so the internal battle was a matter of her cultivation’s resilience against that deadly substance.

Luckily for Jessica, the infection had been indirect. Liam hadn’t injected her directly. It had come from fumes she had been too debilitated to fend off, meaning her Qi alone could keep it at bay, enduring it until it ran its course.

There could be long-lasting effects, but Jessica couldn’t care about that now. She lifted her gaze, spotting the dark sun that had appeared high in the sky, casting a shadow in its surroundings.

Moving in that condition was impossible, so Jessica shouted, everything in her surroundings rising, lifted by upward gales and merging to create a devastating current.

The world around the rising current just exploded and flew away. Jessica became the sole thing standing on a solitary mountain, the source of an eruption violent enough to lift the land.

The dark sun and the raging current met in the sky, but not before the former transformed into a fist-sized, vertical trail.

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