Legacy of Hatred

Liam couldn’t explain himself, not with words, but that wasn’t his first time experiencing a similar feeling.

It was like a pressure directly on Liam’s skull that made his hair stand on end, telling him that a storm was coming. Except, Liam was no beast. That sixth sense was very animalistic, but mere weather couldn’t cause that reaction.

’What is happening?’ Liam thought, brainstorming through everything he knew, his eyes instinctively snapping at Felix.

Black Hound looked like the obvious suspect after the recent offer. He wanted to push the Guilds’ control over the couple further, more than initially agreed upon, but Liam dismissed the idea just as quickly.

Felix had acted in character throughout the alchemical contest. Even his previous suggestion had been perfectly reasonable for someone so dutiful. He just wanted to uphold his role as Chief Enforcer to the best of his ability.

Besides, it would be contradictory to risk antagonizing the couple before an eventual ploy came to fruition. If Liam had to believe his hunches, he even felt Felix was too upfront to resort to shady tricks.

In that regard, Colleen was a more fitting suspect, but Liam crossed her off, too, after a single glance. She was the representative most knowledgeable about the couple’s wealth, but she was too much of a merchant to resort to battles.

After all, as Grace had once said, battles were a waste of money.

Master Vermillion crossed Liam’s mind. He was the strangest person among the group, but Liam didn’t even look at him. The arrival of another alchemist might ruin Master Vermillion’s status, but he was too addicted to alchemy even to care about that stuff.

’Red Boar?’ Liam guessed. That did sound likely, especially after the blatant enmity at the meeting, but too many things didn’t make sense.

For one, the sense of danger felt too big to come from a single Guild. Moreover, Red Boar wouldn’t have acted now, not while he risked offending at least two Guilds.

’Did Whispering Wind do something?’ Liam wondered, that expert’s absence creating suspicion. ’The Assassins Guild?’

Both options were possible, but Liam felt like excluding them for the same reasons why he had crossed off the others. A storm capable of riling him up like that had to be bigger than the Guilds, but that only left terrible options.

’The Church,’ Liam thought, ’Leafing experts, the Dragons, or something I can’t imagine.’

Honestly, Liam hoped for the latter. That sense of danger was general, not targeted. It warned him about a catastrophe. It told him to leave and take cover, but didn’t explain why or from what.

Nevertheless, Liam wouldn’t wait for answers. His senses were always right, even something as ethereal and confusing as what he was experiencing now.

"Let’s go," Liam ordered, instinctively wrapping his arm around Grace, lifting her with him. It didn’t matter how strong Grace got. In those situations, Liam’s priority would always be to keep her safe.

The brainstorming had seemed endless in Liam’s mind, but only a second had passed in reality. Among the group, only Grace managed to keep up with Liam due to her blind trust in him.

Naturally, there were only branching experts at the table. Confusion could delay reactions, but that wasn’t a battle where the slightest distraction could lead to death.

"Master Black Qi, what is the meaning of-?!" Felix said, even beginning to stand up, only for the glare Liam shot at him to silence him. Nothing had happened, but Felix understood that any attempt to hinder his departure would result in an attack.

Of course, the three didn’t remain inside the tent, following Liam outside, only for him to stop once he was in the open, fully exposed to everything the world carried, his instincts making him cling tighter to Grace.

Everything was lively, far more than it had been at the beginning of the contest. Braziers shone on and beyond the wooden structure, where the larger audience the rumors had attracted wined, dined, traded, and discussed that day’s events.

Despite that, Liam heard a peculiar silence, one he had been familiar with ever since his time in Krosstoen’s mountain. It was as if the very air had come to a standstill because predators were lurking in the shadows.

Liam threw a quick look at the group below, hoping to find something, anything that resonated with that impending sense of doom, but nothing did. Everything seemed utterly normal, which only added to the strangeness of the situation.

Still, before Liam could summon the fan and fly away, Grace, Felix, Colleen, and Master Vermillion either frowned or diverted their gazes, looking for something.

Liam wasn’t the only one with mystical hunches. Just like Jessica had felt that something was off while Grace was under the effects of the rank 3 cloaking dust, the four branching experts had now caught up with his animal perception.

Actually, the number was five.

Liam saw the world parting as someone descended at full speed from the mountain, his oppressive aura washing over the area, almost daring anyone to make a move.

In a few seconds, Red Boar landed right above the group, his glare on Liam.

"What are you up to now?" Red Boar asked, a threat hidden behind his voice. Still, there was also confusion. His grudge with Liam had merely misplaced his anger.

Liam had no intention of wasting time arguing about his innocence. He would have already set off if it weren’t that he didn’t know where to go. He felt as if the danger was everywhere, or rather, it was as if he were the eye of the storm.

A beast would have run anyway, but the cultivation world was too dangerous to rely on such reckless approaches. Liam summoned the fan and the greatsword, letting go of Grace, getting ready to act at the first odd sensation that touched him, throwing a glance at his companion to tell her to stick close.

Then, a single, distant footstep resounded, and a series of thundering noises exploded, bringing Liam at full speed toward it. He had every intention of ramming into whatever that was, only for something to appear in his way.

Liam promptly swung his massive weapon, and a clanging noise resounded. Metal shards flew all around him as he stopped in the middle of the barren plain past the mountain. He had destroyed the hindrance, only catching a blur of its previous shape, but he couldn’t shake off the sense of familiarity.

Moreover, there was something else in the area, like a vague hole in the darkness of the night, one Liam recalled.

Liam’s hand snapped at the sky, seemingly in a random direction, only for the item he had thrown to hit a solid patch of darkness, exploding into a yellow cloud.

The yellow fumes kept expanding, but a reddish halo soon cut through them, accelerating their dispersion, accompanied by a voice Liam knew. "I fixed the delay, but you must have failed to mention other flaws with the design."

A blur jumped from the reddish halo, carrying its waning radiance with him. A tall, lean middle-aged man with long grey hair partially kept up by a white hairpin, sharp facial features, and wearing white landed on the ground, a mantle hiding his left arm.

"Master William," The man called, smiling faintly, the expression creating an unnaturally high number of wrinkles. "You didn’t strike me as a liar."

The man was different from Liam’s memories, both in appearance and affiliation, and especially age, but he knew who he was.

’Julian,’ Liam thought. His former teammate had appeared before him as a member of the Church of the Man.

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