Legacy of Hatred

Liam had learned many things after leaving Krosstoen village, way too many to count. They were even disparate, going from the most intricate and profound alchemical recipe to the act of pleasing his woman in bed.

Nevertheless, as Liam dived into the hellish landscape of flames and yellow fumes, he knew he was home. The environment obviously had nothing to do with it. The feeling stemmed from the profound confidence of doing the job right for him.

The army was still catching up with Red Boar and Black Hound, so Whispering Wind had to hold back on her cleansing.

For now, the swamp created by the Master’s Pride was a domain only Liam could navigate without problems, and flying above prey with a bow in hand put him in the role he was born to play.

Killing the Church’s members wasn’t the point. Escaping was, but Liam couldn’t forget his stance on life. It was open season now, and he was the hunter on the scene.

Priest Fred couldn’t possibly know it, but his attempts to negotiate had always been hopeless. Liam had been willing to delay his enmity with the Church before, but anyone donning its color was under the kill-on-sight category now.

Liam placed the fuming pipe in his mouth before pulling on the bowstring, barely glancing at the scene below. Red Boar might have carved a hole, but heptagonal pieces of the compound barrier still existed, occasionally protecting cultivators enveloped in golden halos.

The formation’s healing functions were still contending with the area that the Master’s Pride had finished, but that only gave Liam more targets.

The Black Bow’s ethereal arrows could suck up a lot of Qi, but the consumption was basically non-existent for Liam’s current reserves, especially while smoking.

The cultivators below noticed it only after the first explosions happened. As if the yellow fumes weren’t already enough, dark streaks were falling nonstop everywhere, always hitting a head outside a compound shield’s protection, always blowing it up.

The pace at which the slaughter unfolded was simply unreal. Entire teams were wiped out in seconds. At times, two arrows in a row hit a particularly isolated heptagonal shield, piercing it to make way for the head underneath.

There was no order, just death. If a life was available for the taking, an ethereal arrow claimed it, and the formation finally began to show signs of weakening.

As Liam’s kill count crossed twenty, more heptagonal shields weakened or directly disappeared, exposing more heads, leading to more death. He was almost considering moving further away from the area affected by the Master’s Pride to continue the slaughter when the yellow fumes parted.

A road in the shape of a breeze cut through the yellow cloud, and the army rushed through it, Black Hound and Red Boar still in the lead, their target clear.

The two branching experts reached the area’s center and delivered attacks to the item Liam wasn’t sure he could affect. The pillar covered in intricate symbols faced a devastating palm strike and a descending blow from a fiery hammer, and two-thirds of it exploded.

Liam was already firing. With the node gone, the dark symbols on the ground began to fade, the few remaining shields losing power, exposing those he had been unable to target until now.

The encirclement had a proper gap now, and it became completely devoid of the Church’s members in seconds.

’Is it done?’ Liam wondered. ’Are we out already?’

Considering the power deployed, the Master’s Pride, and the preemptive strike, carving a hole in the formation had been far from easy, but Liam couldn’t help but feel that things had gone too smoothly.

Of course, the army wasn’t out of the woods yet. Escaping the encirclement was only the first part of what promised to be a grueling life plagued by the Church’s enmity. However, a formation capable of basically resurrecting people had to have more functions.

Sadly for Liam, he was right.

The dark symbols on the ground had continued to recede, but they began to glow by the time the army was out of the gap. Still, no one could take another step, and not due to techniques. Fear was the real hindrance.

Liam had followed the army along and was one of the first to see it. There was someone right outside the gap his team had created. A branching expert clad in a white hood stood on the ground beyond the escape route, his presence more suffocating than any other representative.

’Mid-stage,’ Liam immediately realized, storing his pipe but keeping the Black Bow at the ready.

The branching expert calmly lowered his hood, revealing his young face and long blonde hair. He was barely a man, but thick canines peeked past his upper lip, as if they were fangs. His forehead even had the Church’s symbol carved into his flesh.

If the mid-stage branching expert wasn’t enough, the glowing symbols flashed golden before going dark, replaced by many newcomers. Some suffered on the spot due to being in contact with the yellow fumes, but most escaped the formation or retreated to safer areas.

The army ended up surrounded. Also, among the newcomers, Liam counted four bald heads, four branching experts, eliminating the only advantage that his army could claim with a joint, focused attack in a single location.

’It could teleport, too,’ Liam cursed internally. There was no countermeasure to that function. No matter what he had prepared, the outcome wouldn’t have changed.

Now, there was only one option left. It would be a pure free-for-all unless the army managed to break through the main hindrance ahead.

Liam honestly considered just flying away. He was outside the dome after all, and the fan had unmatched speed. However, his teammates had proven themselves worthy, and there was an even bigger issue.

For whatever reason, despite having a literal army ahead, the mid-stage branching expert’s blue eyes were on the sky, staring directly at Liam’s face under the black hood.

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