Legacy of Hatred

Cutting the foundation experts’ blades had been a planned move. There was a limit to how much ordinary knives could hurt Liam, but they were weapons nonetheless, and they were poisoned.

The sudden loss of those sharp blades didn’t stop the foundation experts’ charge, but Liam had expected as much. He had experienced the Divine Cult’s training himself and knew what complete products would amount to.

The hooded cultivators threw themselves forward recklessly, letting go of their broken knives to opt for a suicidal charge.

Nevertheless, those cultivators were far from great. They didn’t even seem to have completed their foundation, let alone mastered their circulation techniques to a satisfying level.

The hooded foundation experts might be right in front of Liam, but he saw them move in slow motion. That short gap gave him plenty of time to counterattack.

Liam swerved right, lowering himself to slide past the arms reaching for him, swinging his knife at one of the cultivators’ sides during the evasive maneuver.

Blood spilled out. The cut was deep, but Liam didn’t stop, knowing that those brainwashed weapons wouldn’t, either.

As soon as Liam crossed the two cultivators, he kicked the ground to make a sharp turn, charging at the furthest one’s back, switching the way he wielded the wooden knife.

Both cultivators reacted to the attack, but they were too slow to do anything about it. By the time the furthest foundation expert turned his covered head, the blunt blade stabbed his neck, severing everything else on its path since Liam kept advancing.

A waterfall of blood spurted out as the cultivator’s head bent to his right, lifting the severed side of his neck, which remained attached to his shoulders by the chunk Liam hadn’t cut.

Still, the gruesome scene didn’t last long since the half-beheaded cultivator fell lifelessly to the ground, opening a path Liam had already charged toward.

The other hooded cultivator didn’t even record his companion’s death. Also, he stopped trying to follow Liam’s moves, turning sharply to thrust his palm in his direction.

Qi flowed alongside the gesture, perfectly mimicking what the jailer had attempted to do. However, Liam had grown leagues beyond that moment, both in terms of raw power and battle experience.

Once Liam reached the corpse lying on the ground, he forcefully lunged his right leg forward, half-turning to dodge the palm strike narrowly.

The narrow dodge was by design, requiring no superfluous or wasteful moves while bringing Liam to the perfect spot. He was beyond the raised palm, standing right before the foundation expert’s stretched arm, already inside the opening the attack had created.

Attacks inherently left attackers exposed. That was an iron-clad rule of battle. If an arm delivered a punch, it couldn’t protect that side anymore. It was truly as simple as that.

Through the Disciplinary Elder’s combat lessons, Liam now knew how to exploit those openings. His knife had already switched hands, and his foothold was steady, carrying no debilitating momentum, so his counterattack arrived before the foundation expert could even realize what had hit him.

Liam grabbed the stretched arm with his left hand and thrust the wooden knife with his right, stabbing it right at the center of the hooded cultivator’s head.

The cultivator’s skull was powerless against the blunt knife’s sharp effects. The rank 1 weapon carved through his brain until only the handle remained outside, killing him on the spot.

The hooded cultivator fell as soon as Liam withdrew his knife, but he didn’t even look at him, instead peeking past his shoulder.

The other, more important battle was still raging. Simon and the brown-haired woman were locked in a series of unfathomably quick and deadly exchanges.

The woman had long since set her fists aflame, the tall, hot flames that enveloped them incomparable with what Liam had witnessed with Kirk.

Nevertheless, none of the woman’s punches landed. Simon relied on the Ghost Step freely and in relative quick succession, showcasing unpredictability that Randall had never possessed, always dodging the incoming attacks.

Simon didn’t only dodge. Every time the woman wasted a mere fraction of a second more than usual, he delivered all sorts of attacks, be it shoulder bashes, elbow blows, palm strikes, or simple punches.

Each of those attacks culminated in booming noises that made Liam’s ribcage shake out of mere virtue of the shockwaves they released. That had to be a rank 2 martial art, a powerful one at that, but the woman also always dodged by riding away on her flames.

Truth be told, Liam struggled to follow the battle. Some exchanges unfolded too quickly for his brain to record them. His eyes were sharp enough to see them, but he had no hope of reacting.

That battle was beyond what Liam could hope to affect, so he didn’t, instead climbing a nearby tree.

As confusing as that whole situation was, Simon didn’t let useless thoughts affect his fight. He honestly couldn’t.

All the rooting experts the Sects had sent to the Evergreen Canyon were close in terms of power. Simon couldn’t allow himself to get distracted unless he wanted to forfeit his life.

Still, even with Simon’s undivided attention, he knew the battle wasn’t in his favor. That fiery woman wasn’t only capable. She also possessed an advantage that would become more relevant as the fight progressed.

A dantian’s nature wasn’t just for show. It dictated more than the nutrients it needed to grow.

Martial arts specific to a core’s nature were more efficient, unleashing more power while depleting less Qi. The brown-haired woman had a full set of those, while Simon had none.

If Simon let that battle continue for too long, he would reach exhaustion first. Moreover, other hooded rooting experts might come and use disposable items as annoying as the blinding darkness from earlier.

Simon couldn’t let that happen, but his hands were relatively tied. He was equal to his opponent in raw fighting skills, and the same went for their techniques.

The fire the woman used to escape had to be the rank 1 Afterflame, which was somewhat equal to Simon’s Ghost Step. His offensive martial art surpassed the Fiery Fists, but the latter could express a lot of power in the hands of a rooting expert, enough to almost match his attacks.

Putting some distance from the woman wasn’t even an option since Simon would expose himself to her fireballs, which were a rank 2 spell. So, he had to win in melee, and he had to do it quickly.

Still, there was only one way to achieve that.

Simon and the woman had been circling each other countless times by then. Yet, when the latter rode flames to slide behind him, he avoided dodging now.

The woman swung her fiery right fist at Simon’s side, right below his shoulder, finally achieving a clean hit. A thudding noise resounded, but the woman’s martial art was more than theatrics and heat.

Simon’s skin had gained a metallic luster, but a grunt escaped his mouth as his figure bent sideways. His feet dug into the ground to endure the flame-empowered blow, and his defensive martial art soon broke.

As those fiery knuckles dug through Simon’s flesh and scorched it, the woman unleashed her left fist, thrusting it directly at the center of his back.

However, before the second fist could hit, Simon’s figure flickered. He seemed to have used the Ghost Step, but his position hadn’t changed much. He had only shifted himself enough to let the punch hit the left side of his back instead of his spine.

And the punch hit, this time causing breaking noises on top of the crackling ones since Simon’s defensive technique had crumbled. Yet, instead of being pushed forward, Simon hurled himself at his attacker, performing a scuffed shoulder bash with his back.

A booming noise unfolded. It didn’t hit the woman directly, but her arms stiffened, violent and debilitating tremors echoing through the rest of her body.

That barely bought Simon a fraction of a second, which he used to slip into the burning fists stabbed into his flesh and deliver a proper version of the previous attack.

The woman tried to retreat, but Simon unleashed his Qi before his shoulder could collide with her chest, using the indirect shockwave to debilitate her once more.

Then, in that new window, Simon lifted his elbow, pushing it with his other hand to hit the woman straight in her teeth.

A third booming noise unfolded, and blood spurted from all the orifices on the woman’s face. Even her eyes exploded outward, washing Simon with squashed gore.

The woman fell lifelessly on the ground, but Simon failed to enjoy his victory since a wave of weakness assaulted him. His back was killing him. The wounds where his opponent’s fists had dug still sizzled, filling him with unbearable pain.

That suffering was so unbearable that Simon almost missed the additional pain that spread from his right ankle, but looking down made him wonder whether he was hallucinating.

After all, for reasons that Simon’s pain-ridden mind couldn’t understand, an ordinary arrow had hit him straight in the heel.