Legacy of Hatred

Simon had been completely focused on his battle, and his injuries had further narrowed down his perception, but he felt quite sure that no new threats had appeared.

Of course, cloaking techniques existed. The brown-haired woman had used one, too, to ambush Simon with her fireball.

However, trying to hide a destructive rank 2 spell made sense. Instead, a mere ordinary arrow didn’t.

Still, before Simon could push through his scorching pain to make the point of the situation, something else invaded him. His right foot went numb, and the sensation rose toward his knee, seemingly wanting to take his whole leg out of commission.

Simon had no real defenses against that. Whatever had infected him also seemed to worsen his mind’s already poor condition. But his Qi was fighting that invasion, so he focused on his circulation technique.

But another arrow arrived before Simon could forcefully circulate his Qi, hitting his left heel now in the same spot.

The ordinary arrow couldn’t dig deeply, but a second wave of the numbing sensation arrived, joining the first and destabilizing Simon’s foothold enough to send him to his knees.

Still, as Simon fell, he forced himself to turn. His butt hit the partially scorched and still-burning grass, but he could finally look in the direction of the unknown attacker.

That turned out to be wrong since something ethereal filled Simon’s vision. He had barely finished turning when an arrow hit him straight in his right eye, exploding afterward.

Liam didn’t think. His mind had never been clearer or sharper, mimicking a controlled version of the enhanced state he had experienced with the butcher.

There had been no hesitation or fear, no anxiety or second-guessing. As soon as Simon had shown a moment of weakness, Liam had struck with nothing but calculated coldness.

Ideally, Liam would have killed Simon in one blow, but he was quite sure he couldn’t. A rooting expert’s Qi provided innate protection that prevented Liam from resorting to a single, deadly attack.

Honestly, Liam hadn’t even been sure his ordinary arrows would have pierced Simon’s skin. Cultivators weren’t magical beasts, and Liam had made the Black Bow’s string as heavy as possible, but the outcome remained uncertain.

But Liam didn’t need his arrows to pierce too deeply. As long as their tips drew blood, the deadly poison would enter the bloodstream, creating an opening.

Of course, as deadly as the poison was, it remained a rank 1 concoction. Liam knew it wouldn’t kill Simon, so he had to opt for another strategy.

Just like with beasts, hunters had to immobilize them to wear them down from a safe, advantageous position. That was why Liam had aimed for Simon’s heels before striking his eye.

And things didn’t end there, not even close.

As Liam had predicted, the exploding arrow didn’t kill Simon. His right eye was gone, and the skin around it was mangled and fuming, but he moved, his other eye glaring at Liam with pristine hatred.

Yet, that wasn’t all Simon’s eye captured since another arrow had already appeared before him, this time material, piercing it to administer more deadly poison.

Simon fell back, but Liam had already jumped off his tree, shooting an ethereal arrow mid-air once he could see his prey’s face again.

Simon was blind, temporarily paralyzed by the poison, so the ethereal arrow hit his right eye socket, stabbing deeper than earlier and exploding again.

Liam left nothing to chance. He landed on the grass while nocking a real arrow, firing it at the best available spot he could see from that lower position.

The arrow hit Simon’s groin dead center, delivering more poison, but also a pain sharp enough to make a cry escape his recovering head.

"You bastard!" Simon shouted, only for an arrow to explode in his mouth.

Liam got closer but not too much, preferring to circle Simon to get a better shot while remaining relatively safe. His left arm moved nonstop, always alternating a real arrow with an ethereal one.

The real arrows were meant to keep Simon down, while the ethereal ones always hit his head, gradually digging through his innate defenses, paving the path for the final blow.

By the time Simon had six real arrows stabbed in his body, the moment seemed to have come. His face was a mess of mangled and burned flesh with gaps that revealed the skull underneath, but his jaw still moved to release a weak voice.

"W-why?" Simon asked.

"You made Melissa’s hands shake," Liam calmly replied.

"But Senior Broth-!" Simon tried to say, only for an ethereal arrow to pierce his eye socket deeper than ever, releasing an explosion that finally squashed his brain.

Liam didn’t know what rooting experts at Simon’s level were capable of, so another arrow escaped his bow, but undeniable proof arrived this time. The new explosion blew a chunk of Simon’s head off, only leaving a maimed face with its leaking skull wide open.

Liam didn’t even sigh in reassurance. He stored the bow and retrieved an elixir from his pouch, greedily drinking it. His foundation immediately generated more Qi and sent it to his circulation technique, but his core risked emptying its reserves like that, so he paired it with the pipe.

And, for once, Liam felt more than mere emptiness in front of a death of his own making. As black smoke invaded his lungs and his cold gaze remained on the maimed corpse, he experienced something akin to fulfillment.

That kill hadn’t been out of self-preservation. Simon hadn’t been an enemy in the strict sense, and rudeness alone could earn him a death sentence. Maxwell even seemed to have straightened him up.

However, Simon had committed the unforgivable sin of making Melissa distressed. Even after Maxwell settled the matter, Simon had continued to insult Melissa to the point where she questioned her own worth.

Liam might not have understood much about that interaction, but he knew that Simon was a blight on Melissa’s life, and that was enough to draw out his ruthless side.

’Why does this feel better?’ Liam wondered. ’Is this protecting, too?’

Liam wasn’t sure. He believed it was, but also wasn’t. The matter was deeper, just like the affection he felt for Melissa. He saw the selfishness and darkness of the act, but also a selflessness.

Liam felt as if an ancient wiring of his brain agreed with the nefarious act, as if becoming a murderer was worth it as long as it benefited his special one.

But the inspection didn’t go uninterrupted since clapping noises drew Liam’s gaze to a trunk to his right, where a man in his fifties with short black hair and chilling brown eyes was leaning.

The white-masked man was there, and he applauded the scene he had witnessed, even adding praise.

"You have grown better than I could have ever hoped for," Elder Basil complimented. "You have come a long way, little beast."