Legacy of Hatred

Apocalyptic storms immediately raged over the area.

Uriah and Laurel had disappeared, and the world’s explosions revealed their exchanges. Geysers of rocks and sand rose all around the area, but they kept their distance from the battlefield.

The level three centipede was in pursuit, chasing the clashes, but its speed couldn’t keep up with a battle at that level. It wasn’t slow, but the two high-stage branching experts were basically teleporting with each exchange.

Liam couldn’t avert his eyes, which managed to follow everything. The battle involved experts beyond his level, giving him plenty of details to study.

The interest was not only about raw power. Liam wanted to see how his unique low-stage compared to the high-stage, but that was only the most superficial part of his inspection.

The same went for what the later parts of the branching stage could provide. While not as transformative as the breakthrough, such a long level would feature meaningful power differences. Still, Liam knew what they would be about.

Instead, Liam paid utmost attention to spotting what the Demoness had taught him. Cultivators were supposed to develop individual techniques at higher levels due to scarcity and better suitability to their unique powers, and Uriah and Laurel had to be far ahead of him in that field.

Experience mattered. Real age became unclear given the Qi’s ability to prolong life, but Liam wasn’t even twenty-one yet. Uriah and Laurel had to have spent far longer wielding the branching stage’s superior energy, implying a mastery he had only begun to acquire.

The fast-moving clashes showed hints. Uriah and Laurel seemed to be testing each other for now, but the raw Qi their figures wielded was so different that Liam found no problem spotting its unique properties.

Laurel felt elusive, light, but unlike Grace. She darted over the rocks and sand as if she had no corporeal shape. The energy she radiated was deep, dense, but insidious.

Instead, Uriah was tough rather than heavy, unbendable, like a heavy sledgehammer, his punches and kicks blowing holes into the ground even when they didn’t connect.

’He is wary of her,’ Liam realized the more he inspected the clash.

As furious as Uriah was, he never committed too much to his offense, keeping his distance, avoiding exposing himself.

Meanwhile, Laurel kept dodging, her venomous glare focused, waiting for an opportunity to strike.

’Come on,’ Liam cursed internally. ’Use anything cool.’

Liam wanted to see proper techniques to apply their theory to his poison core, expanding what he had started to do with the alchemical spell. Still, the probing phase lasted long enough for external factors to draw his attention elsewhere.

Gravity eventually became unbearable. Liam fell into the cavity of his own creation, only for it to have completely transformed while he hovered above it.

Compared to the other branching experts Liam had met and faced, the passive effects his presence unleashed into the world felt far more overwhelming.

The hole’s superficial layer had melted into sizzling goo, and most of the centipedes had retreated into the various tunnels, terrified of the deadliness that had descended.

Those too weak or slow to escape the effects of Liam’s Qi were instead writhing in the goo, parts of their bodies melting to become one with it.

The area had a high Qi density, enough for it to stand out in Liam’s initial inspection, but his influence was simply too insidious. Resilience didn’t matter against his Qi’s nature. Given enough time, he would eventually turn anything into poison.

Honestly, the bottom of that now-toxic cavity felt a bit lonely. It was as if Liam’s very existence forced him to live in a desolate world only he could survive.

But that wasn’t the truth. Liam had met people willing to accept the death he wielded to remain at his side, people who loved his mouth despite the venom it released.

So, rather than loneliness, Liam felt greed as he hovered his hand above that poison-infested hole. An ancient hiss flooded his mind, and the goo around him started bubbling furiously.

’I killed you,’ Liam thought, his cultivation squirming, the Qi circulating through his body translating his intentions into actions. ’So you belong to me.’

An instinctive awareness awakened as Liam dwelled in the culmination of his mental growth. Most of his alchemical training had been on understanding poisons, but he was a superior being now, and his Qi had created that toxic world.

At first, it was unbelievably faint, like an echo too distant to reveal its nature. However, Liam chased it, uncovering its familiarity, as well as the connection that existed.

The branching stage opened new ways to interact with the world, and Liam’s Qi was alive. It was his life, and what it tainted carried its power.

The imaginary scene Liam had witnessed while fighting Dominic replayed in his mind. The all-devouring, rising blackness had transformed into the Ancestral Snake, as if everything it had submerged had become part of it.

Liam had already made that comparison with snakes, but it gained new meaning at the branching stage, especially after witnessing the resonance experts at that level seemed able to summon.

That toxic world was indeed only for Liam to tread, but also his to command since his poison had swallowed it.

The bubbling intensified even further. Toxic fumes rose, blending with the thick dark energy Liam released. He felt the connection deepening, his presence spreading through what he had tainted, his intentions taking root.

The complete immersion that alchemy had taught Liam brought him deeper into the unnatural phenomenon. He became one with it, an alchemical flame without cauldron, an ingredient in a concoction meant to refine the very world.

However, Liam abruptly snapped out of that mental state, danger overriding his concentration. The world parted as he jumped. He arrived high in the sky without meeting any opposition, instinctively summoning the fan before the area turned pure white.

Despite the sun still being high in the sky, the temperature sharply dropped. Ice pebbles even formed in the air, falling over the frozen surface that had covered the area.

Still, as thick as that frozen layer looked, its whiteness darkened. The poison still bubbling underneath gradually affected it, but not before Amber’s voice could resound through the sky. "Dark Wanderer, could you not try to kill us all?"