Legacy of Hatred

Nothing escaped Liam’s perception. Even as more centipedes leaped fearlessly through his deadly energy and occupied his every sense, he only had eyes for his fellow branching expert.

A mere kick was a demeaning attack for a being that the world couldn’t shackle to its laws, but Liam was hardly ordinary.

Even in the battle cages, Liam had overcome fellow rooting experts through raw physical strength alone. It had been at the level of rank 1 martial arts back then, and that without accounting for battle stances and black Qi.

The breakthrough had definitely put Liam’s basic physical strength in the realm of rank 2 techniques, and he was sure he could push it to that level’s peak when fighting seriously. It was truly an absurd but expensive inborn gift, and he hadn’t stopped there.

Liam had used the Lightning Step to turn himself into an unstoppable battering ram, piercing through the blockade of centipedes, his accumulated momentum carrying through in his kick.

In short, Caspar had been hit by the combination of two rank 2 martial arts, both fueled by a branching expert’s Qi, with Liam’s black energy even applying its insidious effects.

Yet, that wasn’t enough to achieve anything meaningful, not even close.

Caspar flew back but quickly stopped himself mid-air, his mere presence producing that momentum-defying action. His insides were in shambles, with more than a few damaged organs. Blood even spurted from his mouth, but he was a being beyond physical injuries.

With the superior Qi branching experts had access to, that damage was negligible at best, not hindering Caspar’s ability to keep fighting at all.

If anything, Caspar’s main worry came from the insidious darkening amidst his very Qi. The brief touch had infected him, but his energy was managing to keep his opponent’s poisonous effects at bay for now.

And Liam didn’t find the event surprising at all. He had too much experience fighting branching experts to underestimate their resilience, but that was exactly why he had to test what had changed.

Rank 2 martial arts exerted more power when a branching expert’s Qi fueled them, surpassing what rooting experts could achieve with the same techniques.

Nevertheless, rank 2 techniques were also an inferior, unbefitting tool for branching experts. They were like rivers attempting to express the might of the sea. Their channels were too narrow, too limited to host the waves an ocean harbored.

Techniques were how cultivators expressed the true power circulating through their dantians, so such a limit was akin to throwing pebbles when they could just as easily hurl giant boulders.

Still, every ingredient had value in alchemy, even weaker, complementary ones. Liam might have a full set of techniques suitable for his level, but he couldn’t forget about the rest of his arsenal.

The recipe that represented Liam had to be unbeatable before literal and real Perfection, so he had to be complete, every single one of his aspects refined to the utmost, no matter how minor it was, blending it into a unified, superior product.

After all, just like Liam, the Dragon King definitely had overwhelmingly powerful techniques suited to his superiority. Attempting to match him in the same way despite the Ancestral Snake’s defeat was no different from being complacent, and complacency was a sin.

Caspar might have endured the blow, but the exchange gave Liam the initiative, deepening the advantage his physical superiority and senses created, basically putting him one and a half steps ahead.

The Young Master knew that, which was why he had expected Liam to be already upon him. The centipedes clearly were no obstruction after all, but Liam hadn’t moved.

Before Caspar could once again feel anger at how Liam was playing with him, tall, pitch-black waves washed over the area, expanding everywhere and submerging the world in no time.

Caspar experienced pure dread. It was as if death itself had taken a gaseous shape and was about to drown him. He didn’t know what that blackness was, but he was sure he had to escape it, and he barely had a fraction of a second to do so.

As Caspar began to muster his Qi, a beam more ethereal than air crossed the incoming blackness and landed on him, shutting down his mind.

The shutdown lasted less than a second, but that was an eternity for branching experts. When Caspar recovered, he found himself submerged in the deadly blackness, his nose and eyes bleeding, his figure still mid-air, albeit not thanks to him.

Liam was in front of Caspar, one hand clinging to his arm, the other holding his shoulder. He was frowning, both in pain and struggle, and Caspar understood the latter only when pain came for him, too.

There was a ripping noise, accompanied by plenty of pitch-black smoke being displaced. Liam hadn’t done much. He had merely pulled his arm away, but something valuable had come with it.

Caspar’s field of view captured a scene that made no sense. Liam’s big hand held a bloodied sleeve, one containing a familiar limb.

At the same time, Caspar saw emptiness where something should have been. His left shoulder didn’t have anything below it anymore. His arm was gone, suffering from many of the centipedes’ fate.

That wasn’t even the end, not even close. While the loss of a limb was damaging and potentially traumatic, far worse had invaded Caspar.

The prolonged contact with Liam had exposed Caspar to more of the deadly Qi. His own figure now released energy of similar shades, and black patches had started spreading on his skin.

But that wasn’t all Caspar had been exposed to. The pitch-black tide had been none other than the rank 2 Poisonous Breath. Among an abundant arsenal of martial arts, that was Liam’s only spell, the one his great Master had somehow found for him.

Since the Poisonous Breath’s deadliness was directly related to the user’s Qi, it had instantly become Liam’s strongest rank 2 technique, the only one that could vaguely keep up with his newfound superiority, likely even surpassing the Primal Urge.

Because of that, Caspar couldn’t breathe anymore. His lungs and a lot more of his body fell prey to an inescapable paralysis. His whole body stopped responding to his inputs as black veins covered him all over.