Legacy of Hatred-Chapter 134: Mirror

The condensed explosion accelerated the already quick expansion of the dark smoke. There was too much of it for it to remain in such a limited space, pushing it outward, taking over an increasingly wider area.

The encirclement had been quite close to Liam, so the dark smoke engulfed it in no time. Among the five, only Cecilia had the reflexes and speed necessary to react to it.

Liam’s sudden gesture had also alerted Cecilia, making her shoot backward, not forgetting to grab her Junior Brother’s collar along the way.

The smoke expanded farther than Cecilia had predicted, forcing her to retreat even further, dragging her Junior Brother with her. However, the more the cloud spread, the more rapidly it dispersed, soon vanishing to reveal what had unfolded inside it.

The red water touched by the smoke had gained dark-green tones, even featuring bubbles that burst to leak some leftovers of those dark fumes.

The yellow and green foundation experts were among the dark patch, kneeling while holding their throats or mouths, tears falling from their squinted eyes.

As for the dark-grey foundation expert, he was floating, his face immersed in the shallow waters.

Cecilia didn’t hesitate to dive into the dark patch to grab the dark-grey cultivator by his long black hair, lifting his head, only for that to reveal the deep cut on his neck. That foundation expert was already dead.

As for Liam, he had vanished, the shallow waters preventing any footprint from standing out.

Cecilia would have felt surprised if an unfathomable anger hadn’t taken over her mind. Liam hadn’t only escaped. He had even killed one of the foundation experts with her despite her presence.

If the news spread, Cecilia would lose any respect from her fellow rooting experts and superiors, even risking the anger of her Elders and the Iron Will Sect.

Actually, the damage was already done. There were even witnesses. The best Cecilia could do was fix her mistake, but not before taking care of those Juniors from other Sects.

"Junior Brother, the elixirs, quickly!" Cecilia ordered. "Hurry before that fiend escapes the item’s range!"

Meanwhile, Liam was indeed escaping, but not on the ground.

The sudden poisonous cloud had given Liam plenty of time to leave the red waters and jump onto the trees, preventing the creation of any footprint.

Truth be told, that had been Liam’s plan all along. Since those monsters liked the water, his strategy was to advance above it, creating as little disturbance as possible.

As for the Iron Will Sect’s foundation expert, that had simply been an opportunistic kill. That young man had been on the escape path, so Liam had given him a swift taste of his wooden knife.

Once again, the Poisonous Cloud Pills had proven their worth, but that point had long since taken root in Liam’s mind. Instead, different thoughts filled his brain now, as well as clear directions.

Liam wasn’t merely escaping a threat. The other teams might have found him, but he hadn’t forgotten about the marks on the incomplete map and his intentions.

The Mutated Battlefield likely had something connected to the very core of Liam’s goal, and he needed to find it.

The shallow waters were far from empty, soon confirming how outdated the map was. Yet, Liam felt those creatures, both with his perception and through the tense silence, allowing him to circle any lair he happened to spot.

That avoidance was mutual. It wasn’t that the creatures underwater failed to notice Liam. He often felt observed, and the sensation always put him on high alert, ready to retreat at the first sign of danger, but nothing of the sort happened.

It seemed a puny foundation expert wasn’t appealing enough to stir a reaction from those stronger packs. The fact that Liam was in the air played a role, too. He had made himself troublesome to hunt on purpose, and the strategy had worked.

Despite the many changes of direction due to those silent, tense encounters, Liam’s advance remained quick. He jumped and swung from tree to tree, performing incredible leaps without looking down, confident in his ability to reach stable footholds every time.

It had only been a few days, but the new training with the circulation technique was already showing results, fusing with Liam’s expertise, finally bringing out the full potential of skills he had trained for a decade.

And, as Liam delved deeper into the swamp, afternoon arrived, and the same went for one of the second-closest marked locations on the map. Liam had skipped the closest to put some distance from the cultivators, but he stopped now.

The area couldn’t be more inconspicuous. It had nothing special or unique. It was just more of the swamp with two relatively distant lairs on both sides.

Liam rechecked the map on the jade to confirm that he was in the right place. His memory and sense of direction wouldn’t have failed him, but that apparent nothingness forced him to be certain about the location.

’What am I even looking for?’ Liam wondered. He didn’t know what the cross meant, nor if it was still there, adding two layers of difficulty to his quest.

After a whole minute of scouring the waters from above a branch, Liam was about to give up on the matter. However, something hit his subconscious when he lifted his gaze. He frowned, squinting at the strange detail his brain had already found, until his eyes caught up with it.

Liam leaped at that point, reaching the next tree, only to jump again. He climbed higher there, reaching the trunk’s top, finally seeing what he had spotted earlier.

The tip of a small pouch peeked out of a shallow hole carved into the trunk. Anyone would have missed it, but Liam had a sharp eye when it came to unnatural details, finding it despite its mostly hidden nature.

The presence of Qi urged Liam to open the pouch, but his excitement immediately transformed into another frown. Sixteen dark-red spheres rested inside the pouch, each feeling close to rank 2 items.

’Magical beasts’ cores?’ Liam exclaimed in his mind. ’These are worth a hundred and sixty points, but why are they here?’

Clearly, someone from the Rising Waterfall Sect had accumulated those cores in previous missions, but Liam couldn’t understand why.

At most, Liam felt a bit disappointed. The finding was valuable, but he didn’t know how much. Also, it would benefit the Sect, while Liam wanted something good for him, especially good right away.

’Do they count as resources we can trade?’ Liam wondered, seizing the pouch to stuff it in his already cramped one, only for his head to snap to his left.

The sound of an unnatural splash had reached Liam’s ears, too faint and hesitant to belong to a magical beast, so he leaped again, wanting to check its source for himself.

Luckily, Liam’s prey didn’t share his mastery in those natural environments. After a few leaps, he silently settled on a tall branch, staring down at the green foundation expert in the swamp.

The brown-haired young man was completely unaware of Liam’s position. He actually looked quite scared to be in such a place alone, warily advancing while checking his surroundings.

Of course, the green foundation expert never looked up, and Liam knew what to do with it. Those cultivators had come there to kill him, so he would kill them first.

Liam slowly shifted to another branch, not making a single sound, waiting for the foundation expert to take another step before leaping down.

The descending, diagonal jump brought Liam atop his prey in no time. He stabbed the foundation expert’s head before he could even realize what was coming.

However, instead of piercing the cultivator’s skull, the wooden knife’s tip bounced on his hair, causing a shattering noise.

Afterward, steam blew from all over the man’s figure, quickly dispersing Qi in the air. Something had broken, saving him from that fatal blow. Still, his situation didn’t improve.

The strange event didn’t interrupt Liam’s assault. He was a seasoned hunter, able to disregard surprising variables to focus on completing his hunt, so his following move was already unfolding.

The knife might have bounced off, but Liam hadn’t. He crashed onto the foundation expert, pinning him down in the shallow waters, his magical weapon already descending again. 𝒻𝘳ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝒷𝘯ℴ𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝑐ℴ𝑚

"Liam, I’m on your side!" The foundation expert blurted in panic before his head went underwater.

And Liam’s knife followed, piercing the red surface, only for Liam to pull with his other hand, bringing the foundation expert back above the water level.

The young man gasped loudly, but something pressed on his throat, forcing him to open his eyes. Liam was staring down at him, pristine killing intent reeking out of his emotionless face, ready to sever his neck.

"What did you mean?" Liam asked. "The Swallowing Forest Sect lied about the beacon."

"Senior Sister had to!" The young man claimed. "The Sects would have turned on us, too, otherwise."

’Is he tricking me?’ Liam wondered, failing to smell the usual stench those ploys carried, but unable to believe the foundation expert anyway.

Liam knew he was susceptible to lies, so he had no idea what the foundation expert could say to change his mind. Killing him was the best choice, but Liam didn’t want to be wrong and experience that kind of regret again.

"Can you prove it?" Liam questioned. "Can you prove that you are an ally?"

The foundation expert’s dark eyes went wide in panic, only for his face to brighten when he found something that could work.

"You have a shard of the See-through Mirror on you!" The man exclaimed. "Anyone who has one can track the others!"

’The what?’ Liam thought before connecting those words to one of his findings. "Are you talking about the rank 2 piece of glass?"

"Yes!" The man cried, tried to nod, only for the knife on his throat to stop him. "The shards are parts of a one that can communicate and find each other! The Crimson Warrior Sect shared them with the other Sects before the mission!"