Legacy of Hatred

Chapter 406: Swamp

The world was different when Liam reopened his eyes. He coughed loudly and uncontrollably, but his lungs worked. He still felt sick, but the illness was different, and there was a strange strength flowing through him that pushed him to his butt.

Liam could finally take in his surroundings at that point. He hadn’t spent long checking the mountain, but the area had been an endless mass of tall trees and snow, and the same couldn’t be said now.

The world wasn’t white anymore. Everywhere Liam looked, the snow had disappeared, and the ground had transformed into a slimy, dark layer.

Most trees had also fallen, with only eroded stumps peeking past the slimy layer, their mangled trunks releasing sizzling noises due to the continuous corrosion.

The upper parts of a few trees were still visible. Trunks, branches, and wood shards lay among the slimy layer, like debris in a river, gradually being devoured by the corrosion.

And above all that, dark-green fumes enshrouded the area, partially blocking the sunlight like a thick, deadly mist.

That new iteration of the Master’s Pride targeted the ground specifically. Liam had known exactly where he would use it, and the project had culminated in a perfect expression of his core’s affinity.

Whatever the Master’s Pride touched, it either melted or transformed into poison. It was an unnatural compulsion that would twist the world to Liam’s needs and nature.

Through a single flask, Liam had transformed an environment into a poisonous swamp.

Liam coughed again as he looked down at himself. As predicted, his clothes had fallen prey to the corrosion. He spotted small patches of what had once been his trousers still clinging to his waist, but they were bound to vanish, too.

Instead, Liam’s skin claimed his attention for longer. His complexion had turned yellowish, a sign that his body was struggling to fight that constant poisoning. He also saw patches of recently healed flesh, but no corrosion seemed to be happening anymore.

Liam was building tolerance, but that was only one aspect of his predicament.

’I’m hungry,’ Liam realized, surprised. ’How long have I been out?’

With cultivators being less shackled to mortal needs the higher they went in the cultivation journey, that hunger acted as a warning of the passage of time, bringing Liam’s attention to his core.

Liam almost gasped when the reddish canvas filled his mental eye. His cultivation was quivering in ecstasy, cheering, drunk in the continuous flow of nutrients flooding it.

Yet, that wasn’t what surprised Liam. He almost couldn’t recognize his cultivation due to how much it had changed. All the protuberances had grown, and he could count thirty-one complete minor roots.

Now that Liam had created a home perfect for his cultivation, his core was blooming faster than ever, famished to grow even further.

Liam pulled his awareness out, continuing to cough as he inspected the environment again. The horizon was blurry due to the dark-green mist, but he could sort of calculate that the swamp had taken over a sizable chunk of the mountain’s slope.

That was bound to be eye-catching, but few would dare to investigate such a dangerous environment. That wasn’t even cultivators’ territory, and the fact that he was alive confirmed his safety. He didn’t even hear any tremor in his mind, meaning Grace hadn’t needed to contact him.

So, Liam’s calculations moved to how long the swamp would last. That iteration of the Master’s Pride was a rank 2 item of peak quality, meaning mere natural environments couldn’t oppose it, especially when they lacked any meaningful amount of Qi.

The poisoned ground was also somewhat self-sufficient. The more slime there was, the more easily it could take over relatively ordinary environments.

However, there was no such thing as an endless expansion, not at Liam’s level. The swamp would eventually reach the critical point, stretching itself too thin.

At that point, the surrounding environment would be able to fight back, depleting the swamp’s poisonous properties until it receded and faded. Liam was also continuously devouring it, accelerating the process.

And yet, Liam believed he could stay there a while. The swamp would still last for some time, months maybe, so his current number of minor roots was just the beginning.

Of course, Liam had made that Master’s Pride for that exact purpose. He had known how poisonous it was. That was by design to overcome his cultivation’s insane requirements and achieve a significant power boost.

Even at the current stage, before Liam could see the full extent of that training method, he could consider himself satisfied. He had successfully created an alternative to his pipe, one that depleted far fewer ingredients, albeit of greater quality.

There were obviously drawbacks, the collapse being the most evident. Liam had been out of commission for an unknown amount of time, exposed and defenseless, with the dark-green fumes as his only protection.

Liam was also stuck there, immersed in a very noticeable training ground. Poison was his realm, but his enemies could easily find and trap him there, besieging him on all fronts, leaving him no option but to be captured once the swamp was no more.

The cultivation world even had plenty of methods and just sheer strength. Someone like Dominic could have ventured inside the swamp and taken Liam without him even noticing.

The border’s lawlessness played to Liam’s advantage, but he knew he wouldn’t be able to replicate his new training method everywhere. It was just too risky, but unlocking it had been undoubtedly beneficial.

Like that, Liam would have multiple options depending on his predicament and location. He could stick to smoking when he was on the move and opt for the swamp when he could settle for a while.

With that done, Liam only had one task left. The swamp was already passively strengthening him, so he crossed his legs, focusing on his circulation technique to accelerate the process.

Liam had to tackle what he had delayed until now, something he desperately needed moving forward.

’Who am I?’ Liam asked himself, his thoughts delving into the very core of his being, starting the introspection that would settle the transformation of his heart for good.