Chapter 411: Capacity
Among everyone on the scene, only Grace could make some sense of what had happened, but its execution still took her by surprise, both for its contents and because she had been unable to keep up with it.
Because Grace knew which martial arts Liam possessed, she was the only one who glanced to her left, where he had once been. A deep footprint had replaced him, with spiderwebs of cracks all around it.
That deep mark confirmed the answer Grace had already guessed. That was the rank 3 Defying Stomp, the movement-oriented technique from the Archbishop’s inheritance.
Refocusing on Liam showed a confusing detail. Grace had seen that knife, sort of. She had witnessed Liam storing it in a container full of yellow powder a few times, but it had been a rank 1 item back then. Instead, it was undoubtedly a rank 2 weapon now.
As for the other aspect of Grace’s surprise, it came from Liam’s prompt decision to go for the kill. In the past, he had always waited for provocations, but not now, and part of Grace believed not anymore, due to whatever he had found during his training.
There were also massive issues due to who Liam had killed. Those weren’t random lone cultivators. They were Guild members, but Grace found herself unable to consider that for now. She had a unique reaction inspecting her personal fiend, one too unladylike to voice.
Liam had very different thoughts, if any. His attention was more inward, on his Qi reserves, calculating how much the Defying Stomp had depleted.
’Three,’ Liam concluded. ’Maybe four.’
With sixty-four minor roots, Lancelot had been able to launch almost three rank 3 martial arts, with two using his body as fuel to save Qi. Yet, they were of the offensive kind, immensely destructive, probably with extreme Qi consumption.
Instead, Liam had fifty-one minor roots now, but the Defying Stomp only had high Qi consumption. His cultivation’s requirements were also absurd, leading to greater energy accumulation.
As long as Liam didn’t use his movement technique in a row and let his cultivation refill his body, he could see himself unleashing it four times before being tapped out. In terms of raw Qi reserves, he was close to that number.
That didn’t really apply to the Sky-Splitting Bolt. Liam might have been able to cast it with only twelve minor roots, but since that was the most he could pour into the martial art. Now, it would demand more energy, unleashing more power, but probably limiting its uses to two, if not just still one.
Nevertheless, Liam didn’t plan to go for broke. He had revealed the Defying Stop to gain an immediate advantage over those opponents, but he would stick to rank 2 martial arts now.
Even if one-third of Liam’s Qi reserves were gone, his cultivation was advanced enough to make that loss negligible. His limit had been around ten rank 2 martial arts when he only had one minor root, so he could still launch hundreds of those now.
Liam had even whipped out his wooden knife to save energy and kill more smoothly. After seven months of careful management, the Alchemical Refinement had finally pushed that weapon to the realm of rank 2 items, making it a worthy substitute for the fan.
Of course, despite the knife’s more intense poisonous properties, the fan was still leagues beyond it. It was far faster. It could get even faster with Qi. It was unbelievably sharp. It could act on its own and carried traces of venom due to how Liam had bound it.
As for why using the knife in the first place when such a better alternative existed, Liam wanted to do a test run. The fan didn’t really listen to him, either, which could cause problems in such a messy situation.
Meanwhile, not killing or the opponents’ identity never crossed Liam’s mind. Those six had thought they could create problems for him, and they had been wrong.
The team even had someone who thought exactly like Liam.
No screams resounded from the body at Liam’s feet. The woman was already a corpse, so she remained silent while the venom melted her face, but his feat and the scene created a fatal distraction.
The elderly man’s face snapped to his left when he heard a whistling noise. In that moment of distraction, Troy arrived at the other rooting expert’s side, his sword already lowered and stained with blood.
A diagonal cut opened on the rooting expert’s head before its upper part slid off. The rest of the middle-aged man soon followed, crashing lifelessly to the ground.
"So, this is how you want to play it," Lucas shouted, landing between the remaining foundation experts. "You should have said it sooner."
The foundation experts gasped, jumping in opposite directions, only for Lucas’ sword to flash twice. While the two were still mid-air, vertical cuts opened on their foreheads, stretching down to their waists, eventually releasing torrents of blood and gore.
Grace also arrived at Lucas’ side, poised as always, her elegance unaffected by the surrounding slaughter, but the elderly man couldn’t focus on her because something terrifying stood behind him.
The elderly man slowly peeked past his shoulder, finding Liam’s feral, black eyes looking down on him, casually pointing his knife at the back of his neck.
"Do you know the exact location of the Rainbow Roses?" Liam asked.
"T-this..." The elderly man stammered. "I’m a member of the Mercenary Guild, servant of the Kingdom. You can’t do this!"
Liam tilted his head in confusion. He had learned so much about the world, but that part was still baffling.
"You can’t stop me, can you?" Liam frowned, driving his knife into the rooting expert’s neck.
Sadly for the elderly man, he didn’t die on the spot. It took him a few seconds for that, in which the venom showed no mercy. At the very least, he couldn’t scream since the knife had severed his throat.
Comments