Thoughts fired inside Liam’s brain, studying the spirit while connecting its details to everything he had learned and heard about the inheritance.
Now that Liam gave the spirit a proper look, he could see that it was dimr than how he had been in the Trial of Lust, and his irregular, slightly distorted voice lit up a spiderweb of understanding inside him.
Liam didn’t know what inheritance grounds were made of. He had no idea whether they all followed the sa instructions, either. Theoretically, their structure was up to the expert who created them, aning they could all be different.
In the Archbishop’s case, his inheritance probably was a mixture of inscriptions and formations at a level Liam couldn’t fathom. That peerless expert had created a whole world after all, a separate dinsion, so figuring out its structure was beyond Liam, and not only because his specialization involved a different noble art.
However, there were clues that could bring answers, at least in what truly mattered to Liam.
If the spirit was similar to the wills magical items could develop, his integrity had to be connected to the inheritance. The two had to be one and the sa, at least to so level.
Julian had also told Liam that those pillars could both carve a shortcut into the Cathedral and open Churches, but their crucial function was one step before that. Those rank 3 items’ purpose was to disrupt the inheritance’s frawork.
Liam might not know what that frawork consisted of, but he could guess what disrupting it ant. Just like Qi could transform the ordinary alchemical fla, burning everything built upon it, so ssing with the inheritance’s foundation could destroy anything it supported.
aning that the spirit’s poor condition had to be a symptom of a greater illness. It could an that the Church’s items had disrupted the inheritance to the point that Archbishop Ignatius’ consciousness couldn’t manifest in any stable shape anymore.
That reasoning, paired with the spirit’s unclear words, could only lead to one conclusion. Ti had run out. Either Liam seized the inheritance now, or the Church would get it.
The spirit disappeared in the single second it took Liam to connect all those dots. His bright figure flickered a few tis before just vanishing out of thin air.
That odd disappearance further confird Liam’s conclusion, at which he internally cursed, glancing in the direction where Julian had flown off.
Liam had poisoned Julian multiple tis, but his guts told him that he might survive the endeavor. His inscriptions were just too strange. He had relied on life-saving thod after life-saving thod, so Liam had to believe he could have more.
There had been a steep price to that survival, but that was beside the point. Liam acknowledged that Julian was still alive and that he had to let him go to stick to the bigger picture.
Liam risked losing everything otherwise, and he had crossed a line that made that outco too dangerous to entertain.
Chances were Liam would beco the Church’s enemy once all that was over, and the only way to defend against that was to get stronger, far more than what he had already obtained could provide.
’Damnit,’ Liam cursed in his mind, knowing his priorities, but feeling terrible nonetheless.
Corpses were vague, but Julian was a proper loose end who knew much about Liam. It had also been a while since the last ti Liam had failed to kill his prey, but clearly, he wasn’t all-powerful, not yet, and his body proved it.
Liam looked down at himself. His hands were a ss of torn, exposed flesh. It was a miracle that his fingers were still attached. His thighs also hurt, bleeding due to the widespread burns and injuries.
The Qi Repulsion had saved Liam from worse injuries. Still, the defensive technique had been powerless to stop the initial part of the explosion since the hexagonal shields were literally on him.
Moreover, the Qi Repulsion hadn’t blocked everything that followed. Liam found so tal shards in his arms, sides, and legs, worsening his overall condition.
Nothing was too debilitating, but the battle had been an undeniable financial loss for both sides. Liam had wasted a total of eight rank 2 Poisonous Cloud Pills, which almost amounted to a third of his entire stockpile, getting nothing but injuries and an enemy out of it.
The timing couldn’t have been worse, either. The main battle for the inheritance was waiting, and Liam would have to face it without being in top condition or having ti to recover.
The only saving grace was that Liam’s alchemy had won against Julian’s inscriptions. He had proven himself as the superior master, both in terms of skills and noble art.
Sadly, Liam couldn’t dwell on that faint pride. He had to do sothing, and he had to do it quickly, so his body moved on its own while thoughts raced in his mind.
Liam stored what was left of his cloak, donning a new cape, pushing aside the bitterness of having almost run out of those clothes. A wave of his Qi also made the various shards stabbed in him fall to the ground.
A rank 2 Qi Recovery elixir appeared in Liam’s bloody hand, and he chugged it down while throwing a glance at the destroyed roof. His white arrows couldn’t have possibly survived that explosion of blood, so he didn’t bother looking for them.
Liam could do more for his condition, but limited himself to that elixir, saving the container while fixing the broken quiver’s string with a knot. Not being in top condition could be dangerous, but that was exactly why Liam wanted to be thrifty with his healing resources.
It wasn’t a matter of wanting to save money. Liam even had plenty of those healing products, but the main danger could be waiting, and that might demand a lot from his reserves.
Choosing to endure the pain now was a way of lowering the risk of ingesting too many impurities.
Liam didn’t sense anything, but the battle was bound to have attracted attention. No one was coming, and Julian looked too injured to ss with the inheritance anymore, so Liam didn’t dare to waste ti.
Another saving grace was that Liam had gotten to keep the tal token, but waving it around the four pillars did nothing, so he shot toward the Cathedral next.
The closer Liam got to that central building, the more he realized how huge it truly was. The Cathedral was a true mountain of a structure, expanding for hundreds of ters in every direction. It was truly astonishing, but Liam was too anxious and in a hurry to take in that majestic sight or dwell on the wonders that the cultivation world could produce.
The issue was simple and unsolvable. Liam could run around the Cathedral to find its entrance, but that would likely place him at the beginning of its trial. He didn’t know if the spirit would or could help, but he was pretty sure he didn’t have the ti to clear that challenge the right way.
Chances were the Church’s teams would claim the inheritance while Liam was still busy figuring out the trial.
But sothing caught Liam’s attention as he neared the imnse, towering side of the Cathedral. He had run in a straight line from the unique crossroad, which brought him to the base of the giant, tentacle-like darkness waving on that white wall, and his mouth tasted specific scents.
Traces of human passage were everywhere in that city of Churches. After all, people were still there, but the new scents ca directly from that waving darkness, as if it were a mbrane rather than a shadow.
Liam got close. That tall tentacle was a few dozen ters wide. It waved constantly, but the center of its base remained still. The disturbance in the Qi was also stronger there. The energy in that location was in complete disarray, and Liam could perceive even more now that he stood in front of it.
Strange, ssy details leaked from the darkness nonstop. Liam mostly caught scents, but sounds and presences occasionally hit his perception, as if a world stood right past it.
Liam pressed his hand on the darkness, leaving a bloody handprint there, but nothing happened. He was about to utter another ntal curse when he repeated the action with the tal token, and the clouded wall was solid no more.
The token pierced the darkness, followed by Liam’s hand, and eventually the rest of his figure.
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