Chapter 420: Time To Get Serious

Still on the floor, Liam sighed softly.

The truth was, he’d been holding back this entire time. From the moment he’d heard Elder Wu announce himself as a Nascent Soul cultivator, Liam could have ended the fight immediately. But where would be the learning in that?

He’d wanted to test himself, to see how far his transformed body could endure without relying on his full arsenal. The entire massacre—from the blood-soaked street to the corpse-littered courtyard—had been fought with nothing but his physical capabilities and telekinesis. He hadn’t used any real technique or skill, not like he had learnt any in the first place.

He had intended to use the Devouring Petal Pavilion as a whetstone to measure his growth, and the results had been illuminating. Golden Core experts posed no challenge whatsoever. Even this Nascent Soul cultivator, for all his power, had only managed to break a few bones and draw some blood.

But now that the experiment was complete and he had seen enough, it was time to get serious.

Liam smiled to himself as he slowly pushed himself up from the ground. He’d spent less than a minute lying there, but in that short time, his enhanced physiology had already worked its magic, healing his body faster than any pill or physique ever could.

By the time he stood fully upright, rolling his shoulders experimentally, every injury had vanished as if it had never existed.

Elder Wu and his companion stared, shock written plainly across their faces as they watched impossible regeneration occur in real-time.

"What..." Elder Wu’s composure finally cracked. "What manner of monster are you?"

Liam’s response was to raise his hand, fingers moving in deliberate patterns as he formed seals he’d only seen once before. He was copying Elder Wu’s technique, the Blooming Lotus Strike, recreating the complex spiritual formations from memory alone.

But why settle for a mere copy when he could improve it?

His Dao Array Eyes had seen through the technique’s fundamental structure the moment Elder Wu had unleashed it. Every flow of spiritual energy, every formation point, every weakness in the design, all of it laid bare before his enhanced perception like words on a page.

And if he could see it, he could recreate it. And if he could recreate it, he could perfect it.

Instead of pink petals forming above him, iridescent ones materialized—hundreds of them, each one glowing with colors that shifted and swirled like oil on water. But these weren’t mere spiritual constructs. Liam had woven his unique energy into the technique’s foundation, fundamentally altering its nature.

The pressure emanating from the petals made both Nascent Soul cultivators take an involuntary step backward.

"Impossible," the second Elder whispered, his face going pale. "That’s our organization’s core technique. Only those who’ve reached Golden Core after decades of training can learn the Blooming Lotus arts. You couldn’t have—"

"Just from seeing it?" Liam finished, his smile widening. "I did more than learn it. I made it better."

The implications crashed over both Elders like a physical wave. This goes talent or genius. This was something beyond their comprehension. It was a monstrous ability that threatened the very foundations of their cultivation world. Someone who could steal and improve techniques with a single glance?

If they allowed him to live, he would become unstoppable.

"Kill him!" Elder Wu roared, all pretense of measured confidence abandoned. "NOW!"

Both Nascent Soul cultivators moved as one, their spiritual energy erupting outward in desperate fury. Elder Wu’s hands blurred through seals, summoning a massive serpent of pure spiritual force that roared toward Liam with jaws wide enough to swallow a building.

The second Elder formed his own technique, as a cage of lightning descended from above, thousands of crackling bolts converging.

Liam brought his hand down with finality and the iridescent petals fell like rain, and reality itself seemed to scream.

Where Elder Wu’s version had been cutting blades of spiritual energy, Liam’s perfected technique was annihilation made manifest. Each petal not only cut,but also erased, breaking down whatever it touched at a fundamental level.

The massive serpent technique met the first wave of falling petals and simply disintegrated, its spiritual energy scattered like smoke in a hurricane.

The lightning cage fared no better. The moment the crackling bolts touched Liam’s petals, the electricity collapsed, the technique’s formation shattered, and the backlash sent the second Elder staggering backward with blood erupting from his mouth.

But Liam’s petals kept falling, an iridescent storm that filled the courtyard with deadly beauty.

Elder Wu threw up a desperate barrier, his spiritual energy forming layer after layer of defensive shields. The first petal that touched it carved through like paper. The second penetrated deeper. By the fifth, his outer defenses had been completely stripped away, and petals were beginning to score cuts across his skin.

"Impossible!" Elder Wu screamed, pouring more spiritual energy into his defenses even as they crumbled. "This technique shouldn’t be this powerful! What did you do to it?!"

"I told you," Liam said calmly, walking forward through his own technique as the petals parted around him like subjects bowing before their king. "I made it better."

The second Elder tried to flee, activating a movement technique that should have carried him beyond the courtyard in an eyeblink. But Liam’s telekinesis caught him mid-step, invisible force slamming him back down to the ground with bone-breaking force.

Before the man could rise, iridescent petals descended on him like a swarm of piranhas. He screamed as they began their work, each petal taking a piece of him. His flesh, bone, spiritual energy, all dissolved under their touch. His defensive techniques meant nothing and his Nascent Soul cultivation couldn’t protect him from the incompatibility aspect of Liam’s unique energy.

Within ten seconds, his screams cut off. Within twenty, nothing remained but a pool of dissolving matter that the petals continued to consume until even that was gone.

Elder Wu watched his companion’s death with wide, terrified eyes. He was still alive only because he’d managed to maintain some semblance of his defensive barriers, burning through his spiritual energy reserves at an unsustainable rate to keep the petals at bay.

But it was only delaying the inevitable.

"You’re a demon," Elder Wu gasped out, blood running from his nose and ears as the strain of maintaining his defenses took its toll. "A true demon wearing human skin."

"No," Liam corrected gently, still advancing at that same measured pace. "I’m just someone who doesn’t like it when people hurt my friends."

He clenched his fist, and the falling petals suddenly accelerated, their density increasing tenfold. Elder Wu’s defenses, already cracking under the sustained assault, shattered completely.

The Elder’s final scream was brief.

When the petals finally dispersed, leaving only faintly glowing motes of light that faded into nothing, Elder Wu was gone. Like his companion, there wasn’t even a body left behind, except empty space.

Liam lowered his hand, the technique dissipating as casually as it had been summoned. He hadn’t even broken a sweat. The fight that had seemed so desperate just minutes ago, when he’d been restraining himself, had become trivial the moment he’d decided to actually try.

The courtyard fell silent except for the soft crackle of flames from destroyed buildings.

Liam stood alone among the ruins, surrounded by the accumulated carnage of his destruction of the Devouring Petal Pavilion.

Then spiritual pressure flooded the courtyard from five different directions simultaneously.

Liam’s smile widened as five new figures emerged from the compound’s inner buildings, their robes marking them as Elders, their spiritual pressure identifying them as Nascent Soul cultivators.

They spread out in a perfect pentagonal formation, surrounding him, their faces grim with the knowledge of what they’d just witnessed.

"Five this time," Liam observed pleasantly. "The Pavilion Master must be getting desperate."

The centermost Elder, an elderly woman with white hair and eyes like chips of ice, spoke with a voice that carried absolute authority. "You have done enough. It’s time for you to die!"

"Same thing you all have been saying, just different phrasing. Just come at me," Liam said, with a bland look on his face.

His right hand moved toward empty space, fingers closing around a handle that materialized from nothing as he drew the Blade of Tiamat from his Dimensional Space.

In his left hand, the Essence Refining Flame erupted and wrapped it completely.

The five Elders’ expressions shifted from grim determination to a mix of curiosity and genuine fear.

While they didn’t recognise what the strange aura emanating from the weapon is from, the heat from the white flame felt extremely dangerous, and their senses horned from decades of surviving near death situations, told them that they will die if that flame touches them.

"Come then," he said softly, his voice carrying clearly despite its gentle tone. "Show me what five Nascent Soul cultivators can do when they’re fighting for their lives."

Without hesitation, he moved.

The Blade of Tiamat sang through the air as Liam launched himself forward, the white flames trailing from his left hand leaving burning afterimages in his wake.

The five Elders scattered, their formation breaking as they activated their techniques, spiritual energy flooding the courtyard in waves of devastating power.

And the battle began.