Chapter 321: Demon |
Gales of raging Qi blew, ravaging anything they touched with their wild, powerful density, be it metal, flesh, or darkness.
The ethereal arrow had pierced the metal token, shattering it, and the explosion had taken out two more of those items, blowing away many more.
The explosion also dug through the dark membrane expanding from the smallest circle, destroying it, revealing the tainted tiles underneath, which lost their black shades without that insidious cover, regaining their original white color.
As for the rooting experts, they were defenseless, so the explosion killed three on the spot and injured more. The wild gales just cut through their flesh, breaking it, burning it. Only a mangled, unrecognizable corpse was left of the cultivator closer to the targeted token.
Liam didn’t immediately fire again to check whether his destruction actually achieved anything, and confirmation soon arrived.
With the tokens gone and misplaced, a chunk of the three circles faded, creating a gap in those concentric inscriptions with consequences that stretched to the altar.
Even if the explosion had only destroyed part of the membrane, the gap in the concentric circles failed to fuel the darkness already on the altar. A V-shaped area was cleared on that large column, spots of whiteness expanding among the blackness inside it.
That wasn’t the altar fighting back. Liam felt it clearly in the energies at work in the scene. The inheritance had already lost. It was all about overcoming whatever intrinsic opposition its framework posed.
However, despite that process continuing, the circles’ partial destruction slowed it down. The blackness on the coffin even halted for a second before resuming rising at a lower pace, seemingly struggling now that some of its fuel was gone.
In Liam’s mind, it was all about inflicting as much damage as possible so that the overtaking would stop entirely, but his checking whether his approach was working allowed the other side to react.
The ethereal arrow hit a token dead center and exploded, affecting more of those items, but a golden light began to shine among that encirclement, quickly assuming a peculiar shape.
A series of mirror-like objects formed around and among the group. They were heptagonal, ethereal, and connected to each other, creating an intricate, compound golden dome.
The gales of Qi slammed on those golden objects, only for them to flicker while blocking the attack, protecting the sitting cultivators. The dome even shielded some tokens, albeit that was more of a lucky outcome.
Another chunk of the concentric circles faded, the dark membrane stemming from it evaporating, clearing a V-shaped area that rose toward the altar. Some whiteness reappeared, and even the other gap removed more of the blackness.
The inscriptions had lost significant power, but Liam couldn’t rejoice. There simply wasn’t anything good about the situation.
The blackness on the coffin was still moving, but its rise had slowed down to a crawl. Liam had taken out over five tokens, but the process had yet to stop.
On top of that, Liam’s nape tingled to no end. His first arrow had taken lives, but there were still over twenty white-wearing rooting experts around the altar, and they were all looking at him now, be it directly or through their perception.
Liam might have been in a hurry to stop the Church from seizing the inheritance, but he now had to deal with the consequences of his greed, and the odds couldn’t have been more terrible.
The problem wasn’t even that Liam hadn’t thought things through. The situation simply left him with no other options.
And shouts were the first thing Liam had to deal with.
"Who are you?!"
"What are you doing in the Church’s secret ground?!"
"Why are you interrupting the Church’s work?!"
The rooting experts shouted that and more, but that was only the first round. Many hadn’t had time to study the entirety of the situation because they had to prioritize defending against the arrow, but the truly troubling details soon became impossible to ignore.
A series of screams resounded. The first arrow had injured several cultivators, tearing and burning their flesh, at times even ripping off limbs, and the pain finally caught up with them.
Gasps followed as everyone else noticed their companions’ condition and the mangled corpses on the floor, changing the nature of the shouts.
"Murderer!"
"He’s after the inheritance!"
"Kill the demon!"
There was no room for conversation, not that it would have changed anything. The cultivators might not have been aware of what Liam had done outside the Cathedral, but even its heart had proof of his enmity now, and the response was swift.
The golden dome was fading, but Liam stored the bow anyway, snapping his sleeve at the group instead.
Five Cloud Pills reached the central altar before any of the white-wearing cultivators could move, exploding into tides of yellow smoke as soon as they touched those heptagonal mirrors.
If there was one silver lining to the whole predicament, it was that the hall was completely isolated. A crack of the blackness Liam had crossed stood on the wall behind him, but there were no doors or windows otherwise.
The hall might be huge, but Liam could still turn it into a deadly environment that only he could navigate.
But a numerical advantage involved more than simple superior power, especially when it came to cultivators. It also brought diversity to the arsenal to defeat.
The yellow cloud barely had time to expand when a humming shockwave blew it away, revealing how the rooting experts had already assumed a battle formation. Seven were sitting, still focusing on the incomplete concentric circles, but the others had stood up and were targeting Liam.
And before Liam could even consider his next step, several of those standing rooting experts lifted their arms at him, golden light gathering in their palms to release a series of beaming bullets.