Chapter 417: Fighting For Their Lives

The courtyard was a killing ground designed for exactly this purpose. Thirty assassins stood in a perfect formation, their weapons drawn, their spiritual energy already flooding their bodies in preparation.

Behind them, another twenty archers lined the compound’s inner walls, arrows nocked, the tips glowing with condensed spiritual energy.

Fifty trained killers, each one Foundation Establishment realm or higher, coordinated and prepared. Against any normal Golden Core cultivator, this would be overwhelming force.

Against Liam, it was merely interesting.

The moment his foot crossed the threshold, the archers released.

Twenty spiritual arrows screamed through the air, their trajectories calculated to eliminate any escape route. Each arrow carried enough power to punch through steel, their paths converging on Liam from multiple angles simultaneously.

Liam’s hand moved in a blur. His telekinesis caught all twenty arrows mid-flight, freezing them in the air for a heartbeat before reversing their momentum. The arrows shot back toward their sources with twice their original speed.

Screams echoed from the walls as the archers tried desperately to dodge their own attacks. Some succeeded. Most didn’t. Bodies tumbled from the ramparts, arrows buried in throats, chests, eyes. Six archers died in that first exchange, their blood painting the stone walls red.

But the ground assault had already begun.

The thirty assassins moved as one, their formation splitting into three coordinated strike teams. Ten attacked from the front in a direct assault, overwhelming force meant to occupy his attention. Ten circled left, their movements synchronized perfectly. The final ten went right, completing an encirclement that left no escape.

They were fast, fisciplined and professional.

The front team reached him first, their blades coming from every angle in a coordinated pattern designed to force him into blocking positions that would leave him vulnerable to the flanking teams. A sword thrust toward his throat. A spear aimed at his kidney. Daggers seeking the gaps in any defense he might mount.

Liam’s fist shot forward, catching the sword thrust and shattering the blade with the impact. His other hand grabbed the spear shaft, yanked it forward, pulling the wielder off balance, then drove his palm into the assassin’s chest. Ribs cracked like kindling. The man flew backward, crashed into two companions, all three tumbling across the courtyard in a tangle of limbs.

But he’d been forced to focus on those attacks, and the flanking teams had closed the distance.

A blade scored across his back, cutting through cloth and leaving a shallow slash across his skin. Another caught his thigh, drawing blood. A third assassin’s technique, a some kind of energy blade, carved into his shoulder, actually cutting deeper than the physical weapons had managed.

Liam’s racial aura exploded outward.

The crushing pressure slammed into all thirty assassins simultaneously, dropping half of them to their knees. The weaker Foundation Establishment cultivators collapsed completely, their bodies pressed flat against the courtyard stones, unable to move under the overwhelming force.

But the stronger ones managed to resist a bit. Their spiritual energy surged, creating defensive shells that pushed back against the aura’s weight. It wasn’t enough to move freely, but it was enough to keep fighting.

And they did.

A spear thrust up from ground level, aimed at Liam’s groin. He twisted aside, and the blade scored another cut across his hip. An assassin who’d managed to roll within striking distance drove a dagger toward his Achilles tendon. Liam’s foot lashed out, catching the man in the face, shattering his jaw and sending teeth flying.

The remaining archers on the walls had recovered from the initial shock. New arrows flew, these ones wrapped in spiritual techniques. They couldn’t aim as precisely under the oppressive weight of Liam’s aura, but fourteen arrows from multiple angles was still dangerous.

Liam’s telekinesis caught most of them. But two slipped through, one embedding itself in his calf, the other grazing his neck. The wounds were shallow but the techniques attached to the arrows detonated, spiritual energy exploding against his flesh.

Blood ran from multiple cuts now. Nothing serious, nothing that truly threatened him, but more damage than he’d taken in the entire street massacre combined.

"Formation!" One of the assassins—a woman with a scar across her face—shouted the command despite the crushing pressure. "Pattern Seven!"

The assassins who could still move shifted positions, their movements suddenly more coordinated despite their obvious struggle. They’d trained for this, practiced fighting while suppressed, learned to operate under impossible conditions.

Six assassins formed a circle around Liam, their spiritual energy linking together in visible strands that connected them into a unified whole. Their individual power multiplied, feeding into a combined assault that came from all directions simultaneously.

Six blades struck at once, each one aimed at a vital point, the attacks synchronized perfectly so that blocking one would guarantee at least three others landed.

Liam’s response was brutal and efficient.

His telekinesis lashed out, not trying to stop all six attacks but instead targeting the assassin directly in front of him. The invisible force seized the man and yanked him forward, directly into Liam’s waiting fist. The punch drove through the assassin’s chest, spiritual energy and physical force combining to obliterate everything behind the ribcage. Blood exploded from the man’s back as Liam’s fist emerged, still clenched around fragments of shattered bone.

He pulled his hand back and the corpse dropped. The formation’s connection shattered with one link broken, the remaining five assassins suddenly vulnerable as their combined technique collapsed.

Liam moved through them like death incarnate. His hand caught one woman’s throat and crushed it. His elbow drove into another assassin’s temple, caving in the skull. His knee shattered a third assassin’s spine.

The fourth died when Liam simply grabbed his head and twisted until the neck bones gave way with a series of wet cracks. The fifth managed to stumble backward, trying to create distance, but Liam’s hand shot out, fingers extended, and punched through the man’s eye socket into his brain.

The archers released another volley, desperation evident in their lack of coordination. Liam’s telekinesis was waiting, and this time he didn’t bother catching the arrows. He simply redirected them, sending all fourteen arrows into a tight cluster of assassins who’d been trying to regroup near the courtyard’s eastern wall.

The arrows struck with devastating precision. Throats opened. Chests punctured. One arrow punched completely through a man’s skull and embedded itself in the assassin behind him. Four died instantly, three more collapsed with mortal wounds.

But even as bodies fell, the assassins kept coming.

Two more rushed in from Liam’s blind spot, their daggers coated in a poison so potent it visibly corroded the metal beneath. One blade drove toward his kidney while the other sought his spine. Both were Foundation Establishment peak, their speed and precision marking them as elite even among this already deadly group.

Liam spun, catching one wrist and redirecting the blade so it plunged into the second assassin’s gut instead. The poisoned dagger sank to the hilt. The second assassin’s eyes went wide, blood bubbling from his lips as the toxin went to work immediately, liquefying his internal organs.

The first assassin tried to pull back, but Liam still held his wrist. He yanked the man forward and drove his forehead into the assassin’s face. The nose shattered on impact. Cartilage and bone fragments driven backward into the brain. The assassin dropped, dead before he hit the ground.

A sword caught Liam across the ribs, the blade enhanced with a technique that allowed it to bite deeper than it should have. Blood flowed freely from the wound. Another assassin’s palm strike landed on his back, spiritual energy erupting against his spine. The force drove him forward a half-step—the first time anything had moved him since Elder Shen.

He turned toward that assassin, a man whose face showed satisfaction at landing a solid hit. That satisfaction died when he saw Liam’s expression hadn’t changed at all.

Liam’s hand shot out, grabbed the front of the man’s robes, and yanked him close. His other hand formed a blade with fingers extended, and he drove it up under the ribcage and hot blood gushed over his hand as he ripped it back out, bringing the still-beating heart with it.

The assassin’s eyes went glassy. His body convulsed once, then went limp as Liam let him drop.

Three assassins attacked in perfect unison, their techniques combining into a single devastating assault. One unleashed a wave of fire that should have incinerated everything in its path. Another sent forth a barrage of ice spears to follow behind the flames, the temperature difference designed to shatter any defenses. The third assassin’s technique was pure force, a compression of spiritual energy that would crush anything caught between the two elemental attacks.

Liam’s racial aura condensed around his body like armor, and he walked straight through their combined assault.

The flames parted around him, unable to penetrate his aura’s protective shell. The ice spears shattered against the invisible barrier. The compression technique collapsed, spiritual energy dissipating harmlessly.

He reached the first assassin—the one who’d used fire—and grabbed his head with both hands. He twisted. The neck snapped. The body dropped.

The second assassin tried to flee. Liam’s telekinesis caught him mid-step, lifted him into the air, and slammed him down onto the courtyard stones with enough force to crack the paving. The assassin’s back broke on impact, spine severed, legs going limp. He tried to crawl away using just his arms, blood trailing behind him. Liam stepped on his head. Skull fragments and brain matter spread across the stones.

The third assassin had frozen, his courage finally breaking as he watched his companions die. Liam walked toward him slowly, deliberately, giving the man time to understand what was coming.

"Please—" the assassin managed.

Liam’s fist drove through his chest, punching out his back. He pulled his hand back and the body collapsed like a puppet with cut strings.

The remaining assassins had fallen back to the far end of the courtyard. Their formation was broken, their coordination shattered, their will crumbling as they watched Liam walk through everything they threw at him.

Blood covered him now, most of it not his own. The cuts and wounds he’d taken had already closed, not even leaving scars.

He looked at the survivors, at their faces painted with fear and desperation, and smiled.

"Who’s next?"