Chapter 418: Fighting For Their Lives (2)

The survivors hadn’t moved. They stood frozen at the far end of the courtyard, weapons still raised but hands trembling. Fear painted their faces in stark relief, the professional masks they’d worn at the battle’s start completely shattered.

Liam took a step forward.

That single movement broke whatever spell had held them in place. Three assassins bolted, abandoning their companions without hesitation as they sprinted for the side exits. The rest charged, desperation overcoming their terror in a final, futile assault.

Twelve Foundation Establishment assassins rushed him in a ragged formation, all coordination abandoned in favor of raw survival instinct. They attacked with the frenzy of cornered animals.

A woman reached him first, her twin short swords moving in a blur as she channeled everything she had into a desperate flurry of strikes. The blades came from every angle, seeking any opening and any hope of landing a killing blow.

Liam’s hand shot out, catching her wrist mid-strike. He yanked her forward, using her momentum against her, and drove his knee into her sternum. Bone shattered with a sound like breaking branches. Her eyes went wide, blood exploding from her mouth as her ribcage collapsed inward, fragments of bone puncturing her lungs and heart.

He released her and she dropped, drowning in her own blood.

Two more assassins attacked simultaneously from opposite sides. One swung a massive war hammer wreathed in golden spiritual energy, the weapon’s head the size of a man’s torso. The other wielded a chain whip, the links crackling with lightning as it snaked through the air toward Liam’s throat.

Liam ducked under the whip, feeling the lightning-charged links pass inches above his head. His hand shot up, catching the chain mid-arc. Electricity surged through his body, enough voltage to stop a normal person’s heart, but his constitution absorbed it like water into sand.

He yanked hard on the chain, pulling the wielder off balance. At the same moment, the war hammer descended toward his skull with enough force to crater the courtyard stones.

Liam released the chain and rolled forward, the hammer’s head smashing into the ground where he’d been standing a heartbeat before. Stone exploded, fragments flying outward like shrapnel. The impact created a crater two feet deep.

But Liam was already moving. He came out of his roll directly in front of the chain whip wielder, too close for the man to bring his weapon to bear. Liam’s palm strike caught him square in the chest, his unique energy and physical force combining to devastating effect.

The assassin’s chest cavity imploded. His sternum shattered, driving inward to crush his heart and lungs into pulp. Blood erupted from his mouth, nose, and ears simultaneously. He was dead before his body hit the ground.

The hammer wielder tried to reverse his weapon’s momentum, bringing it back around for another strike. Liam’s telekinesis caught the massive hammer mid-swing and ripped it from the man’s grip, sending the weapon spinning through the air to embed itself in a far wall.

The assassin barely had time to register his weapon’s loss before Liam’s fist drove into his throat, crushing his windpipe like parchment. The man fell, hands clawing at his ruined throat, choking on blood and broken cartilage.

An assassin on the courtyard’s eastern wall had been preparing something, his spiritual energy building for what must have been nearly a minute. Now he released it—a massive serpent of pure spiritual force that roared across the courtyard, its jaws wide enough to swallow a man whole.

Liam punched the serpent’s head.

His fist connected with the spiritual construct, and for a moment the two forces struggled against each other, Liam’s physical strength and his own spiritual energy meeting the assassin’s technique head-on. Then the serpent’s head shattered like glass, the destruction racing backward along its length until the entire technique exploded in a burst of dispersing energy.

The backlash hit the assassin like a physical blow. He screamed as his own spiritual energy turned against him, his meridians rupturing from the feedback. Blood poured from his mouth as he collapsed, his cultivation foundation destroyed by his own technique’s failure.

Four assassins attacked in perfect unison, their weapons forming a deadly cage of steel around Liam. A sword from above, a spear from the left, a saber from the right, daggers from behind. Each strike aimed to kill, the coordination so precise that dodging one attack would guarantee the others landed.

Liam’s racial aura condensed even further, the pressure focusing into a sphere around his body so dense it became visible as a faint distortion in the air. The four weapons struck this invisible barrier simultaneously.

Metal shrieked against the condensed aura and sparks flew. The sword blade snapped, unable to withstand the force of impact against an immovable surface. The spear’s shaft cracked, then splintered. The saber bent at an impossible angle before its wielder was forced to release it. The daggers simply bounced off, rebounding with enough force to tear themselves from their wielder’s grip.

Before the four assassins could react to their weapons’ failure, Liam’s hands moved in rapid succession.

His right hand shot out, fingers rigid, and drove through the swordsman’s eye socket into his brain. He pulled his hand back and the body dropped.

His left hand caught the spear wielder’s throat, lifted the man off his feet, and slammed him down onto the courtyard stones with enough force to shatter his spine. The cracking of vertebrae echoed across the courtyard.

He spun, his elbow catching the saber wielder in the temple. The skull caved inward, brain matter and blood exploding outward from the impact site. The body crumpled like a discarded puppet.

The dagger wielder tried to run. Liam’s telekinesis caught him mid-step, lifted him into the air, and brought him back. The assassin floated there, suspended, his legs kicking uselessly as he tried to find purchase on empty air.

Liam walked toward him slowly, deliberately, letting the man feel every second of his approaching death. When he reached the suspended assassin, he placed both hands on either side of the man’s head.

Then he twisted.

The neck snapped with a sharp crack. The body went limp. Liam released his telekinetic grip and the corpse fell to join the others littering the courtyard.

Three assassins remained standing, their backs pressed against the compound’s far wall, their weapons lowered. They’d given up. Their eyes held the hollow look of men who’d accepted death was coming and simply wanted it to be quick.

But the three who’d fled earlier had reached the side exits, thinking they’d found escape. The doors wouldn’t open, as Liam’s telekinesis held them shut.

They pounded on the wooden barriers, spiritual energy flooding their attacks as they tried to blast through. Wood splintered but the doors remained closed, Liam’s will absolute.

One of them turned back toward the courtyard, saw Liam watching them, and screamed. It was a sound of pure despair.

Liam raised his hand and the three doors exploded inward simultaneously, the force of the detonation catching all three fleeing assassins. Wood fragments became shrapnel, punching through their bodies like arrows. They collapsed in the doorways, bleeding from dozens of wounds.

One still lived, crawling forward with his remaining strength, leaving a trail of blood behind him. His legs didn’t work anymore, torn apart by the wooden shrapnel, but he pulled himself forward with his arms, inch by agonizing inch.

Liam walked over, each footstep echoing in the sudden silence. He looked down at the crawling man, watched him struggle for another few seconds, then simply stepped on his head.

The skull gave way with a wet crunch.

He turned back to the final three assassins against the wall. They hadn’t moved, hadn’t tried to flee or attack. They simply stood there, waiting.

Liam approached them slowly. The first assassin closed his eyes, accepting what was coming. Liam’s fist drove through his chest, pulverizing everything behind the ribcage. The body slid off his arm and collapsed.

The second assassin opened his mouth, perhaps to beg or to curse, but Liam’s hand was already moving. His fingers closed around the man’s throat and squeezed until the windpipe collapsed completely. The assassin’s face went purple, then blue, his mouth working soundlessly as he suffocated. Liam held him there until the light left his eyes, then released the corpse.

The final assassin was a young man, probably not even thirty years old. His face was pale, tears streaming down his cheeks, but he stood straight, meeting Liam’s gaze despite the terror in his eyes.

"Make it quick," the young assassin whispered.

Liam studied him for a moment, seeing genuine courage beneath the fear. This one hadn’t fled, hadn’t begged. He’d stood his ground knowing he would die, asking only for a clean end.

Liam’s hand moved like lightning, his fingers forming a blade that drove up under the assassin’s ribcage and into his heart. The death was instant, painless. The young man’s eyes went wide for just a heartbeat, then empty. His body slumped forward and Liam caught it, lowering it gently to the ground rather than letting it fall.

He straightened and surveyed the courtyard. Bodies were everywhere, blood pooled between the stones and the smell of death thick in the air.

Liam walked toward the compound’s main building, his footsteps leaving bloody prints on the stone. The entrance doors stood open, darkness beyond promising whatever elite forces the Devouring Petal Pavilion had left.

He’d just placed his foot on the first step when a figure erupted from the shadows beside the doorway.

The attack came with no warning, as the next moment an Elder stood there, his palm already in motion, spiritual energy condensed to a single devastating point.

The strike caught Liam square in the chest with enough force to send him flying backward. He sailed through the air, crashed through the courtyard wall in an explosion of stone and mortar, and tumbled across the street beyond in a cloud of dust and debris.

For a moment, silence.

Then Liam stood up from the rubble, dust cascading off his shoulders. He brushed debris from his clothes with casual motions.

And he smiled.

It was the expression of a man who’d just found exactly what he’d been looking for—a worthy opponent, a real challenge, something that might actually make this interesting.

The Elder stood in the compound entrance, his robes unmarked, his breathing even, his spiritual pressure radiating outward in waves that made the air shimmer.

Liam knew that this was no ordinary member of the organization. This was power that dwarfed everything Liam had faced since arriving in Crimson Valley.

He smile widened as he started walking back toward the compound, blood dripping from a cut on his lip where the impact had split it.

Finally, this was getting entertaining.