Chapter 41: The Last Push
Liam sat cross-legged in the oppressive darkness of the punishment hall, the cold stone floor pressing against his thighs like the weight of the entire academy bearing down on him.
The soul poison in the air was thick now, a silent predator that seeped into every pore, trying to erode his will and corrupt his aura from the inside out.
Yet Liam ignored the creeping numbness. His focus was razor-sharp, laser-focused on one impossible goal: forcing a complete connection between his aura veins and his brain.
He pushed harder.
The aura chain from his abdomen surged upward like a violet serpent fighting against a raging river. It threaded through his spine, coiling around each vertebra with deliberate, painful precision, before pushing into the delicate nerves of his brain stem.
The moment it touched, pain exploded like glass shattering inside his skull. It felt like his mind was breaking apart, sharp, electric agony ripping through every thought, every memory, every fragment of his consciousness.
His aura veins ruptured in several places along the way, sending wild, uncontrolled bursts of energy flooding his meridians like molten lava bursting through cracked earth.
"I feel my mind breaking…" Liam whispered through gritted teeth, voice hoarse and raw.
"My aura veins are rupturing… my brain nerves are bursting…"
Yet he laughed through the pain. A low, mad chuckle escaped his lips at first, growing into something wilder, more unhinged.
Waves of echo rippled through his entire body in rhythmic pulses, forcing the poisoned energy outward in dark, writhing strands that looked like living smoke expelled from his pores. The laughter echoed off the walls as if the punishment hall itself was laughing with his, a mad symphony of defiance in the face of agony.
Anki's voice trembled in their bond, filled with rare fear. Liam… this is too dangerous. You're tearing yourself apart from the inside.
But Liam didn't stop.
Like a tidal wave erupting from the depths of his soul, his talent fully awakened. A black hole opened in the center of his chest, a swirling vortex of pure abyss that sucked in, the surrounding soul poison and his own chaotic aura alike.
Shadows twisted violently around him, forming grotesque shapes. Glowing clones and shadowy goblin-like figures clawed their way out of the black hole, trying to erupt from his body in a frenzy of dark energy, their limbs stretching and tearing at his skin before dissolving back into him.
Liam's head moved in a wild frenzy, jerking left and right as the conflicting forces battled inside him. One side of his face hardened, skin darkening and cracking like cooled lava, while the other side remained flushed with violent, living energy.
Small patches of Albain flames suddenly appeared on his skin, flickering violet and black.
Then, without warning, he burst fully ablaze. The purple-black flames engulfed his entire body, burning away layers of the soul poison while simultaneously scorching his own flesh in a beautiful, terrifying display of self-destruction.
Liam didn't scream.
He laughed louder, the sound raw and unhinged, as if sanity was slowly slipping away from him.
Yet even in this state of near-madness, he didn't forget the process. The aura chains continued to weave, connecting brain stem to dantian in a dangerous, multi-point circuit that defied every law of cultivation he had ever known.
"Just one last push…" he muttered to himself, voice barely audible over the roaring flames and his own laughter.
Anki shouted in pure rage through the bond. "Stop, child of the abyss!"
His sword body vibrated violently, trying to force Liam to listen, but Liam didn't react.
His focus was absolute, unbreakable.
"Just the last step… I can feel it…"
Shadowy, ethereal hands suddenly stuck out from the black hole in his chest, clamped together in a prayer-like gesture.
Slowly, deliberately, Liam connected the final aura veins between his brain and abdomen.
The connection snapped into place with a soundless thunderclap inside his soul.
A massive burst of dark energy exploded outward, shaking the entire punishment grounds. The walls trembled violently.
Dust and small stones rained from the ceiling.
The soul poison in the air was violently repelled, forming a temporary clear zone around Liam as if the hall itself feared what he had become.
"Hahaha… I have done it!" Liam laughed in pure ecstasy. The flames died down instantly. All his techniques deactivated in one swift motion, leaving him sitting there, breathing heavily, covered in sweat and residual black energy that still crackled faintly across his skin.
"Yes, you have," a calm, unfamiliar voice replied right in front of his face, so close Liam could feel the faint stir of breath on his cheek.
Shock flooded Liam like ice water. He hadn't sensed anyone approaching. No flow of life. No fluctuation of energy. No trace of aura or presence whatsoever. It was as if the person didn't exist at all.
"How did he?!" Liam thought, slashing Anki upward toward the direction of the voice in one instinctive, fluid motion.
The blade cut through empty air with a sharp whistle.
The figure was gone like smoke.
"Hahaha… you're amazing, child. Who are you?" The voice now came from a distance, light and playful, yet impossible to pinpoint. It echoed from every direction at once, surrounding him completely.
Liam couldn't see the flow of life from him. He couldn't sense a single fluctuation of energy. It was as if the stranger existed outside the natural order, a ghost that defied every law of superhumans and perception.
"Liam, you need to run," Anki's voice came low and heavy, filled with rare, genuine alarm.
Liam stayed silent. He didn't answer the man. Instead, he turned on his heels and ran deeper into the punishment grounds, feet silent, body moving with the grace of someone who had already accepted the danger and chosen run from it.
"Why do you run?" The same voice spoke directly beside him, so close Liam could almost feel breath on his ear.
He slashed Anki again in a brutal, fluid arc, but the figure was already gone, vanished like mist before the blade could connect.
Liam realized instantly, he couldn't run away from this one. He came to a sudden halt and sent waves of echo pulsing out of his body in every direction, trying desperately to sense the presence.
Still nothing.
"Ha… you catch on real quick, I see," the voice spoke again, now directly in front of him, calm and almost affectionate.
A hand drove a blade deep into Liam's chest, clean, precise, and impossibly fast.
The strike was brutal yet fluid, like a dancer's final flourish.
Both Liam and Anki felt the shock ripple through them, the blade piercing straight through flesh and spirit alike.
"Ha I see… you have a regenerative talent," the voice laughed softly, kicking Liam hard to the side with effortless power.
Liam's body embedded into the far wall with a deafening crash, arms spread wide like a crucified figure, stone cracking around him.
"Who the hell is this guy?" Liam wondered through the searing pain, but for some reason he couldn't break free.
The blade in his chest seemed to suppress his regeneration completely, pinning him in place like a specimen on display.
"Don't stress. You will be following me today," the voice said calmly, almost kindly.
The figure closed in like a ghost, movements brutal and fluid at the same time, a perfect blend of violence and grace.
He stuck his fist just above Liam's collarbone with pinpoint accuracy. The strike was deceptively light, yet it knocked Liam out instantly, darkness swallowing his vision in a single heartbeat.
"Welcome to the punishment hall, child," the voice said softly, pulling Liam free from the wall like nothing.
"It's time to face your punishment."
The mysterious figure carried Liam deeper into the grounds, walking with the steady, unstoppable gait of a mighty boulder rolling downhill, unhurried, unstoppable, and utterly inevitable.
Liam's unconscious body dangled limply over the stranger's shoulder as they disappeared into the darkest depths of the punishment hall, where even the academy's records held no answers and the shadows themselves seemed to bow.