Legacy of Hatred-Chapter 137: Basement

Ensuring Mitchell’s safety had given Liam no time to protect himself. He was caught in the blast, flying away among a wave of sharp splinters.

Luckily, that ringing noise had only affected the tree, but the shockwave it produced was no less painful. Liam felt as if a mountain had slammed into him, making his very insides shake, sending his awareness into disarray for two whole seconds.

However, Liam regained his senses by the third second, finding himself in the air, falling at high speed toward the lake of debris. He felt numb and in pain, but his instincts kicked in to deal with the imminent crash.

Liam spun mid-air, landing on his legs, immediately rolling due to the accumulated momentum. The wooden debris snapped, crumbled, and poked at him during that uncontrollable advance, drowning him, until his body came to a halt.

The dust the crash had lifted hindered Liam’s view and prompted a cough, but he quickly jumped out of the hole he had created, resurfacing atop the layer of debris, sending rotten wood flying everywhere.

The groove Liam had dug through the lake failed to catch his attention when he spotted a familiar face among the darkness in the distance. Cecilia was at the swamp’s edge, looking straight at him.

Before Liam could think, Cecilia shot ahead, waving her hand, which flashed with the same light the red moon above radiated, sending a ringing noise toward him.

Liam instinctively jumped backward, reacting in time now that he could prioritize himself. The ringing noise quickly intensified, and the wooden debris in his previous position began to tremble before unleashing another explosion.

A shockwave that sent splinters everywhere unfolded, forcing Liam to cross his arms in front of his face to block anything that reached him. However, as soon as his feet touched the debris, he turned to start running.

Questions about how Cecilia had found Liam, how he had failed to hear her in time, or what was causing those explosions crossed his mind, only to take the backseat. None of that mattered in the face of looming death.

Liam also already had a plan. It was the same strategy he had deployed that morning. The swamp encircled that open area of debris, and reaching it could give him a chance to escape.

Nevertheless, Liam heard the ringing as soon as he headed for the closest trees. The noise even intensified right in front of him until the rotten wood there started shaking.

Liam made a U-turn before the explosion could unfold, his reaction speed allowing him to escape the shockwave completely this time. However, after a mere handful of seconds, the ringing returned, forcing him to change direction again.

And a trend soon became evident. Whenever Liam tried to head for the swamp, the ringing would return, halting his advance with its violent blasts. Clearly, that was by design, revealing intentions a hunter like Liam couldn’t possibly miss.

Liam had no idea how Cecilia was causing those explosions, but knew what she was trying to achieve. She wanted to keep him in the open, trapping him on that lake of debris like he had done many times with his prey. 𝘧𝓇ℯℯ𝑤ℯ𝘣𝓃ℴ𝓋𝑒𝑙.𝑐𝘰𝑚

Yet, Liam was no prey. He wasn’t a mere herbivore who could only think about running away. Survival was the goal, but his brain had to consider strategies beyond merely escaping to achieve it.

Cecilia seemed able to launch those explosive noises nonstop, and she was also coming. There appeared to be a cooldown to the blasts, but Liam had calculated that the windows weren’t big enough to reach the swamp.

Still, it also seemed that the ringing couldn’t affect Liam directly. Cecilia would have already used it on him otherwise. He couldn’t be sure, but it sounded like a safe gamble to make after witnessing five of those explosions.

So, as long as Liam kept dodging the blasts, Cecilia’s only way of killing him was through direct methods.

And Liam accepted that Cecilia would reach him. It was an unavoidable result. She was faster anyway, and those explosions had almost wasted any initial advantage he could have used to reach the swamp before her.

But Liam wasn’t completely powerless yet. He couldn’t avoid the encounter, but he had a chance to delay it long enough to choose where to face it.

The split-second decision made Liam perform a sharp turn before any noise could reach his ears. He changed direction again, heading for the half-collapsed buildings on the lake of debris.

The lack of any apparent escape route didn’t stop the ringing. Even if Liam wasn’t trying to head for the swamp, that noise reached his ears, crossing his figure to intensify in a spot in front of him.

That was Cecilia’s way of cutting Liam’s advance to keep him trapped long enough for her to reach him. However, Liam had bet on that, and his figure accelerated instead of turning.

Once again, Liam’s proclivity to improve faster in real situations over safe environments showed itself. The heated moment shrunk the asynchrony between body and Qi a bit further, bringing his figure beyond the trembling debris before the explosion could unfold.

And once the explosion unfolded, Liam let the shockwave slam on his back to increase his speed even further, gaining on the incoming rooting expert for the first time since her sudden arrival.

Of course, that wasn’t enough to lose Cecilia. She regained on Liam in no time, sending two more explosions toward him in quick succession, only for both to fail to halt his advance or make him turn.

The small ground Liam had gained allowed him to slip by the explosions, their shockwaves hitting his sides without altering his course in any meaningful way. He basically bounced between the two, but his advance remained relatively straight, leading him to his intended destination.

Liam finally reached the half-destroyed buildings, which turned out to be part of a singular, vast structure. He saw broken walls, collapsed ceilings, non-existent upper floors, and piles of wooden debris, which occasionally still carried the Church of the Man’s iconic white shades.

Nevertheless, Liam didn’t stop to inspect anything, diving toward the rotten door on one of the still-standing walls, directly slamming into it to save as much time as possible.

The door exploded outward, its rotten wood unable to pose any hindrance. Liam entered what looked like a vast hall with two half-collapsed stairs at its sides leading nowhere, since the upper floor didn’t exist anymore.

Red light also leaked from the holes in the tall ceiling, but Liam found what he needed in the opposite direction.

Doors and collapsed openings stood on the wall on the opposite side of the hall, but Liam went for the partially covered holes in the floor. He jumped into the closest one, landing in a dark, dusty basement.

The dusty cloud Liam lifted didn’t hinder his view of the spoiled supplies in the basement’s corners. He even saw barrels, but ignored all that to head for the wall further away from the holes above.

And, as soon as Liam reached that surface, a crash unfolded behind him. Another hole had opened on the ceiling since Cecilia had stomped her way into the basement, now standing at its center, calmly brushing off dust from her red robe.

Liam was cornered, without any way out anymore, stuck inside a mostly isolated space, which was his exact strategy. That place with poor ventilation was the best battlefield the area could provide.

After all, since escaping was impossible, Liam knew he only had one way of surviving. He had to kill Cecilia.