Legacy of Hatred-Chapter 81: Stuck

Randall quickly stood up, distancing himself from the hill, before relaxing enough to pat his robe to remove the dirt that had darkened it.

Liam didn’t care about his appearance but stretched his right shoulder at that sight, suppressing a grunt. His robe was torn all over, and scratches littered his body, but nothing was as serious as that limb.

Of course, the location took the crown there. The chamber was vast but empty. Except for the collapsed wall replaced by the hill of debris, its other surfaces were intact and smooth, but also lacked any visible door or passage.

It seemed Liam and Randall had escaped the deadly collapse only to end up stuck in a place without exits, with the intended way out probably gone, replaced by that hill-like pile of debris.

Nevertheless, being stuck was better than whatever the previous events had featured. Without terrifying magical beasts to be wary of, Liam could finally throw a proper look at his surroundings and allow a few subconscious considerations to enter the conscious side of his mind.

’How big is this place?’ Liam wondered, his first doubts involving that underground structure’s size.

That was Liam’s second time dealing with the Divine Cult, and his first experience had featured a far smaller environment. A fraction of what he had run through was already far bigger than the secret place that had stolen months from his life.

’Was this a more important location?’ Liam considered. ’Was the Divine Cult more widespread back then? Does that only apply to these areas of the Kingdom?’

Answers didn’t arrive. Nothing in the environment could provide them. The intact surfaces even prevented Liam from guessing how old that place was. Clearly, cultivators built durable stuff.

Liam could only guess that the secret location had a different purpose from his previous prison. It could have still contained kidnapped kids to brainwash, but it also had to have featured more due to all that additional space.

’Maybe it really was a proper Sect,’ Liam thought. ’Just an evil secret one.’ 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

Liam’s imagination didn’t go off. His thoughts remained on more real and current problems, and his gaze eventually met Randall’s. The latter seemed to have finished his inspection of the surroundings, too, leaving him with only one question.

"Do you see a way out?" Randall asked.

Liam shook his head, bringing his attention back to the smooth surfaces. He truly didn’t want to remain stuck down there, especially in such poor company, but his eyes were of no help.

The problems didn’t even end there. The path Neil and the others had blocked had probably been the right one. Melissa’s previous reaction hinted as much. She was also nowhere to be seen, painting quite the grim picture.

Liam and Randall weren’t only lost. They had also taken the wrong turn, delving quite deeply into it, while the only person who might know that environment’s layout was missing.

’Is Melissa dead?’ Liam wondered. ’We survived, so she might have, too, but ...’

Searching for Melissa wasn’t a viable goal. Liam wouldn’t even know where to begin to do that, so it was better to act as if he and Randall were on their own.

"I’ll try something," Liam eventually announced, approaching one of the hill’s corners to begin knocking on the wall.

Liam proceeded to repeat the action throughout the wall, only to move to the next two afterward. Sadly, no odd noises resounded, and his disappointment was evident enough for Randall to notice it.

"Junior Brother, what were you expecting to find?" Randall sighed despite having stayed silent during Liam’s inspection. "The way back is probably behind this rubble."

"Maybe," Liam commented, too immersed in his thoughts to address Randall properly.

Liam knew better than to trust smooth walls after his experience with the Divine Cult. Yet, what he had in mind wasn’t exactly safe, and succeeding in getting out promised to be even worse. After all, escaping would leave him exposed on the wrong path again.

However, doing nothing wasn’t an option. Liam had enough of being trapped in his life, and staying still only delayed the inevitable.

So, Liam glanced at the ceiling. That tall surface had endured the previous mess without suffering a single crack, so it could probably withstand what Liam had in mind.

’How did I not break anything after that fall?’ Liam casually thought, lowering his gaze. ’Now, if I were a secret door, where would I be?’

Liam had no clues to follow, so he used math. Due to the hill of debris, it was unclear how long two of the walls were, but the third was perfectly visible in its entirety, and Liam approached its center.

’It’s around here,’ Liam calculated, checking his left and right to confirm that he was at the wall’s center.

Randall watched curiously, a tinge of hope forming inside him. Despite the rocky first meeting, Randall knew that Liam was somewhat special, and that wasn’t only due to his cultivation talent.

Liam had uncanny battle prowess and sharpness. He had heard the rats before Milo’s martial arts, and he had even had the guts to attack that terrifying snake, saving Melissa in the process.

Everything had happened too quickly for Randall to comment on it, but he had noticed it nonetheless, changing the way in which he viewed Liam. The latter clearly had surprising qualities, and one of those could help the two get out of that situation.

However, that mental praise crumbled when Randall saw what Liam was up to. His eyes went wide as Liam donned his battle stance and slammed his palm onto the wall, digging a hole through it while cracks grew from its edges.

The martial art didn’t cause any shocking results, but Randall still steadied himself and inspected his surroundings, paying special attention to the ceiling. Nothing had trembled or broken, but that didn’t change the reckless nature of Liam’s action.

"Are you mental?!" Randall cried, scolding. "Do you wish to bury us alive? Was the first time not enough?!"

"Do you have a better idea?" Liam asked, turning to nod at the hill of debris. "Digging through that is more likely to cause another collapse, so I say we start here first."

That wasn’t the issue for Randall at all, but Liam didn’t even consider it. His face showed no fear toward a second collapse and the possibility of being buried alive. It was as if the thought of his own death couldn’t bother him in the slightest.

Of course, Randall took that for cluelessness, which forced him to come up with an alternative. "We could wait. We are inner disciples, and you are a miraculous talent. The Elders will come to save us once they learn where we are."

Unknowingly to Randall, his reasonable take featured a word that triggered the same chilling face he had seen during the spar.

"I don’t get saved," Liam declared, his body spinning back toward the wall to deliver an even stronger Seismic Palm.

Breaking noises resounded at the clash with the wall. Randall heard something fall and warily watched the ceiling, afraid to see another rain of boulders. However, that surface remained stable, reassuring him enough to bring his gaze down.

Crumbling had happened, but was limited to Liam’s wall. Actually, the breaking noises had come from something more specific. A one-meter-tall hole had opened in front of Liam, even featuring perfectly smooth vertical edges.

Naturally, that wasn’t the result of the martial art, and what stood behind the hole proved it. A stone passage stretched from that cavity, its destination unknown.

"Aren’t you coming?" Liam asked, noticing that Randall had remained stuck in place when he bent down to cross the cavity.

Randall didn’t miss the lack of surprise in Liam’s behavior. It was as if Liam had expected to find that stone passage, but other thoughts ended up invading Randall’s mind.

’He used the Seismic Palm three times now,’ Randall counted, ’And another time against Jason. Even nine spiritual roots must have a limit.’

Still, Randall only smiled, hiding any dark intentions that his brain was devising, before hurrying after Liam.