In an instant, Liam switched the bounded target to the whale.
A gust of wind burst from his seat, spreading through the courtyard, pressing against the walls as the grasses outside bent sharply under the pressure.
His eyes flashed with a brief purple light before dimming again. He exhaled slowly, steadying himself.
He flexed his fingers, tightening and loosening them, each movement ringing faintly like grinding steel.
"So," he muttered, looking at his own hands, "the body is like a mountain now?"
The words were rhetorical. He could feel the difference. By taking on the whale's innate state, his body had become something solid, heavy, and like an unmoving mountain.
He closed his eyes to focus on the sensation.
Other than the fact that he could no longer remember how to use the Typhoon Eagle's skills, nothing else was lost.
His body, however, felt as though it had been reforged under a thousand hammers, tempered until it could stand against storms and calamities.
"What a ridiculous monster," he said under his breath. "Even though it's only at the semi-step stage, it has the strength to match an early-stage Golden Core monk."
The praise was genuine.
In this state, Liam realized, he had stepped into the threshold of a true powerhouse.
Even in this region, there were few who could contend with him openly. Unless a hidden Nascent Soul ancestor appeared, he could move freely and run across the land without fear of most opposition.
But that thought made him pause.
"The sudden burst of strength isn't a reason to relax."
He forced his mind to settle, pushing back the wave of confidence swelling inside him. It was then that he noticed it, the subtle shift in his mindset, the foreign emotions creeping into his thoughts.
The whale's influence.
With the Typhoon Eagle, his thoughts had remained calm, sharp, and methodical, his steps deliberate. The eagle's presence had not changed his personality in any noticeable way.
After all, his original self was in line with the eagle's personality.
But this was different.
Now, there was an almost primal urge to act recklessly, to throw caution away, to fight until there was nothing left standing.
It was an itch under his skin, an impulse to test the strength he had gained by clashing with anything that dared to challenge him.
He narrowed his eyes.
"This isn't me," he thought. "It's the whale's personality bleeding through."
The realization was sobering. Binding himself to these creatures was not without cost. Their traits, their will, their instincts, they left marks on him, shaping him in ways he could not ignore.
"Binding myself to them comes with risks," he murmured, a faint smile pulling at the corner of his mouth. "Amusing."
He laughed, a short, quiet sound, patting his thigh as though amused by the discovery.
Then his expression shifted, eyes narrowing again as his attention turned inward, as though seeing through the walls of the pocket space.
His vision seemed to pierce the distance until it settled on a familiar figure cloaked within the Purple Cloud Pavilion's chamber.
"So, you're staying there for the night," he said to himself. "Smart move."
That single decision gave Liam time, time to plan, to prepare something more fitting for what he had in mind.
"A proper lore," he said softly, the corners of his mouth lifting. "Something that will carve itself into the mind of the so-called protagonist."
His gaze sharpened further, thoughts moving quickly.
"It has to tie into the rift lurkers somehow. It must leave an impression. What I did before, that little display, it isn't enough. In order to bring more and more protagonist under my reign, I need a proper ancient lore"
He leaned back slightly, breathing slowly, his mind constructing possibilities and tearing them down just as quickly.
"No," he said finally, a quiet resolve settling over him. "It has to be bigger. A spectacle large enough to rewrite history itself."
The air in the chamber seemed to grow still around him. The grasses outside no longer swayed. His fingers stopped flexing.
A faint smile returned to his face.
"A grander scene," he murmured. "One that will reshape not just his future, but the future of this world."
He leaned back into the chair, letting its wooden frame creak faintly beneath his weight.
The shade of the tree above cast uneven patterns across his face, leaving his expression half-hidden.
His deep ruby eyes caught the dim light filtering through the leaves, their gleam carrying on into the night.
"I want to rewrite fate into my own creations," he murmured, his tone calm.
He tilted his head slightly, as if weighing each word before letting it slip into the air. "To distort the truth and carve my own stories into this world for all to see. To draw every so-called protagonist into my false stage, make them dance in my world, climb my dungeon, and believe it is theirs to conquer."
His fingers tapped against the armrest.
"In doing so," he continued, the corners of his lips barely lifting, "they will give me what I want, an endless stream of growth. To become stronger. And stronger. And stronger still."
Declarations like this were not rare.
The heavens had heard countless mortals shout their defiance, curse their destinies, and proclaim rebellion.
Most were forgotten as quickly as they came, empty voices that broke under the weight of the world they sought to fight.
But this time was different.
Here sat someone with the power to follow through.
Someone who could stand against that unseen order and tear apart what was written.
Someone who should not have existed within the boundaries of this world, born of something distant, something ungraspable.
Far away, past all planes of existence, there was a place where no mortal soul could wander.
It was an expanse that had no shape, no floor, no ceiling, an endless stretch of nothing.
No light.
No sound.
No color.
A void that preceded the first spark of creation, that remained when all else faded.
For ages it lay untouched, unmoving, without beginning or end.
And then, as though stirred by his words, something shifted.
It was small at first, a faint ripple in the stillness, before the vast darkness seemed to breathe.
A presence awakened.
The void stretched, folding over itself, and something opened within its depths.
A pair of eyes, if they could be called that, appeared in the distance. They glowed with the same deep ruby hue, but unlike his, these were impossibly large, spanning a distance that could not be measured.
No comparison could capture what they were. No creature, no concept, no thought could hold them within its frame.
The gaze moved slowly, with a weight that felt eternal, turning to look at a single point far away.
Liam's world.
The moment stretched into stillness again, as though the void itself waited for something to happen.
Then came the voice.
It was soft, a tone as gentle as a breeze and as clear as a distant bell. It carried no threat, no harshness, no rise or fall, just an unshakable calm that reached into the very marrow of existence.
Beautiful enough to still any thought, it slipped past every defense.
Any being, no matter how ancient or powerful, would lose themselves if they were to hear it forever.
"My child," the voice said.
And then, with a sharp crack that seemed to split the moment in two.
Snap.