Chapter 35: Sins of the Ancestors
The journey back to the village was quiet at first. Liam walked with steady steps despite the exhaustion weighing on his body, Anki sheathed at his side.
Emily stayed close, her silver ponytail swaying with each stride, still processing everything that had happened inside the ravine. The refined sap had healed her completely, but the memory of the voice, the battle, and the burning root-ball lingered in her mind.
"You know," she said after a long stretch of silence, "I thought you were just some blind slave trying to prove himself. But back there… you fought like a monster. That purple fire, the way you kept going even when you were bleeding out… Who are you really, Liam Heart?"
Liam glanced in her direction, though his blind eyes saw nothing. A small, tired smile touched his lips. "Someone who refuses to be weak anymore. That's all."
Emily huffed, crossing her arms. "That's not an answer. You nearly died pulling that thing out of the tree. And the way you laughed while burning it… it was like you enjoyed it."
"I didn't enjoy it," he replied softly. "I just finished what needed to be done."
They crested the final ridge. The village came into view below, wooden huts still standing, lanterns flickering in the early dawn light. The moment they stepped into the square, both of them froze.
The villagers were celebrating.
A group of elders and younger men sat in a circle, passing around small wooden cups filled with glowing golden sap. They drank greedily, laughing and slapping each other on the back. The old man who had begged them for help earlier now looked decades younger, his wrinkled skin had smoothed, his frail bones strengthened, his flesh firm and youthful. He spotted them first and rose with a broad, grateful smile.
"You've returned! The heroes of our village! The Shadow Lurkers are gone, aren't they? Come, drink with us! The Mother's sap flows pure again!"
Liam's expression didn't change, but something dark and cold ignited behind his blind eyes.
The sight of them casually drinking the sap, the same sap that had fueled centuries of suffering, sent boiling anger surging through his veins.
No remorse. No mourning for the children they had fed to the curse. Just celebration.
He walked forward without a word.
The old man kept smiling, extending a cup. "Please, young hero."
Liam drew Anki in one smooth motion. The blade flashed once. A clean horizontal slash opened the old man's throat from ear to ear. Blood sprayed in a wide arc as the newly youthful body crumpled to the ground, eyes wide in shock.
No emotion crossed Liam's face. No hesitation. No anger in his movements, only cold, mechanical efficiency.
The villagers screamed.
Liam moved like a reaper through wheat.
A woman tried to run, clutching her child. He caught her by the hair with his left hand and drove Anki through her back, piercing heart and lungs in one thrust. With his right hand he grabbed the child's head and the mother's head, then pulled them apart with raw strength. The wet crack of separating spines echoed as both bodies dropped lifelessly.
Two men charged him with farming tools. Liam sidestepped the first swing and sliced upward, opening the man from groin to sternum. The second man swung a hoe; Liam caught the handle, yanked him close, and drove Anki straight through his eye socket and out the back of his skull.
He didn't spare the children.
A small boy hiding behind a barrel was dragged out by his collar. Liam's hand closed around the boy's head and an older girl's head who tried to protect him. With one brutal motion he pulled them apart, their small bodies falling in two pieces.
Women screamed and begged. Liam moved through them without pause, slashing throats, driving the blade through chests, pulling heads from shoulders with his bare hands when Anki wasn't needed.
Blood soaked the ground, turning the dirt into dark mud. The village square became a river of red.
Emily watched in growing horror, her silver aura flickering with disbelief.
"Wait! Don't!" she cried out desperately, stepping forward with her hand outstretched. "Liam, stop! They're just."
But I kept killing. Methodically. Silently. Until every last villager lay dead or dying, the entire settlement flowing with fresh blood under the rising sun.
When it was done, Liam stood in the center like a defeated warrior, soaked head to toe in crimson. His shoulders were slightly slumped, Anki dripping fresh blood at his side, but his face remained eerily calm.
Emily's voice cracked as she stared at the massacre. "Why…? Liam, what the hell is wrong with you? They were innocent people! You slaughtered everyone, even the children!"
Liam turned his head toward her. For the first time since the killing began, a sadistic smile slowly spread across his blood-splattered face.
"There is no reason to keep this filth alive."
He raised Anki and plunged the blade into the ground. "Albain Flames."
Waves of purple fire poured out from the point of impact, spreading in over twelve echoing resonances. The flames raced across the village, biting into every hut, every body, every drop of spilled blood.
Wooden structures ignited instantly, corpses blackened and crumbled, the entire settlement transforming into a roaring sea of violet inferno.
Emily looked at him in complete shock, mouth open, unable to speak. All she could think about was the man who had sacrificed everything, nearly dying, pushing past every limit, to bring her back from the roots. The same man now burning an entire village without a trace of remorse.
Liam watched the flames consume everything for a long moment, then spoke softly to the burning bodies.
"You all have paid for the sins of your ancestors."
He pulled Anki free from the ground with a smooth motion. The blade still glowed with residual purple fire. Without another glance at the inferno, he turned and began walking away, gently taking Emily's arm to pull her along.
"Let's return," he said, giving her a small, genuine smile, the same gentle expression he had worn when she caught him falling from the sky.
Emily followed in stunned silence, her mind reeling. She kept glancing at his calm face, wondering how he could still show such a soft, almost kind expression after the unreasonable slaughter she had just witnessed.
The blind boy from Devil Blade Academy walked beside her, covered in blood, yet smiling like nothing had happened.
And for the first time, Emily felt truly afraid of the partner she had once looked down on.