Chapter 47: Golem
Liam moved with lethal purpose, his body a blur of agile precision and predatory grace. He closed the distance between himself and Zoran in an instant, white hair streaming behind him like a banner of war.
"Neither Heaven!"
Eight consecutive slashes erupted from Anki in a single fluid breath. Each strike flowed seamlessly into the next, angles shifting unpredictably as Liam parried Zoran's counter-blows mid-sequence. The blade sang with abyssal intent, cold and ghostly.
Yet with every clash, Liam felt only a slight, deceptive impact, as though he were striking through layers of hidden protection.
He leaped back two steps, feet barely touching the ground, bouncing lightly like a predator toying with wounded prey.
"Tell me," Liam said, empty sockets staring straight into Zoran's soul, "are you truly human… or merely pretending to be one?"
Zoran laughed, a deep, surprised sound that echoed through the corrupted chamber. This boy's sensitivity is frighteningly profound, he thought, genuine praise flickering in his ancient mind.
"How interesting," Zoran replied aloud. In the blink of an eye, he vanished and reappeared beside Liam, fist cocked for a devastating strike. "Neither Impact!"
The technique activated with tyrannical force.
Liam, senses sharpened by days of relentless battle, turned instantly. "Gloo Palm: Neither Impact Strike!"
He copied the move, but modified it on the spot. His right palm met Zoran's fist head-on. In that brief, explosive exchange, Zoran unleashed fifty-seven strikes in the span of a heartbeat, each one capable of shattering mountains.
Liam blocked every single one like a crazed, untouchable maniac. His entire arm glowed with scorching black aura, absorbing and redirecting the force rather than merely resisting it.
"What the hell!" Zoran recoiled, leaping backward like a startled cat.
Liam's exposed, scarred sockets fixed on his own glowing arm. A low, delighted laugh escaped his lips as understanding crystallized.
"It was once considered useless," he murmured, speaking half to himself. "But by fusing the Gloo Palm's pulling force with Neither Impact… the goal shifts. Instead of clashing against the attack, you devour it whole. You absorb the momentum, the damage, the very intent behind the strike, turning your opponent's power into fuel for your own body. The greater their force, the stronger the pull becomes. Beautiful."
He casually threw a single fist forward.
Though the punch seemed slow and distant, a haunting phantom of black Neither energy materialized in front of Zoran, the ghostly silhouette of a wraith formed entirely from condensed aura.
Zoran immediately dropped into a defensive stance, eyes wide with disbelief. "I can't believe this… His comprehension of my martial arts is as natural as if he were born for them."
The impact hit like a falling star. Zoran was sent flying across the chamber. Before he could recover, spectral black wraiths erupted from the ground, seizing his limbs and anchoring him in place.
Like a ghost in the machine, Liam closed the distance using nothing but raw physical speed.
"Demon Blade, Monarch Arch!"
Anki's spirit writhed violently along the blade. Liam raised his arm high in a cutting stance.
Behind him, the massive maw of a black obsidian demon serpent materialized, jaws wide open, swallowing light itself. All the stored energy in the blade condensed into a single, cataclysmic downward slash.
Zoran, pinned and staring death in the face, did not show fear. Instead, a deep, knowing smile spread across his lips.
"Impact."
Two massive bricks tore from the walls, one smashing into the side of Liam's blade, deflecting its trajectory, while the other slammed into his ribs with bone-crushing force, hurling him into the far wall.
"Build!"
The walls around Liam surged forward like living entities, rapidly encasing his body in layer after layer of white stone, forming a perfect mummy-like tomb that sealed even his aura.
"Truly amazing," Zoran laughed, forcing himself upright. "Such perfection in stolen skills. Even in the golden age of the Demon Gods, you would have been compared to their direct descendants."
But his laughter died when he sensed a presence behind him.
"How…?" Zoran spun around.
"Okay," Liam said arrogantly, standing untouched mere steps away, "so what do I do with that information?" He caught his breath with a grin.
"That was close. If not for the single flaw I noticed in his technique, the absence of light within the seal, I would have been trapped"
The battle raged for three full days and nights.
Every moment became a masterclass in adaptation. Liam grew stronger, faster, and more terrifying with each passing hour. He countered Zoran's every move using the ancient's own techniques, often improving them mid-exchange. He contaminated floor after floor with abyssal energy, turning the Tower of Babel against its own guardian.
Zoran grew desperate. He manipulated the very architecture of the punishment hall, shifting rooms, changing stairways, and warping entire floors in an attempt to escape. The structure twisted and reformed around them like a living labyrinth, fifth floor to first, first to third, yet Liam pursued without mercy. He had marked Zoran as prey, and prey was meant to be devoured. That was the end point of the Law of Swallow.
"What the hell did that little girl send into my punishment hall?" Zoran snarled as he fled, hair whipping wildly. "Fuck… fuck… fuck… I wasn't built for this kind of combat!"
He complained bitterly while shifting floors.
"Why didn't Master grant me access to the deeper layers?" Behind a thick pillar, he tried to heal his accumulating injuries. I hate you all… bastards with such monstrous talent.
Unbeknownst to him, Liam stood silently at the side of the same pillar, staring down like death incarnate.
"You claim to be enraged," Liam spoke, breaking the silence, "yet you never once thought of releasing me from these grounds."
Zoran fell backward in shock, hand pointing fearfully at the young demon. "I can't let you go… your time isn't up yet!"
Liam's flesh hardened into jagged obsidian rock as lightning crackled violently along his left arm and Anki's edge. He pounced like a wild abyssal beast, tearing into Zoran's chest with savage brutality.
The ancient guardian screamed in agony.
"Wait! Wait! I don't want to die!" Zoran pleaded.
"Have you forgotten?" Liam laughed maniacally. "This is the only way to learn the Sudarian Law of Devourers."
He ripped Zoran's chest wide open.
Electricity surged through the wound, frying flesh and core mechanisms alike until they sizzled like roasted meat.
"You're not human…" Zoran gasped, his form beginning to crumble.
Liam stepped back as Zoran's body disintegrated into blocks of enchanted rock. The oppressive aura that had filled the Tower slowly faded.
"Now I understand," Liam said calmly, looking down at the rubble. "From our very first encounter, I sensed no trace of true life in you. You were never a living lord… just a golem. A guardian construct of the Tower of Babel."
Liam laughed, a rich, liberated sound that echoed through every corrupted floor.
"Let's find our way out."
As if the brutal four-day battle had been nothing more than light exercise, he moved like an agile tiger, climbing through the shifting floors of the Tower. His abyssal aura spread like living veins, slowly swallowing the structure floor by floor. The fifth layer was already fully consumed, granting him total dominion over that domain.
Upon reaching the first floor, Liam stood before the massive gates like a conquering monarch. Without hesitation, he began pounding his fist against the ancient doors, again and again.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Each strike carried the weight of his silver-rank aura amplified by devoured power. The entire grounds of the Demon Blade trembled violently, as though a heavenly hammer was striking the earth itself.
The prison that had once sought to break him now shook in submission.
Liam's long white hair fluttered as cracks began to spiderweb across the gates. His empty sockets burned with quiet, abyssal hunger.
The time of his imprisonment was over.
And the real hunt was only beginning.