Hopelessness. Despair. Desolation.
Liam felt himself fall into a pit of abyss as he stared at the impossible situation in front of him. To the extent his eyes could see there were monsters lying in wait to tear him apart and kill him.
Perhaps if it was just the drake, he could have somehow fled. Perhaps if he was faced with just the soul-blood beasts then he could have controlled them like he did before.
However, now… he no longer had the energy to do anything. There was nothing left inside him.
No matter where he went, or what he did, there was always death at every turn.
It was as if he was cursed. Forever doomed to suffer and die a meaningless death.
For the first time in both his lives, Liam felt tired. He did not want to struggle anymore. There was no point in anything he did.
No matter how much he struggled, and how much pain he underwent, he was again and again going to end up at the same rock bottom. He was really tired.
He wanted to close his eyes and sleep. Let go of everything. Perhaps in another life… perhaps as someone else… he would finally find peace. But for now, he was tired.
As his mind was falling deeper and deeper into the pit of the abyss, Liam's body felt weak and fragile. He was just a moment shy of truly letting go and plummeting from that height.
However, there was another feeling that suddenly cropped up.
Hunger for everything that he never had.
And a thirst for unleashing hell on those trying to suppress him.
This feeling welled up inside him like a deluge and combined with the roar of the surrounding soul-blood beasts woke him up from his trance.
Liam snapped out of the mental attack to look directly at the drake. The creature was looking down on him with obvious contempt in its eyes.
The same contempt he had seen in the eyes of the strong creature that had decimated him in his first life. The same contempt he had seen in the eyes of the divine temple high priestess.
He was tired of seeing this look.
Liam clenched his fist as the tiredness, hopelessness, and despair that coursed through his veins were suddenly replaced with rage, an unbridled fury.
He had really had enough of it.
"I will not be pushed around anymore!" He shouted, his voice reverberating amidst the roars of the soul-blood beasts.
Liam's eyes turned white. A powerful aura seeped out of him that made the drake tremble for a moment. The soul-blood beasts became silent. The sword in his hand hummed in delight.
"I will not be pushed around anymore!" Liam shouted again as if he was giving a decree to the heavens themselves.
He was a cornered beast with nothing to lose.
And like any cornered beast, Liam's next move was ferocious, a primal scream of defiance against the universe itself. He was tired of always being on the receiving end, tired of always facing insurmountable odds.
Not giving a shit about his injured soul, Liam reached into himself and commanded whatever was left of his soul energy to get the hell out and do its bidding.
Threads of radiant energy, each strand resembling the finest white silk, yet as powerful as the roaring waves of an ocean, erupted from Liam, shooting forth from his body toward the numerous soul-blood beasts surrounding him.
"You... YOU ARE MINE NOW!"
Liam shouted and the soul-blood beasts trembled.
To the drake's astonishment, the next second the several soul-blood beasts started roaring loudly in madness in frenzy.
They moved erratically, no longer coordinated, their eyes clouding over with a crazed white glow, mirroring Liam's own. Their ferocity, once directed at Liam, now turned towards the drake.
The transformation was immediate and overpowering.
These creatures, which once spelled certain doom for Liam, were now locked onto the drake with a predatory zeal.
And though the drake was a formidable creature, with armored scales and powerful wings, the sheer number of soul-blood beasts lunging at it with unparalleled ferocity made it hard for it to retaliate effectively.
Liam, his eyes still blazing with endless anger, watched as the tables turned.
Each beast that attacked the drake was under his command, drawn to his unleashed soul energy, and following the impulses of his rage.
The drake roared, a mixture of anger and panic, its majestic wings batting away a few beasts, its tail swiping others. But for each beast it fended off, more lunged onto it.
Liam could see the fear in the drake's eyes, the realization that its end was imminent. Unlike him, the soul-blood beasts were not low-leveled creatures.
Just like the drake, these creatures had also undergone the endless trials of the mystic realm and stood firm bathed in blood essence, and soul power of the beings that perished here.
Like wolves on a lion, these creatures pounced on the drake, clawing and slashing at it. Numerous blood spheres emerged all around the drake, exploding on its body and creating one injury after another.
The scene was brutal. The drake's roars became more desperate. It tried to take flight, to escape the relentless onslaught, but the weight of the soul-blood beasts and the injuries it sustained kept it imprisoned.
Soon, the once proud and arrogant beast was reduced to a pile of flesh and bones and a notification chimed in.
[Ding! You have gained 200,000,000 experience points!]
[Ding! You have leveled up!]
What was left of the drake's body dropped down on the ground but Liam's rage was yet to be quenched. He shoved the remains into his spatial artifact and stared at the numerous soul-blood beasts roaring and howling in front of him.
He could feel them as if he could feel his own soul army.
More importantly, with a simple tug, he knew he would be able to manipulate the soul energy that they were made of.