While this small tree was nowhere as impressive as the elven world guardian world tree, Liam still preferred this one as it was his own bonded world tree. Though it was young at the moment, the things it was capable of when it grew were boundless.
Liam had witnessed firsthand the strength of the mature version of the same thing. One day his tree might also become powerful enough to give one blessing a cycle.
Rather than the blessing itself, Liam wanted to know just what exactly was a world tree and what this blessing business was. He had a feeling that this truth was far more valuable than any item the tree could spew out.
Not just this but he had many many things that he wanted to talk to the tree about. There were a million confounding questions spiraling in his mind. However, the first question he asked was something else.
"Where is my family?"
Almost immediately, the world tree trembled slightly under Liam's touch as if it was responding to him. What did this mean? Were they fine? Were they here?
As Liam's mind scrambled to understand the plant, another voice boomed in the distance, making it plenty clear for him.
"Why bother talking with someone else when the person you are looking for is right here! They are all dead."
Liam shuddered at that voice as it was not one that he wanted to hear. As he turned to confront the person whom he had come here prepared to face, all of a sudden a huge glass box fell from a height.
Inside this box, neatly laid out like a corpse in a funeral was a familiar face that made Liam tremble. "Alex." His voice broke. Parts of her body were injured or missing. She lay inside like a disfigured doll, still, motionless, and lifeless.
"You see, Liam, everything has a price." Crawford taunted. "Unfortunately, this was the only body I could preserve for you, everything else was simply consumed by the embers."
"Really! Believe me! I tried my very best but your friends were just too weak. Tsk. Tsk. They couldn't even hold on as corpses to give you a warm welcome. What an unsightly bunch."
Crawford's laughter echoed in the deadly silence that pervaded everywhere. His laugh was cold and devoid of any humanity and it dealt a devastating blow.
Liam's eyes burned with unshed tears as he stared at the horrific sight before him. His hands clenched into fists, knuckles whitening. It did not take long for this shock to turn into rage.
No! No! No! How could this be possible? Everything inside him crumbled. He always knew that there was a chance for this to happen. This thought had plagued him every second he was away from here.
But for everything to come true and his worst nightmare to play out… he was not prepared for that.
Liam snapped. All he saw was red. He had failed miserably and he had lost everything that mattered to him. Everything was pointless now. He had lost already. His grief morphed into a force of vengeance, each word from Crawford fueling his wrath.
"What did you do to them?" Liam growled, his voice a mix of fury and pain. "You've taken everything from me!" He did not hold back and immediately rushed out of the translucent barrier, charging straight towards Crawford who was hovering in the air a few feet away.
Both Luna and the world tree plant tried to reach out to him but they couldn't reach him in his current state.
"MASTER!" Luna growled as she charged alongside him.
Crawford's face twisted into a smirk, amused by their actions. "Boy, did you think that I was sleeping all these days that you went off galavanting to some rat hole? While you curled up and licked your wounds, I became someone whom you cannot touch!"
The air trembled as enormous amounts of mana surged in the vicinity. The ground beneath them cracked and heaved as a maelstrom of dense energy gathered.
Liam felt the force of it pressing against him, an almost tangible wall of power that seemed insurmountable. But his rage did not waver. He directly punched his fist forward and channeled all of his rage, sadness, and frustration into a single, devastating punch towards Crawford.
In his primal state, nether answered his call and formed a giant fist that mirrored his own.
The giant fist surged forward, cutting through the dense mana Crawford had condensed around him. It did not give him any time to respond as the nether fist collided with Crawford, sending him flying backward with an impact that resonated through the air.
However, Crawford did not look serious in the least. He let out a loud burst of laughter as he flew up in the air again effortlessly. "That's right. I heard this about you. You can manipulate nether easily, huh?"
Crawford's laughter did not sober Liam up one bit. The turmoil inside him raged loudly as he attacked like a blind bull without caring about anything.
The nether core in his heart churned violently and his body was flooded with nether. The whole world had nether now, well at least half of it. He was not lacking in anything!
Liam repeatedly commanded all the nether that he could access and started violently attacking Crawford with everything he had.
The air around them became a chaotic battlefield, charged with the raw energy of nether.
Each strike Liam launched was more potent than the last, fueled by the depth of his grief and the power of the nether core within him.
Crawford, for all his arrogance and power, found himself on the defensive. He weaved through the air, dodging and deflecting the relentless barrage of nether-infused attacks.
His expression slightly faltered but the smirk on his face still remained. "Bah! Useless trash. Know your place." Crawford snorted. A ripple emerged from him that contained hints of divine energy and some other type of unique energy.
Mass Release Chapter 2~
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