Liam immediately noticed the couple of people who had teleported somewhat closer to him. However, before he could give any thought to them, the three shook violently before crumbling to the ground. The next second their entire body became a blur and the three participants simply burst into a pile of blood and flesh without any warning.
"Hmmm… it looks like the dao field they erected was not good enough." Liam quickly made sure his field was solid before he started examining himself.
Two things stood out quickly. One he was not able to access his storage ring. The sword in his hand and all the items on his being were missing. He was simply wearing a long white robe with nothing else.
The second was that Luna was missing. He couldn't feel the fox in his soul space. However, he could sense his soul minions just fine.
Liam let out a sigh and started looking around. He expected as much after the token turned golden. The higher the event rarity, the stronger the restrictions for it. At least the treasure in his heart was intact and all of his dao fields were usable. He could work with this.
He took a moment to steady his mind and then closed his eyes briefly. The next second a faint luster shimmered in his hand, the shape of a sword. A sword created purely from sword intent.
This was the result of his hard work for the past several weeks he had spent in the technique repository of the eternal sword palace. This weak sword intent was all that he could manage in such a short time.
Perhaps something would be laughable to a true expert but progress was progress and Liam was determined to continue walking forward. The day he stopped would be the day he would die.
Liam flexed his fingers around the shimmering blade of pure sword intent, feeling its sharpness not just in his grip but within his very soul. The technique also used some soul strength because of which he was able to grasp it as quickly as he did.
It was enough. He had lost everything external—his weapons, his armor, his storage ring—but his foundations remained. His dao fields were intact, his soul minions untouched, and his comprehension of the sword undiminished.
That was all he needed.
His gaze swept over the eerie landscape, where the remains of the three unlucky participants still steamed in the cold air, reduced to nothing but unrecognizable gore. The dao field they had constructed wasn't strong enough—their very existence had been rejected. The event itself was lethal to those unprepared.
Which meant he had to be perfect.
Liam took a slow, deep breath. He was standing in a vast desert of sorts, except the sand here was red. He sent out a pulse of perception, mana sense at its strongest, and found that there was nothing at all in these red sands for several miles.
Liam frowned. A dead zone.
No life, no structures, no immediate threats. Just the endless expanse of red sand stretching for miles beneath a sky that was pitch black in color.
Liam soared upward, the air around him still and heavy, almost oppressive. The higher he ascended, the more his body resisted, as though the very fabric of this place sought to pull him back down.
But he pushed forward, gritting his teeth as he climbed higher, determined to gain a clearer view of his surroundings. The black sky above was vast, endless yet utterly devoid of stars, moons, or any celestial markers.
It was an abyss, stretching in all directions as if the heavens themselves had been swallowed whole. No sun. No light source. And yet, the land below wasn't drenched in darkness—a dim, eerie red glow pulsated beneath him, emanating from the crimson sands themselves.
From this vantage point, he finally saw something new. A small rock. Liam immediately shot down towards the rock to examine it. Of course, when he got closer, the rock looked more like a platform. It was like a piece of something broken from somewhere with jagged edges.
Liam observed it for a bit and then tried to break the rock as he struck it with his sword intent.
The impact sent a sharp vibration up his arm, but the rock didn't even crack. Instead, a faint pulse of residual energy rippled from the surface, dispersing into the air. The next instant his sword was completely shattered and a wave of pain swept across his very soul.
Liam narrowed his eyes. It looked like breaking this thing was out of the question. Sure, he could try with a few dao fields erected and more of his strength displayed but he had a feeling that the backlash would be just as worse. It was best not to mess with that rock for the moment.
He decided to explore the rest of the place and once again soared up into the sky. He silently traveled for several minutes and he eventually saw another rock similar to the one before. A platform, a black rock, something that was cut from another structure.
It had a similar jagged appearance and was clearly the result of some sort of explosion. There were absolutely no smooth edges.
Liam continued wandering in deep thought when he suddenly noticed something else that was weird. There was no one else in this place except for him. The three others had died a while ago and he hadn't run into anyone else so far. Something felt off.
What happened to the others? Was he the only one in this event? It seemed unlikely. In that case, was he stranded somewhere? Isolated? Trapped?
Just as these questions popped up in his mind, his gaze landed on another rock platform in the distance. Liam's eyes instantly widened. He could immediately see that this one was different. This one was hovering in the air right above the red sands.
Then just as he watched, the rock abruptly took off. It started flying away!