The old man's voice quickly faded, leaving Liam's ragged breath as the only noise in the rocky chamber.
Awareness and control spread inside Liam as he stared at the mangled head under him. His burn mark stopped itching, and the auditory hallucinations also vanished, seemingly appeased by his recent actions.
Still, as those deafening sensations waned, an ominous feeling rose through Liam's mind, gradually making him realize what he had done.
Liam slowly lifted his trembling, bloody hands, opening them to inspect them in their entirety. He could see the spots where his skin had broken, as well as the gore all over them, which didn't come from inside him.
Afterward, Liam spread his hands, moving them away, obtaining a clear view of the corpse below him. Crazy Uncle's face was unrecognizable now that his forehead had collapsed, crushed by Liam's fists, depicting quite the disgusting scene.
Now, Liam had killed and skinned many animals throughout his ten years in Krosstoen's mountain. He had even buried his own family. He knew his way around blood and death, be it human or not.
However, retches surged through Liam's throat anyway. He promptly pushed himself to his right, crawling away over the rocky floor until his mouth couldn't suppress that reaction anymore.
Liam puked, vomiting nothing solid, his retches quickly turning into mere spitting due to the lack of anything worth expelling from his stomach.
Then, once the urge to puke waned, Liam kept crawling to his right, eventually reaching the chamber's rocky wall, leaning on it to curl himself behind his knees.
But Liam was no coward. He couldn't be anymore after that fateful day ten years ago. As if compelled by an unbreakable oath, Liam peeked past his knees, looking at Crazy Uncle's corpse a few meters away.
'What have I done?' Liam thought.
Despite having sworn revenge, that was Liam's first time killing someone, and reality always differed from the imagination.
Something had taken over Liam earlier, but he remembered everything. He still felt his fists slamming on Crazy Uncle's head and hearing his skull crack. He could even justify why he had snapped like that, but only emptiness remained at the end.
Liam might have made the man who had caused the Bloodline Screening and his family's death pay. Still, there he was, devoid of any satisfaction, curled like a baby in a corner, a baby who was now a murderer.
'What happened to me?' Liam wondered, slightly panicking. Reality was continuously settling in, making him scared, but also restless.
Liam had sworn revenge, but against the four men who had carried out the Screening in his old home. Crazy Uncle had never been on his list, but his hatred had taken control after learning about how that tragedy had come to be.
Then, there was the confusing issue about the Ancestral Beasts and their bloodlines. Liam wasn't stupid, but he was profoundly ignorant about those topics, too, making his understanding superficial at best.
Lastly, there was the issue of the corpse. Murder was a serious crime, one of the worst, one that Liam could never take back.
'What was that talk about balance?' Liam thought, sorting through Crazy Uncle's random replies. 'Am I really the Snake of Hatred's son? Do the Heavens want me to kill the Dragon King?'
As if to reply to Liam's thoughts, a human hiss resounded in his ears, reawakening his itch and bottled-up hatred, uttering a single word. 'Kill.'
"Shut up!" Liam shouted, furiously scratching his right forearm, only to realize that the blood on his hand was mixing with the goo still resting on his skin.
Luckily, the hatred receded, as well as the itch, forcing Liam to focus on the problem at hand. He had just killed someone, and his corpse had to be taken care of.
'Should I burn him?' Liam wondered, recalling Crazy Uncle's toughness. 'Would he even burn?'
The plan's logistics were unfeasible, too. With the downpour outside, Liam only had the four candles in the chamber and a pair of robes at his disposal. That wasn't nearly enough to burn a normal person, let alone a cultivator.
Still, Liam knew how to cover his tracks. The mountain had taught him as much. The rain was doing that job for him, meaning he only had to take care of hiding the cave's entrance and maybe covering the body.
Staying still would force Liam to dwell on thoughts he didn't want to experience, so he jumped to his feet, hurrying to the cave's narrow exit.
Yet, upon reaching it, Liam couldn't help but halt his steps, assaulted by another wave of problematic thoughts.
'Hiding corpses, removing evidence,' Liam considered. 'Am I already thinking like a murderer?'
Liam couldn't help but turn, looking at the corpse again. No matter how he tried to argue against it, the reality was undeniable. He had killed someone, so he was a murderer. Everything else was about where to go from there.
Of course, other details stood out. The pool was empty now, and the metal stamp had somehow disappeared, but Liam had left goo and blood everywhere. Even if he covered the corpse, his tracks would remain.
So, Liam didn't do any of that for now, choosing instead to cross the narrow entrance, exposing his naked body to the heavy rain, letting it clean him while he closed his eyes to face the thoughts he didn't want to hear.
'So, this is what killing feels like,' Liam thought.
Killing had been a disgusting experience culminating in a strange emptiness. Liam felt as if he had lost something forever despite gaining new memories that were bound to afflict his nights. He was also cold for some reason, almost emotionless, as if his actions had deprived him of whatever innocent spark used to shine inside him.
However, that wasn't all Liam noticed. His heart felt heavier, but his body had grown lighter. The rain's humidity had amplified, its noise had gained new tones, and something inside him radiated a warm energy, eventually drawing his gaze to it.
Liam inspected his lower waist, even pressing on it, failing to sense any physical difference. Yet, something was clearly there. Something had awakened inside him, changing him in ways he still didn't understand.
'Did the dantian Carl talked about awaken?' Liam wondered, half-concluding. He couldn't be sure, but that guess allowed his thoughts to progress further.
Carl had claimed that the Recruiters Guild would warn the Sects not to awaken Liam's core. However, if that was now done, Liam could cut the middleman, joining the cultivators directly.
As for where those mystical Sects were or how to find them, Liam didn't know. He had only heard about those places in legends and rumors, leaving him quite lost about his next move.
Yet, more thoughts distracted Liam from that immediate issue. He was still mostly clueless, but something did stand out from Crazy Uncle's confusing wails.
'I'm the son of the Ancestral Snake,' Liam thought, 'And the King is the son of the Ancestral Dragon.'
The auditory hallucinations returned, blending with a deep hiss that carried no human words but that pushed Liam's thoughts in a specific direction. Crazy Uncle's warning might have caused the Bloodline Screening, but someone else had mandated it.
'If we are both sons of the Ancestral Beasts,' Liam pondered, 'Does it mean I can become as strong as the King?'
'Kill them all,' The hiss in Liam's ears intensified to convey human words that perfectly blended with his thoughts, giving birth to a genuine question.
'Does it mean I can kill the Dragon King?' Liam asked himself, a still-unclear resolve solidifying in his unfocused gaze.