Chapter 525: Giants

The situation looked hopeless. For all intents and purposes, it was game over.

With Felix, Red Boar, Master Vermillion, Colleen, Whispering Wind, and Grace, Liam’s side had more branching experts, especially if he included himself in that group.

The same went for the army. Many Church members had teleported to the area, but they only amounted to around fifty, while Liam’s group had over a hundred, and they were all rooting experts.

However, the cultivation world didn’t care for math. Only power mattered, and the Church’s side had the strongest cultivator. Liam didn’t know how the mid-stage compared to the low-stage, but the warnings from his senses painted a grim picture.

There was also the formation to take into account, as well as potential reinforcements. Whispering Wind had mentioned ten Priests after all, and it was unclear if and when they would join the fray.

Of course, escape probably was possible, especially if the situation became chaotic. Someone could slip through the cracks, but the blonde branching expert’s stare told Liam that he was a priority target, meaning he wouldn’t be allowed to use that strategy.

Still, Liam didn’t despair or give up. That was just another impossible predicament he had to overcome at that point. Having terrible odds was the norm for him, so much so that he didn’t even hesitate to look for solutions.

’A cauldron,’ Liam thought. ’Ingredients, variables...’

Seeing life and the world itself through the eyes of an alchemist gave Liam quite the twisted view of the situation. That battlefield was a cauldron, with each expert acting as an ingredient.

Obviously, the concoction was meant to produce a successful escape.

Nevertheless, unlike during ordinary concoctions, Liam had to multiply and expand the variables now. He had to make the cauldron rumble violently until an explosive reaction called chaos happened.

The expert with the branded forehead finally stopped glaring at Liam and lowered his blue eyes at the army. Felix and Red Boar were in the lead, but all those behind them became the targets of his suffocating presence.

"Enemies of the Church," The strangely young, mid-stage branching expert announced. "Enemies of Man. I’m Inquisitor Cornelius, sent here to-"

The Inquisitor couldn’t finish his line since one of the white rooting experts outside the formation suddenly fell forward. Everyone’s attention moved there, only to look at the sky after spotting the ethereal arrow stabbed in the now-corpse’s head.

Liam was already about to fire another arrow when he saw both allies and enemies staring at him blankly, wearing faces he hadn’t seen in a while.

’How does this keep happening?’ Liam cursed internally, sending Qi to his throat to enhance his voice. "We don’t have time for foreplay."

As if to prove that point, Liam released the bowstring, only for a golden blur to intercept it and change direction mid-air, heading straight for him.

Honestly, while Liam had seen the event, the fan was the only one that could react to it. The blur was just too fast, but taking care of the ethereal arrow had delayed it by a fraction of a second, enough for someone to intervene.

Which was why Liam kept the fan in its place, his left hand reaching for the bowstring again even as golden light filled his vision. He was about to get hit, but an apocalyptic clash unfolded before that could happen.

Liam’s cape fluttered wildly, the black Qi rising from his figure blown away, his whole body trembling, but the fan endured, and so did his shooting form. The golden light was no more, replaced by red flames.

"Black Qi, we are even!" Red Boar cried among the flames floating next to Liam. Being overweight and burdened by his huge, fiery hammer hadn’t prevented him from catching up with the Inquisitor.

However, golden light shone again, and flames blew from Red Boar’s back, sending him down to face it.

Another apocalyptic clash unfolded, but Liam didn’t look at it. He continued drawing the bowstring, shooting an arrow in the next instant, barely caring for it, his mind on Red Boar’s words.

’I guess he is convinced now,’ Liam thought, the Inquisitor’s long and sticking canines proving his claim about the Church’s secret further. ’Maybe he isn’t that bad. The Ancestral Wolf even fought on the Ancestral Snake’s side.’

Naturally, Liam’s poor attention to his arrow didn’t imply a lack of precision. He had fired at the group outside the formation again, planning to exploit its absence, but the Church’s cultivators were ready now.

Even without the formation’s empowerment and functions, the Church’s cultivators could combine martial arts and arrange battle formations. Still, they didn’t get the chance to do so now.

Black Hound had charged into the fray, and one of the Priests had met him, but some of his intense vibrations leaked forth anyway, landing on the white underlings.

Blood sprouted from mouths and orifices, delaying martial arts, allowing the arrow to dive unhindered into another head, catching other cultivators in its explosion.

All hell broke loose at that point. Liam’s army shouted battle cries as they charged at the enemies past the formation. Colleen and Whispering Wind even went to Black Hound’s opposite side, preventing coordinated martial arts there, too.

With another Priest coming to assist his companion in the battle against Black Hound, all the enemy branching experts were accounted for. Now, the army only had to carve a new gap in that new encirclement and escape, but there was still the formation to deal with.

Liam had expected barrages of bullets to fly from the groups on both sides of the swamp. They could probably summon the healing golden halos from there, too, benefiting from the formation’s empowerment, but nothing of the sort happened.

Golden light still shone, but took a strange shape. It partially solidified as it rose high into the sky, reaching over a hundred meters in height, giving birth to two giant figures.

’That’s cool,’ Liam couldn’t help but think. He had already fired another arrow, but his eyes were on the two enormous, humanoid giants made of golden light.