Chapter 627: Rumors

Unbelievable didn’t suffice to describe Liam’s tale.

That random branching expert was somehow involved in Kingdom-wide problems, even being at their center. His mere existence could move the world’s greatest forces. He was the trigger to the literal apocalypse.

Worst of all, the Dark Heaven Tribe was now caught in that mess, and not as a mere bystander. Liam was nothing short of a member of that force, its new pillar, and almost family due to his alleged romantic entanglement with Rachel.

It was a catastrophe of unfathomable proportions. Even offering Liam to the Dragon King wouldn’t ensure the Dark Heaven Tribe’s safety at that point. Someone willing to launch the Bloodline Screening wouldn’t leave any loose ends.

Nevertheless, there was another side to the matter. Until the very end, Liam had tried to keep his distance. He had insisted on hiding his identity, vehemently, knowing full well the damage he could inflict on the Tribe.

The reason the revelation eventually happened wasn’t even hard to surmise, and it once again spoke well for Liam’s character.

Liam had gotten too entangled with the Tribe and too famous in the region. Catastrophe was bound to arrive sooner or later, but he had decided to come clean instead of escaping and leaving the Tribe to fend for itself.

The problem was, good intentions didn’t fix anything, but something else came first.

"That’s quite the tale," Uriah exclaimed, stern but calm. "A quite unbelievable one."

Uriah wasn’t calling Liam a liar outright, but his doubts were reasonable. Believing one part of Liam’s claims would have been hard but doable, but their totality was simply too much.

Rachel was about to spring into action when Amber glared at her, chilling the atmosphere and stopping her in her tracks. That wasn’t the time for games anymore. Even if Rachel took the issue seriously, it was the parents’ job to handle the mess.

Liam scratched his head, being rather casual about the development. Uriah’s concerns were completely understandable, but there was no easy way to convince the parents.

Things had been straightforward with Grace. Liam had let her inspect his cultivation, proving his insane claim beyond a shadow of a doubt, but he couldn’t employ the same strategy with Uriah and Amber.

Liam and Grace had been alone against the world even back then. Instead, Uriah and Amber had their force and family to consider. Liam trusted them, but the risk that they would use that opportunity to harm his cultivation existed.

The Archbishop’s pendant was with Lancelot, too, and the Church was likely suppressing information, so Liam had nothing to go by.

Of course, lying about such a dangerous lineage made no sense, but that alone wasn’t enough.

"Well, these grew after I became a branching expert," Liam announced, opening his mouth as wide as he could to highlight the fangs that had peeked behind his canines.

Uriah and Amber looked more put off than curious or enlightened, so Liam pressed on. He summoned an empty flask and placed it under his fangs, filling it with his venom.

"I produce my own venom," Liam explained, throwing the flask at the table once it was full. "It started after I became a rooting expert."

Uriah caught the flask mid-air and inspected it briefly before handing it to Amber. The two recognized the venom since Liam had already given them gallons of it. Watching him spit out that substance actually explained that abundance.

Liam crossed his arms and tilted his head in thought. His fangs and venom glands were incriminating but could still be circumstantial evidence, and he couldn’t fix that completely. He could just add more details.

"About why I need three cauldrons," Liam thought back at that past conversation. "I need poisons of higher rank than me for my breakthroughs. My great Master invented a method for me to concoct them, but it requires two cauldrons simultaneously."

As absurd as the requirement was, it explained Liam’s even more absurd commission, which fit with his completely insane claims, and something else.

"Is the name of such a method compound concoctions?" Amber questioned.

Rachel, Uriah, and Liam ended up staring at Amber, with the latter showing clear surprise.

"Rumors had it that a rooting expert concocted a rank 3 product during an alchemical contest," Amber explained. "Everything went quiet afterward, so the news was disregarded as fake."

Liam felt as if he could shed tears of joy. He had announced the compound concoctions to teach the world about his Master’s greatness, but seeing it mentioned on the literal opposite side of the Kingdom surpassed his wildest expectations.

"Don’t look so surprised," Amber scolded. "There is also a tale of a rooting expert, a Black Qi, destroying a branch of the Mercenary Guild and killing its Lady in the rebellion that plagued the border between eastern and northern regions."

Despite the scolding, Liam’s surprise deepened, and he wasn’t alone. Both Uriah and Rachel were taken aback by the added details and the picture they drew. It seemed Amber was the one in charge of collecting information there.

"So, it all started with Archbishop Ignatius’ inheritance," Amber sighed. "The unrest among Juniors is justified. Heroes are appearing among the new generations. An age of reckoning might be brewing."

’Is there truly unrest then?’ Liam wondered. Felix had warned him about it, and it seemed he was right.

"The timeline fits," Amber eventually said, nodding at her husband before glaring sharply at Rachel again. "Did you know?"

"I learned about Honey’s lineage when he fought Senior Andrew," Rachel confirmed, grinning fearlessly. "The Snake and the Wolf will unite once more, this time in blood. Our children will be of both Hatred and Hunger, surpassing Perfection."

’Aren’t the Ancestral Beasts already related?’ Liam casually thought.

A loud thud brought Liam back to reality. Uriah had slammed his hands on the table, his face pale, foam escaping his lips as he stammered incoherently. "C-children?! M-my bea-autiful-! Did h-he-?!"

"The men will speak now," Amber promptly declared, standing up. "Rachel, you and I will have a long conversation about the proper conduct of an unmarried maiden."

"Of course, Mother dear," Rachel cheerfully exclaimed, jumping to her feet, blowing a kiss at Liam as her mother took her arm and dragged her out of the hall.

Liam had turned his brain off during those shenanigans, almost out of habit by then, but he now had to contend with Uriah’s deadly glare.