Liam summoned his wooden knife as he delved into one of the openings in the walls, immune to the death zone he had created. He should have used it earlier, but throwing Cloud Pills had taken priority, and he hadn’t had the chance to do that afterward.

However, time was short. Liam knew as much. Those cultivators and the building itself could have already used methods to warn Lady Jessica. Nothing said she would listen right away, but Liam wouldn’t push his luck.

Also, the sooner Liam left, the more likely he would be to return to Grace without pursuers.

Through a mixture of scents, air pressure, warmth, and sheer Qi signatures, Liam quickly found stairs that led underground, and descending them brought him to a rectangular area slightly bigger than the room his stone tablet could create.

A mere meter after the passage, intricate white symbols shone on the floor, erecting a pale wall that blocked access to the rest of the room. A rooting expert, an old man with long white hair and beard, sat cross-legged right behind it, inside a circle made of inscriptions, his Qi pouring into it.

Further beyond, Liam saw shelves and containers, some of which he recognized. That probably was the branch’s vault.

The rooting expert opened his eyes at the footsteps that echoed in the room, only for them to go wide. He saw the tall, cloaked figure but searched past him, as if expecting someone else to arrive.

A warning about the attack had come, and the rooting expert’s duty was to watch the vault, defending it to his last breath. Still, the branch had clearly lost, and the lack of additional visible enemies made him conclude that it had done so against one man.

The surprise in the old man’s face was understandable. Liam could easily read it and connect it to his feat. That was the reason poison masters were so feared, and Liam had merely done a fraction of what his great Master had been able to do.

Horace Rauret had forced a leafing expert to accept his terms despite being a branching expert. Meanwhile, Liam had merely used poison to take over the environment, claiming several passive kills.

"You fiend!" The old man cursed before a smile broadened on his wrinkled face. "Do you think you are the first to lust after the Mercenary Guild’s possessions? You’ll have nowhere to hide for the rest of your sad life!"

Liam didn’t care for those empty threats. Honestly, becoming the Mercenary Guild’s enemy hardly worsened his predicament at that point. His attention was on the pale wall, but his knife bounced back when he tried to press it against it.

"Ah, you fool!" The old man laughed. "How can a mongrel’s methods work against us? We are one of the Kingdom’s limbs! You criminals live because we allow it!"

Liam tried pressing his hand next, which worked. The pale wall felt cold to the touch but unbelievably solid. Moreover, his fingers bounced whenever he tried to apply pressure.

Still, Liam could work with a palm. The old man’s last words had even resonated with something, leading to an unusual, unexpected laugh.

"Guild this, Kingdom that," Liam chuckled as black Qi escaped his palm. "And I thought I was the stupid one."

Nothing initially happened, but black veins slowly appeared on the pale wall, spreading down, heading for the inscriptions on the floor, eventually tainting them, too.

"You abided by the same rules for so long you forgot you are the ones who created them," Liam commented. "You see it as the natural order of the world because no one has contested it all your lives."

The black Qi spread even further, and the old man’s eyes went wide again as the pale wall dimmed. A hole opened from where Liam was pressing, expanding until all the inscriptions went dark, leaving the rooting expert defenseless.

"Help me understand something," Liam requested, crossing the now non-existent barrier. "If you fail to get back at me for breaking your rules, does it mean I’m the new rule?"

The rooting expert lunged forward, thrusting his fist at Liam with a single leap, only for it to land on an unmovable wall.

Liam had caught the old man’s hand and just pulled, tearing away his entire arm. The rooting expert barely had time to realize what had happened before the dark-yellow knife slashed his throat.

Cultivators could survive such injuries, but the cut carried something else. The rooting expert felt his Qi depleting at an unsustainable pace to limit the infection, but his flesh started to melt nonetheless.

Liam didn’t even watch the rooting expert fall to the floor and writhe in pain. His screams filled the vault, echoing even further once Liam emptied it with a wave of his hand.

By the time Liam returned to the passage, only silence resounded in the underground area.

At the same time, Andrew was crawling through the green plain, away from the branch, both his legs broken after that disastrous fall. He didn’t think. He just knew he had to escape, but his whole being shook when he heard footsteps behind him.

Andrew slowly peeked back, seeing the tide of yellow smoke that had taken over the huge building and the cloaked figure in front of it.

Andrew immediately resumed crawling, but his figure left the grass in the next second, lifted by his collar by one hand of the impossibly strong cloaked expert.

"Fellow Daoist, I beg of you-" Andrew cried, panic taking over his brain functions, only for the cloaked expert to bring him closer to his hood, as if wanting to make sure that he heard his following words.

"Tell everyone what happened today," Liam ordered, "And make them tell everyone else."

Liam brought Andrew even closer, adding his final warning. "Tell them. No one touches Grace."

Andrew felt himself falling right afterward. His broken legs hit the ground, causing unbelievable pain as he crashed down. By the time he managed to open his teary eyes, he couldn’t see the cloaked expert anywhere anymore.