That question, only audible to Liam’s ears, lingered in the air.
Liam lowered his head in silent thought, then raised it with a distant look.
Liam didn’t answer.
…But Eve blinked out of existence, and she didn’t return.
Liam shook his head.
He felt the connection between him and his mother wane as he grew stronger, and now… there was just a thread left.
He honored her memory.
But that was it.
What was done was done.
Eve was gone.
And Liam would live.
What’s the point of heartbreak?
Of loving someone?
In the first place, Liam questioned the point of relationships.
What use were they if everyone he learned to love died because they were unable to keep up with him?
No thanks.
///
With just two weeks, there wasn’t much for Liam to start any major project.
All he could do was skim over what his new inscribing and forging capabilities were.
Liam had officially surpassed both Revel and Rogan.
Both in cultivation and understanding of their specializations.
He had become the only flag bearer for the two otherwise dead arts.
And he wasn’t even half their age.
Liam didn’t mind being called talented now.
It was undeniable.
It started off as hard work, but then built up to talent.
Liam began testing out the capabilities of his King’s Eye with inscriptions, peering into the Meanings of spells, and forging.
For the first, it was obvious that Liam’s Meanings had taken a massive leap in complexity.
He could instantly spot mistakes or areas of improvement in his previously made spells and techniques.
Liam had never made a mental attack or defensive spell, but he gained the confidence to try.
Rank 3 spells were possible too!
Especially since Liam could further peer into the Meanings of Rank 3 and 4 spells, and understand them far better than before.
For his forging, Liam wasn’t sure about suppressing a Rank 4 Spirit Beast in his mind.
Was he capable now?
Probably not.
Zenith beasts were amazing creatures, and within the sea of consciousness, they grew twice as big.
However, Liam wasn’t discouraged.
There were countless ways of empowering the mind, after all.
With enough preparations, Liam could probably do something like that.
In the meantime, Liam visited the Egg.
As usual, it squealed, but softly and without any hostile intent.
‘So it’s finally gotten to like me.’
Liam quickly fed the Shifter a few Rank 3 corpses that satiated its hunger, then clicked the inscribed cage open.
CLICK!
Unlike before where it lurched at him, it remained still.
It was more out of annoyance that he didn’t, not fear. Being sent to the void realm everytime had that effect.
“Be good and sit still,” Liam said to the creature, then locked his King’s Eye with its six, inky-black eyes.
At first, nothing happened.
Liam was just seriously staring at an octopus.
If anyone else saw what Liam was doing, they’d probably laugh.
However…
A moment later, something flickered.
Six different perspectives began forming in Liam’s mind!
Liam grimaced as pain poured into his senses.
He was bombarded with the thoughts of a Zenith ranked creature.
In reality, there were no thoughts.
Just jarring screams and screeches that carried faint meanings of what the octopus was thinking, or trying to think.
Liam imagined that the pain would be far less when trying with a lower ranking beast.
Or even one less intelligent than the Shifter, but it wasn’t enough to stop him from continuing.
Eventually, the six perspectives formed… along with the different senses that accompanied it.
And they were all utterly alien.
What Liam realized was, the shifter couldn’t actually see color.
It saw in a black and white filter, but with deeper shades than normal.
There was another sense embedded into its vision, too, something that allowed it to sense light in a much more precise way.
Also, it could perceive light through its skin, which was how it knew what to morph and shape into.
Its smell and hearing was also different than humans, it was laser-precise, but too complicated for Liam to work it out properly.
After one minute passed, Liam severed the connection.
The screeching was getting loud, and he learned what he wanted.
‘Yeah… this’ll be difficult.’
‘Harmonizing everything won’t be easy.’
‘In fact, I don’t think it’s possible, even with a Rank 3 mind.’
Then, Liam realized something important.
‘I don’t need to make it a technique.’
‘I can just make it a process!’
‘That way, even the Elders could help me complete it.’
‘But first, I’ll have to succeed in making a blackhole.’
///
By the end of it, Liam just used the next two weeks of preparation to make several new and improved Abyssal Needles.
Tweaking and even beginning the body tempering method straight away was not ideal. It required extensive research.
Obviously, there were several ideas that bubbled in his mind for newer, crueler weapons, but they had to wait.
At first glance, the Abyssal Needle was already amazing itself.
But just by remembering its edifice, Liam thought of improvements.
For one, the Needle’s speed.
Now, Liam wanted to make it faster.
Even Rank 3 Magi could be taken off guard with it, but in a real battle, they could easily avoid its range and use movement spells to run away.
With a few changes to its design, Liam could afford to make it thinner without losing any of its power.
As Liam began to make them, he realized he could now apply more than 80% of the Beast Will within the invention!
That was huge!
Although not 100, it bolstered the needle’s potential to an amazing amount.
If Liam was focused on quality over quantity, he could make Abyssal Needles in the middle-tier.
However, Liam was under a strict schedule.
Fighting the Ravenous Leash Sect was only winnable through inscribed items, and it was rapidly approaching.
The fight had its own stages.
First, was the lure.
The Temple didn’t intend to fight the Ravenous Leash in a straight battle.
That was foolish. 𝒃𝙚𝙙𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝒍．𝒆𝒕
With so much control over the island, they simply made it seem that every Sect within the western, northern and southern side suddenly wanted to meet with the Leashes.
They agreed, unaware that every Sect was just the Temple masquerading as them.