Legacy of Hatred-Chapter 93: Flask

"Where to?!" Liam asked, almost shouting, needing to ensure that his voice would overcome the incessant squeaking in that heated moment.

Melissa’s eyes darted left and right, inspecting the three tunnels ahead, hoping that one might resonate with her memory, only for the latter to fail her.

"C-collapsed!" Melissa shouted, forcing Liam to make an instinctive decision and shoot into the leftmost tunnel.

After the lucky escape from certain death, Liam and Melissa had headed toward what was left of their initial path. Digging through the shallow layer of soil also revealed the tunnel’s somewhat intact state, but that had soon turned out to be a rare exception.

The previous collapse and multiple earthquakes had destroyed many of the tunnels the group had used to reach the hall. New passages had also formed, but they were far from straightforward and had unclear destinations.

So, Liam had resorted to the only method at his disposal. He would follow Melissa’s directions when she recognized the paths ahead, while relying on his instincts when she didn’t.

Sadly, that was no foolproof approach. Liam’s great sense of direction granted him a general idea of where the Demonic Sect’s entrance was, but the new paths didn’t necessarily head there. They often strayed away from where Liam hoped they would go, making him run in circles.

To make things worse, Liam and Melissa couldn’t waste time on lengthy, careful exploration, since the bats had followed them into those tunnels, filling the air with their incessant squeaking.

In a different situation, Liam would have fought the bats before focusing on his escape. Yet, the injured Melissa was still on his back, and he barely had two Seismic Palms left in him, which he might need to open otherwise closed paths.

And the tunnels’ many twists and turns served to keep the bats away, until that threat caught up with Liam and Melissa. After crossing what finally was a straight path, the two arrived at another crossroad, only for squeaking noises to come from everywhere.

Liam heard the bats behind him, but also from the two paths ahead. It seemed he was surrounded. Those creatures sounded ready to swarm him at any moment, but he wasn’t powerless just yet.

’Just open it and lift it,’ Liam recalled his Master’s instructions, straightening his left arm to fish out something from his sleeve, only for nothing to fall.

Liam glanced at his arm and moved it around, but his sleeve kept failing him. It seemed carrying Melissa had pushed back his second secret weapon, and he couldn’t feel where it had remained stuck.

"Search it!" Liam ordered, lifting his left arm. "There’s a flask inside somewhere!"

Melissa had understood that something had gone wrong and didn’t hesitate to check Liam’s arm with both hands, pressing them over his robe to search for anything that wasn’t his muscles.

Yet, upon finding that something, Melissa hesitated. The item felt stuck between Liam’s elbow and armpit, which she couldn’t reach without being inappropriate.

"Hurry!" Liam urged as the squeaking noises grew louder, forcing Melissa to push her embarrassment aside and slip a hand under his collar.

Naturally, Melissa touched far more than she had bargained for during that search, but the heated situation prevented her from dwelling on how that made her feel, especially since she quickly found the flask.

"Open it to the ceiling!" Liam ordered when Melissa showed him the flask. "And hold your breath!"

Melissa promptly complied, unsealing the flask and lifting it before squeezing her face against Liam’s shoulder. Meanwhile, huge, winged figures appeared from the tunnels, only for their squeaks to turn into high-pitched eeks.

Nothing visible came out of the flask, but its green liquid receded, evaporating at the exposure to the underground area’s air. A pungent, dangerous smell also enveloped Liam and Melissa’s surroundings, forcing the bats to pull the brakes.

Of course, the bats couldn’t suddenly interrupt their momentum. They spread their wings to try to stop themselves, but still flew forward, slamming into each other or the two cultivators.

However, Liam simply crouched down and lowered his head while Melissa hid herself better on his back. The two endured those impacts, ignoring the occasional scratches and painful bumps, while the bats kept panicking.

It was messy, but the bats soon flew away, returning to the various tunnels to escape that dangerous stench. Their squeaking noises also subsided after a while, finally bringing silence to those areas.

Liam straightened himself at that point, and Melissa also lifted her head, covering her mouth and nose with his collar while lowering the flask.

The green liquid was no more, and the stench in the area was also subsiding quickly, forcing Melissa to look at the paths ahead. She and Liam had to resume their departure before the bats or something else returned, but the collapse prevented her from recognizing anything.

"Oh, we did it," Liam muttered before Melissa could say anything, even pointing at the rightmost path. "That’s the way out." 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

The subsiding stench made Melissa leave Liam’s collar to check the tunnels better, but her memory failed her again. She was sure she had never seen that crossroads.

"Are you s-sure?" Melissa questioned.

"What? " Liam asked, glancing at Melissa while tilting his head in confusion. "Half of this area collapsed, but that’s the right tunnel."

Melissa glanced at Liam in perplexity before refocusing on the crossroads. The collapse part could be right, but she was sure those tunnels didn’t match anything in her memory.

"Look," Liam continued, since Melissa’s silence hinted at her disbelief. "These rocks have moved, but they are the same we crossed earlier."

Melissa blinked now, so confused that no stammer affected her following question. "You recognize the rocks?"

"What do you mean?" Liam wondered. "They are totally different from the others."

Melissa checked Liam’s honest face again before trying to find what he was talking about. However, she only saw normal, ordinary rocks, no different from the thousands she had crossed during that mission.

Yet, Melissa was far beyond questioning Liam, so she nodded, slipping the empty flask back in his robe before clinging to his neck again.

And, as impossible as it sounded, crossing that tunnel truly brought the two into areas even Melissa recognized, culminating in the most welcome sight either of them could have asked for.

It had been messy and almost deadly, but Liam and Melissa finally stepped outside those underground ruins, returning to the inclined plateau before the collapsed entrance. They had reached the canyon, where the cold morning light above illuminated the path toward the surface.