Heavenly Dao Nemesis

This isn't over

The slap came so suddenly that she barely had time to react.

Olivia stumbled sideways and fell into the mud. Her medicinal herbs scattered across the ground, their delicate leaves crushed beneath her knees. A thin line of blood appeared at the corner of her mouth.

Liam looked at the girl lying in the mud, then he looked at the disciple who had struck her.

His heart felt struck as he stared furiously at this seniors. 

The original owner of this body had depended on Olivia, and the memories left behind by his death still carried an attachment Liam couldn't dismiss.

He had no intention of allowing those emotions to dictate his actions. Sentiment had its place, but it would never be permitted to cloud his judgment again.

Nevertheless, the girl had done nothing to deserve this.

And the man who had struck her had just made a grave mistake.

Liam slowly raised his head. "You hit her."

The second disciple turned toward him, apparently amused by the accusation. "What of it?"

"You hit my sister."

Brother Chen burst out laughing. "Your sister? Look at you! You're nothing but a cripple with a Broken Spiritual Root. The only reason you're still breathing is that the elders haven't decided you're completely useless."

He stepped closer and nudged Liam's ribs with the toe of his boot. "Why don't you crawl back into the mud where you belong?"

Liam remained silent.

He had once stood at the summit of the mortal cultivation world. Countless sect masters had bowed before him, and even the most arrogant cultivators had thought twice before provoking him.

Now, three insignificant disciples were humiliating him without consequence.

How amusing.

"In my previous life," Liam murmured, "people who laid hands on those under my protection rarely lived long enough to regret it."

Brother Chen frowned. "What nonsense are you talking about?"

Liam planted his palm against the ground and slowly pushed himself upright. Pain shot through his ribs, forcing him to pause and steady his breathing. His body was in far worse condition than he had initially realized.

He couldn't rely on his former strength. His meridians were damaged and his spiritual energy was pitifully weak.

Even so, he had lived for centuries. He had fought enemies stronger than himself.

His cultivation was gone, but his arrogance remained.

Liam lifted his eyes toward Brother Chen. "The next person who lays a hand on my sister will lose that hand."

For a heartbeat, nobody spoke. Then the third disciple burst into laughter. "Did you hear that? The trash is threatening us!"

He wiped the rain from his face, still grinning. "Brother Chen, stop playing with him. Let's break his legs and see whether he can still make those grand declarations while crawling."

Brother Chen's amusement vanished. "Gladly."

He drew back his fist, spiritual energy gathering around it in a turbulent swirl. "Let's see whether you can still talk after I smash your face into the ground."

He lunged.

Liam watched him approach.

The attack was crude. Brother Chen poured most of his spiritual energy into his fist, allowing the rest of his body to remain poorly guarded. Against an ordinary opponent of similar cultivation, the sheer force might have been sufficient.

Against someone who understood the structure of spiritual energy, it was an embarrassing display.

Unfortunately, Liam's body couldn't move quickly enough to evade the attack completely.

He waited until the last possible moment.

Then he shifted his weight, turned his shoulder, and caught Brother Chen's wrist.

A flicker of spiritual energy passed through Liam's fingertips.

It was barely more than a thread, so faint that even Liam could scarcely feel it. Yet he guided it into the precise point where Brother Chen's spiritual energy converged before entering his arm.

In an instant, the two streams of energy collided.

Brother Chen's fist stopped inches from Liam's face.

His eyes widened. "What—?"

The spiritual energy circulating through his arm abruptly collapsed. His fingers went numb, and the force sustaining his stance vanished.

Before he could understand what had happened, his knees buckled.

Thud!

He crashed into the mud.

The alley fell silent except for the patter of rain.

Brother Chen stared at his trembling arm in disbelief. He tried to circulate his spiritual energy, only to discover that the energy within his arm had become chaotic and unresponsive. "What did you do to me?"

Liam released his wrist. "Nothing much. I merely interrupted the flow of your spiritual energy."

He glanced at Brother Chen's arm. "Although, judging by your cultivation, it seems you were already doing an excellent job of that yourself."

Brother Chen's face twisted with humiliation. "You bastard!"

He struggled to rise, but his arm remained numb, forcing him to support himself with his other hand.

The second disciple stepped forward, his expression darkening.

"You dare injure Senior Brother Chen? Do you even know who he is? His cousin is an inner sect disciple! If he reports this to the elders, you'll wish you'd never been born!"

Liam gave him an indifferent look. "Perhaps you should help him report it."

The disciple faltered.

Liam continued, "Tell them three senior disciples cornered an injured outer disciple, stole his sister's belongings, and struck her when she begged you to stop. Be sure to mention how bravely you fought, too."

"You!"

"Or would you prefer to explain why three cultivators needed to gang up on a cripple?"

The second disciple's expression changed.

He seemed to realize that the situation had changed. Liam was still bleeding, his breathing remained uneven, and he could barely sit upright without leaning against the wall.

Yet the look in his eyes made it difficult to treat him as the helpless trash they had bullied for years.

The evening assembly bell rang across the sect grounds.

The sound echoed between the buildings, announcing the beginning of the outer disciples' gathering.

Brother Chen gritted his teeth and forced himself to stand. "Don't think you've won, you bastard. This isn't over."

Liam said nothing. "Tomorrow, we'll come back and finish what we started. And next time, your sister won't escape with just a slap."

He spat into the mud before turning away.

The other two followed him, though the second disciple cast several uneasy glances over his shoulder. Their footsteps gradually disappeared into the rain, leaving Liam and Olivia alone in the narrow alley.

The moment they were gone, Olivia scrambled toward her brother. "Brother!"

She knelt beside him, her earlier fear giving way to panic as she examined his injuries.

"Why did you provoke them? You know what they're like! They won't let this go. Brother Chen's cousin is an inner sect disciple. What are we going to do now?"

Her voice cracked.

"And your injuries..." She swallowed hard, trying to keep herself from crying. "You've already been hurt so badly. Why couldn't you just let them take the spirit stones? We could have found another way."

Liam watched her gather the scattered medicinal herbs with trembling hands.

Some of the leaves had been crushed into the mud. She carefully separated what remained usable, wiping each leaf against the least dirty part of her sleeve.

Even after everything that had happened, she was still thinking about how to save him.

He lowered his gaze to the pouch lying near his knee.

Those few spirit stones had represented weeks of her labor.

He had lived for centuries in his previous life, yet he had never truly understood how much a person could sacrifice simply to keep someone else alive.

Perhaps he had been too accustomed to having everything he needed.

"Olivia."

She immediately looked up. "Yes, Brother?"

"How long have they been bullying us?"

The question caught her off guard.

She hesitated before answering. "Since you failed the last cultivation assessment. Your spiritual energy kept weakening, and the elders said you had no future in the sect. After that, the senior disciples began taking our resources. At first, they only demanded spirit stones, but later they started asking me to do their work for them."

Her fingers tightened around the herbs.

"I thought if I endured it, they would eventually get tired of us. I didn't want you to worry, so I never told you everything."

Liam's expression remained composed, but his eyes grew colder.

The original owner had been weak, but weakness did not justify this kind of treatment. The Azure Cloud Sect had allowed its outer disciples to prey upon one another, while those with connections enjoyed the freedom to do whatever they pleased.

He had seen similar systems before.

They always produced the same result: the powerful became arrogant, the weak learned to endure, and everyone called it the natural order.

Liam had once believed that strength alone could overcome such injustice. His first life had taught him how easily even the strongest man could fall when he placed his trust in the wrong people.

He would not repeat that mistake. "From now on, you don't have to endure this alone."

Liam held her gaze. "I can't promise that those three won't return. They probably will. But the next time they come, we won't be standing here helplessly."

She stared at him, searching his face as she were trying to recognize if this was her real brother. "Brother... why are you speaking like this?"

"Like what?"

"Like..." She struggled to find the right words. "Like you're not afraid of anything anymore."

Liam said nothing, he only let out a breath.

"Fear doesn't solve problems, Olivia. Neither does surrendering everything we have."

He reached toward her and gently wiped the blood from the corner of her mouth with his thumb. "Does it hurt?"

Olivia's eyes widened slightly.

Perhaps it was the question itself, or perhaps it was the unexpected gentleness with which he asked it. Whatever the reason, her lips began to tremble.

"A little," she admitted.

Liam's expression softened before returning back to normal. "Then we'll find medicine for it."

"But your injuries—"

"We'll treat mine, too."

She wanted to argue more, but the words never came. Instead, she lowered her head and gathered the remaining herbs.

Liam watched her for a moment before shifting his attention inward.

Beneath the pain and exhaustion, he could sense his fragile spiritual root. It felt more like it was sealed rather than broken.

The pressure surrounding it was unlike anything he had encountered during his previous cultivation.

He could attempt to break the seal, but doing so in his current condition would be foolish. His meridians were too damaged, and his spiritual energy was too weak to withstand whatever lay dormant within him.

He needed to repair his body first which needed cultivation resources.

And before anything else, he needed to understand the jade pendant that had brought him here.

The pendant had reacted at the moment of his death, tearing his soul away from the ordinary cycle of reincarnation. Whether it had deliberately chosen this body or merely delivered here remained a mystery.

But Liam had learned one thing from his first life.

Nothing that possessed such power acted without a reason. He would uncover that reason eventually. For now, survival came first. "Olivia, can you help me stand?"

She immediately put the herbs aside and moved closer, slipping one arm around his waist.

"Of course. Lean on me."

Her small frame trembled beared his weight, but she said nothing as she helped him rise. Liam steadied himself against the wall, fighting the dizziness that threatened to overwhelm him.

The movement sent another wave of pain through his ribs.

He clenched his jaw until it passed.

This body was weaker than he had imagined. Even a minor exertion left him breathless, and the spiritual energy he had used to disable Brother Chen had nearly exhausted what little strength he possessed.

Once again, Liam would need to begin from the very bottom.

The thought should have frustrated him.

Instead, a creepy smile appeared on his bloodied face.

He had started with nothing once before. He had climbed from an obscure cultivator to the founder of the Skybreak Dynasty, overcoming countless enemies along the way.

The difference was that he now possessed the knowledge of a lifetime and he knew exactly what awaited him at the summit.

The people who had stolen his life and everything he had built.

Liam raised his eyes toward the darkening sky. Beyond the clouds lay the same heavens which his enemies continued to live, unaware that the man they had murdered had been given another chance.

"Enjoy your time while you can," he murmured.

Olivia glanced at him. "What did you say, Brother?"

"Nothing important."

He shifted his weight against her shoulder.

"Let's go home."

Together, they left the alley.

Behind them, the rain washed away the blood staining the muddy ground. But it could not erase what had happened there, nor could it undo the decision Liam had made.

He would rebuild his cultivation, uncover the secrets of his sealed spiritual root, and ensure that Olivia never again had to beg anyone for the right to live in peace.

As for Michael and Raven, their reckoning would come when he was ready.

Until then, Liam would remain nothing more than a disgraced outer disciple with a supposedly broken spiritual root.

The heavens had given him a second life and he intended to make them regret it.