CHAPTER 579: HISTORY

The Thousand Year War.

Liam had admired this piece of history for the longest time. Mainly because it manifested the sheer power of the cultivation path. A war that raged on for a thousand years without stopping.

Regarding the Thousand Year War, Liam had read some books on it. Usan’s library spanned every genre and span of history. The past few millenia were documented well enough, but past the five to eight thousand year mark, things got a little shakey. Accounts became unreliable, muddled up and ignorant.

Around that age, was where the Thousand Year War took place.

Liam examined the rest of the mural. It circled around the dome.

From left to right, it told a story.

The Ashuras rampaged, ate and violated the Earth they stood upon. Ungodly creatures which sought havoc and burnt civilizations. They sought to devour the planet.

From the skies, cultivators arrived into their lands, surrounding them in huge, united, diverse coalitions. Humans and their scourges wanted them gone.

From a distant corner, a blurry figure watched neutrally.

The battle ensued. The Ashuras were led by the King. The strongest one, physically. All of them were unique with powers of their own.

The Ashura are few. Their opposition is many. The battle is numerically unfair. But not truly.

Liam’s eyes widened. He saw figures. Figures in the background of the paintings that he recognized.

The Queen of Echoria!

The General!

Eternal Sword!

Kuan, the Hand of Light!

Alucard!

They were blended so well in the background, Liam would’ve never realized who they were. Like soldiers in a war, they too played their part.

In particular, they all looked different. Even through the painting, which was done masterfully, he could sense that they were in the middle of the fifth rank, except for Eternal Sword. He was undoubtedly Rank 6.

Liam continued, the story nearing its climax.

For every Ashura killed, tens of thousands of humans were sacrificed.

The pools of blood formed rivers on the Earth, forever changing the land beneath which they fought. Oceans had turned to steam. Mountains, to valleys.

And the Ashuras were wiped out. Only the King remained, kneeling, on his last breath, sadness clinging to him at the loss of his people.

The fraction of humans remaining were naked with effort and pain and suffering. Each desperate to end the costly war.

Liam could see a unique figure. He had a bold, mighty frame like that of a bull, and he was smiling ear to ear despite the grimness of the circumstances. In his hands was a mace.

’I don’t recognize him,’ Liam thought. ’Did he die?’

There were many cultivators that seemed like important figures, unique in their own separate ways.

A chubby one with a big belly struck out to him, and a pale-skinned lady with noble features.

Their fates, however, were unknown to him.

Just before the humans would seize victory, the Ashuras tore open a rift in the center of the battlefield. A rift to another reality, a small group retreating into it.

Liam nodded to himself. That was where the Ashuras were.

But the King remained back.

Instead of dying at the hands of man, the King let out a world shattering scream at the sky, sacrificing himself in a blast which ended the scarce lives of hundreds more.

The King...

’Was Raast the King?’ Liam thought. ’He never told me anything about it. Perhaps that was what the sacrifice was. He’d sent out a part of himself but not the whole thing.’

Does that... make him King?

Perhaps that’s why he was chosen in the first place. His earth name was Darius King, after all.

’Probably not.’

He continued.

The Ashura corpses were taken. Split amongst the present cultivators. A big bellied man took two whole corpses. The bull-like man took none and left immediately, and so did the General. Eternal Sword took one and gave it an honorable burial. Alucard took an Ashura, perhaps the biggest of them all, and drew his white ichor before leaving. The Echorian Queen transferred an Ashura into her crown. The Hand of Light could not seize a corpse.

Then, Liam moved to the last part of the mural.

His eyes widened.

Naxathra with a youthful Alucard, and between them, the Ashura corpse the vampire king had brought him.

Then, Liam moved his eyes to the center of the colosseum.

It was a massive cocoon—like a spider had spun its web around it. At least 13 feet tall with a suitable width. A hundred silk strings lazily hung off of it by the ceiling, like it was waiting to be unveiled.

There was no special contraption of any kind present, no puzzle to solve, no riddle to answer.

Liam’s eyes narrowed at the strings. He spotted a piece of writing on the wall, immediately translating it.

"CHANCE. ONE HUNDRED TO ONE."

It referred to the strings. Cutting the right one meant that he could leave unscathed and uninjured. Cutting the wrong one meant the cocoon would hatch with whatever sat behind it. And Liam had some theories on that, too.

Liam used his King’s Eye and walked around the cocoon, looking for any clues as to what could help him figure out the right string.

He took his time.

But nothing turned up. Every string varied in thickness and there was no fixed pattern to it.

Liam shrugged.

He clenched the Black Blade and severed the thickest string.

The string weightlessly fell to the floor.

Nothing happened for several minutes.

Then, the door on the opposite side opened. At the same time, a platform emerged from the ground below containing a chest.

Liam’s eyes widened, then he burst with laughter.

"No way! Did I get it right?" he said to himself.

He did!

A platform emerged from the ground below containing a chest.

Liam opened it. He saw a strange, wheel-like tool with six different sections poking out of it. Like a ship’s helm. Without giving it a thorough examination, Liam stored it immediately and prepared to step out.

But he stopped and took a look back.

He knew what was behind the cocoon there.

He knew damn well what it was.

But what could he possibly gain from it?

....

If there was a possibility to know more, he had to try.

Liam walked back, sword in hand...

And severed the rest of the strings.

BOOM!

The exit had abruptly closed, blocking him out.

Liam watched as the cocoon unfurled, the strings snapping apart like tight-tuned piano wire, slowly working to reveal what he already knew.

The only other Ashura in the world besides him.

’Now. Are you smart,’ Liam thought with sharp eyes, ’or dumb?’