Born in Blood

Liam's chaos never mixed with his darkness. 

The repulsion effect of his Primordial Essence was too powerful. 

Even if Liam lessened his chaos' density and tried to overwhelm it with his gaseous, liquid or solid darkness, nothing worked.

It didn't help that as Liam's Chaos Pearl grew stronger, the more difficult the task seemed.

However... Liam had a plan. 

In fact, this Trial of all things coincided with what Liam wanted to learn.

This was a project, and he was now forced to solve it.

It was the silver lining.

Liam didn't need to fight. 

All he had to do was solve this issue, and he could do several things in between.

'Now that it's come to this, I'll have to force a breakthrough.'

'It'll take a week at most,' Liam thought.

But first, Liam had to test out a few things.

Gripping his Black Blade and empowering his arms, Liam swung vertically across the massive boulder.

SHING!

The odachi went through roughly 1 meter in but immediately stopped.

'Well… that's strange.'

The thousand-some boulders Liam had cut down were all roughly 5 meters in length and width. 

This one was a massive 8 and a half meters, and it was hardened and empowered compared to the rest.

If Liam had to guess, this had the combined rigidity of a dozen or so boulders combined. 

And he was supposed to cut it in half.

'I don't even know if I could combine darkness and chaos, let alone use it to cut this thing in half.'

The more Liam thought about the Trial at hand, the more his brows furrowed. 

Then again, it was a known fact that humans — not that Liam was a human — performed supernaturally under pressure.

And Liam had an ace up his sleeve. 

A foundational spell that hadn't been developed yet. 

An amazing discovery made only by him.

The Black Hole. 

It was the only plausible way for Liam's darkness to work together with the uncontrollable chaos.

Darkness was mendable. It didn't have a fixed form, and with the Black Hole, it could become a powerful gravitational force. 

Only, this all depended on what Liam made it. 

After all, the Black Hole spell didn't even have a Rank. It had no offensive capabilities, nor any defensive abilities. It was a blank canvas.

Liam sat cross-legged and heaved a sigh. 

He outstretched both hands, making his palms face towards the fake sky.

WHOOOM!

On Liam's right hand, a black vortex the size of a dot appeared. It sucked in the air and space around it.

Slowly, it grew in size, releasing a slow hum as it did so.

SHHHHH!

On Liam's left hand, a dot of chaos grew. It shrieked the air, repulsing the air and bending space.

One could easily see the differences between the two elements.

The Black Hole, although a devastating force of nature, was quiet, gentle and stable.

The Chaos, however, was the complete opposite. Loud, destructive and volatile.

Even in the smallest way, there were differences between Absorption and Repulsion.

…How the heck was Liam supposed to mix these?

Liam slowly clasped his palms together, cupping them around each other and enclosing the two forces between his tightening hands.

Liam used his mental energy to maintain the two forces, but he felt the Black Hole slowly weaken.

When Liam's palms rubbed against each other, the Black Hole simply… puffed out of existence.

It was gone.

Only the piece of chaos remained, wriggling between Liam's palms to escape.

Liam unclasped his hands.

BOOM!

A slight shockwave spread as the dot of chaos exploded outward.

'As I thought,' Liam thought with furrowed brows. 

'The Black Hole is too weak. In contrast, the repulsion of chaos is too powerful.'

'If I can make the Black Hole a strong enough spell…'

'It has to strengthen the absorption effect, though.'

'It doesn't have to be offensive or defensive.'

'Just a plain, sucking force that absorbs air and matter.'

But Liam had a premonition that the spell needed to be around the fourth Rank to work.

His chaos was powerful.

Much, much stronger compared to his gaseous-stage core.

But Liam was close to advancing.

'I just need a week to break through. That way, the darkness I produce will be much stronger, and by extension, so will the Black Hole.'

Liam paused everything else and threw his head into cultivating. 

One after the other, he swallowed pills that gave his core extra protection and durability.

His cultivation technique was extremely dangerous. 

For that reason, he couldn't really swallow pills that doubled or tripled his progress speed.

If he did, he'd most likely explode.

And he didn't want to explode.

For the next week, all Liam did was meditate, rest, and cultivate.

Obviously, Liam didn't bring any human corpses to devour with him inside the inheritance.

Usan had told him that was a bad idea.

If a Rank 6 Zenith wanted to, they could see through the space rings and deduce what was in them.

And imagine seeing someone's space ring filled to the brim with dead corpses. Even Kuan would be disturbed.

Finally, after a week and a half, Liam concluded his cultivation session.

And at 21 years old, plus 7 months, Liam was officially a liquid-stage cultivator!

The contents in his core were now pure liquid, and brimming with energy.

Liam raised his right hand and a tiny black vortex formed above it.

WHOOOOM!

Liam smiled.

It was definitely stronger.

Its absorption rate was also faster. 

So was its gravitational pull. It was still faint and amounted to pulling the locks of hair from Liam's head, but still.

'All it did was make the base form slightly stronger. I still haven't added anything yet.'

Liam raised his left hand and a dot of chaos surged above it.

SHHHHH!

Liam tried combining the two again.

He felt both forces clash and fight between themselves, but once again, the chaos came out on top. 

BOOM!

Then it exploded.

'I guess I'll make a spell for the Black Hole first,' Liam thought, taking out a large blank canvas.

'I just hope this works...'