Chapter 5: Spirit Of The Sadman Lake (1)
He heard that there used to be something called the moon that stood within the starlight when spirit wasn't a thing yet.
It's supposed to be a source of light that brightens the darkness, a material for poems and stories, and the largest and most radiant one among the stars.
Now, it's gone, and the world was plunged into darkness.
Maybe it's changed just like how the sun was, or it was devoured by a spirit; the mysterious remained, and as time went on, people got used to the absence of the moon.
Some even used it as an advantage, just like Liam right now.
'Emerge your creepy head out right now.'
Liam couldn't see through the darkness, but he knew it would emerge its head at the center of the lake, as it seemed to be stuck there and could only use its [Water Limbs] ability to catch its prey.
Those water hands are even bigger than that, Dorian, and the range they could stretch to is around a kilometer from the lake.
What's worse is that the ability [Water Draining] that drains all of the water of something by touch is also applied to those water arms, so the moment he got caught, he would be dead in an instant.
That is why he needed to be extra careful.
He knew where its ugly head would come out but that didn't mean he could accurately know where it was; he only had the general idea to mentally prepare himself to do this.
Liam poured some alcohol on one of his axes before striking those together and shouting.
"Spirit, here I am. If you have guts, come and kill me!"
Despite there being no reaction, Liam kept striking his axe repeatedly to create some sparks for the ignition and, at the same time, provoking the spirit.
Bang-!
"Come on, you coward."
Bang-!
"Come out—"
Plop-!
The sound was barely audible, but with the silence here, Liam could hear it and immediately dashed to the left.
Crashing sound of trees breaking appeared ahead, and from where his spot was, a booming sound occurred, with pieces of wood and dirt flying through him.
'The creature could understand human language.'
Good to know.
Bang-!
This time, the axe from his right arm was set aflame, and without wasting a second, he lowered his axe right below his waist and threw it upward in the direction of the lake.
He sneakily approached the lake and used [Fool Deduction] so that the spirit wouldn't have guessed what his plan of movement was.
Sound of smacking and ravaging behind him, but he remained calm and watched the spinning axe reach quite a height before it stopped ascending and fell.
Liam stopped moving and moved his gaze right at the lake while steadying himself with his axe raised and put behind his head.
The moment the blue burning axe reached the surface of the lake, its faint light revealed the silhouette of the long neck of the spirit.
A cold glint surfaced within Liam's eyes, and he threw the axe right at the silhouette.
The ability [Axe Enthusiast] engraved the skill and technique he had never heard of into his body, making it so that every time he wielded an axe, it became a part of himself that followed every one of his orders even when it's not in his hand anymore.
So when he threw it with his inhuman strength, the spinning axe flew at the speed of a flying arrow and accurately struck the creature's head.
"GRAHHH"
Through the eerie roar of the spirit, he confirmed that the axe had managed to sink into its flesh.
Seizing the chance, Liam rushed toward the lake before stopping just right at the edge of the lake.
"The attack is fatal but it isn't enough to kill it."
That's why he had made a plan to draw all of its attention.
A scream of a man resounded throughout the entire forest along with the heavy steps he was making.
Hearing the scream, Liam's lips curled up into a devious smile; this was an extra addition to his plan and seeing a column of water rise from the lake, he knew it had taken the bait.
The scream in the forest was the scream of one of the thugs who tried to kidnap him before.
He was planning on sparing his life, but seeing that his current plan still had some flaws in it, he decided to use the poor man as bait to draw out all of the attention.
He knocked the thug unconscious and then dumped him not far from where he threw his first axe and chopped off his finger so that he would scream like right now.
Only when he counted two pillars of water forming did Liam take a deep breath and finally dive down.
He had planned on killing this thing since the start of the mission, around three months ago.
The spirit was manifested into this world around three years ago, but during that time, it was weak and had to fight over another spirit born long before from a man weeping in the lake before he accidentally fell into it.
In the end, the spirit of the lake won and devoured the spirit there to become a monster at threat level three.
This is a whole new level of danger to Liam!
Threat level one is capable of killing two or three humans at the same time; threat level two is capable of killing a group of people in the blink of an eye.
And now threat level three, where he estimated that under certain conditions, he could slaughter an entire village without much trouble!
That is why he had patiently waited, watching how it acted or the scope of its ability and testing its nature and intelligence by throwing scums from the village near here and letting them run among.
It's cruel, but Liam has long grown numb to such feelings after doing this for a while.
And it helped him out tremendously in his analysis of the creature.
If there's one thing he is sad about, it's that he had wasted his precious sleep just to watch it blissfully enjoy its sleep!
"Unforgivable, they truly are unforgivable."
But now, it's all ended here; his plan has finally come to fruition!
Within the dark liquid, Liam could feel the change within the water and two bright yellow eyes looking at him.
There is no sound, no sight, no air and worst of all, there is a monstrosity near you. A normal person would scream in agony and let themselves drown when facing such pressure.
But not Liam, for he had long grown accustomed to the feeling of terror, of pain and of cold in his heart.
As long as he could live peacefully through the day and enjoy a good sleep through the night, that's all he needed to have.