As the woman watched the hateful person with a cold glint in her eyes, Liam only chuckled lightly. "Heh. My lady, do you take me for a fool?"
Sure, she gave her word, but one's word was only worth their honor and dignity. As for the chained-up woman, she seemed to have neither of those.
Liam still remembered the strong evil and sinister presence he felt when he briefly tried to enter the hall. It was strongly imprinted on his mind. Why would someone like that keep their word?
"I am not stepping inside. If you want, you make that kid bring everything over here for me to see."
"INSOLENCE!" The woman immediately screeched again. "I give you my word. What more do you want? No harm will befall you!"
Unfortunately for her, the more she tried to convince him, the more Liam dragged his feet on the ground. He refused to budge from his stance at all. There was no way he was stepping into that hall.
The woman trembled in anger. Once again, she was met with a roadblock. Whatever she said fell on deaf ears. She was fuming from top to bottom, but nothing was changing.
She didn't have a choice, so Liam expected her to do what he said. To his surprise, though, she stopped talking.
Hmmm? Liam raised a brow and started harvesting the last wyvern as well. Anytime now?
Seconds slowly ticked by as he continued greedily absorbing the last soul. However, to his surprise, the woman remained quiet. She was no longer pestering him.
She still seemed to be silently gritting her teeth and muttering curses under her breath but that was all. She did not yell or threaten him with anything or offer any olive branch. Now it was his turn to get nervous. Did he end up pushing her too much?
It did not matter. To him, the wyvern souls were a lot more valuable than any treasure she could offer because he could directly take these souls outside to the real world.
A few more seconds later, the job was completely done. Liam licked his lips in contentment. All the twelve wyverns who were supposed to be guarding this fort were now in his possession!
What an amazing haul! This was a lot more than he had bargained for, but he was not done just yet. After finishing off all the wyverns, Liam did not stop there and placed his hands on the remaining dragon souls.
Immediately, the woman, who was silent up until now, suddenly started shaking in madness. She even tried to break free, rattling the chains that were keeping her down, and started shouting like a maniac.
"STOP IT!"
"STOP IT!"
"STOP IT!"
And Liam could see why she was this upset. Even he could feel the inherent difference in the quality of soul. He couldn't quite place a finger on what it was, but the feeling that a dragon's soul gave was completely different than what a wyvern's soul gave.
In fact, he wasn't even sure if he would be able to forge this soul. Just the process of funneling and absorbing the soul was a great deal more complicated and difficult, putting immense pressure on his mind.
Liam took out the canister of milky way water and kept gulping it down every now and then as he tried his best to pull the soul towards him.
However, each soul fragment behaved like it was glued to the next one, and when he pulled one, it was as if he was pulling everything. He could feel the weight of all the soul fragments, and that placed enormous pressure on him.
This process was definitely going to take longer than before, but Liam was very firm in his resolve. To the woman's dismay, he kept going on and continued to absorb the soul of the first dragon.
He took another new bead and concentrated completely on the task at hand. Everything else became background noise to him, including the crazy person who was now rattling the chains in a frightening manner as if she was going to break out of there at any given instant.
Unfortunately for her, nothing was working. It was clear that Liam was not going to stop no matter what she did. So, after a few seconds, she quieted down and started absorbing another dragon's soul.
Now it had become a competition. She could even let go of the wyvern souls, as they were but a mere snack to her. However, under no circumstance could she ever let go of the dragon souls. They were simply too irreplaceable and her entire plan relied on them.
She also noticed that Liam was simply saving the souls away and not using them, so she decided to deal with that later on. For now, she focused and started absorbing the soul in front of her.
Time passed slowly as the two did their separate things, sucking as much as they could. Clearly, the woman was better at handling souls, but Liam was able to match her speed as he was simply shoving the soul inside the black bead.
Little by little, their speed started increasing, and an hour later, Liam ended up getting two of the dragon souls while the woman got the remaining two.
At this point, Liam simply dusted his hands and stood up. He had gotten everything he wanted, more or less. There was no point in him staying here any longer.
He smiled and waved at his new friend, who was now back to staring at him in silence. "Have a good one. I will be leaving now."
Unexpectedly, the woman smirked at his remark. "Why are you announcing your departure? Hmmm? Don't you have all the souls you need already? You could have just left. Why bother talking to me? Hmmm? Perhaps you are still eyeing this treasure?"
Liam chuckled. "Nah. I am good. One shouldn't be too greedy. You can keep your treasures."
The woman smirked again at Liam's confidence. "Even if it means one of them would help you heal your body that is currently deteriorating?"
And just as he was about to leave, she had given him an offer that he could not refuse.
