Withstanding the pain from the backlashes he suffered left and right, Liam pulled the soul essence around him to heal himself. His mana core churned faster than ever, and the mana within the stone tablet also violently roiled.
And just like that, yet another dungeon was getting drained faster than ever.
Liam could feel it. His soul strength was steadily increasing. Meanwhile, he only had less than half an hour left. Would he make it in time? Fuck. He needed to hurry.
As he shoved the numerous beast souls into the black dragon sword, the backlash became bigger and bigger, and his soul was also becoming stronger.
The only issue was that the pain was also explosively increasing every single second. This time the black dragon sword did not hold back and showed its true colours.
It was as if the sword realized what Liam was trying to do and challenged him back. Did you want damage to your soul? Let me see if you can handle this.
After a couple of minutes, the thousand souls were almost in, and Liam could only barely hold on. However, the main show was yet to start, the main feast yet to be served.
At this time, the sword in Liam's hand suddenly trembled and disappeared. Instead of the cold hard weapon, now all that was left was a white mist.
Liam couldn't help but become shocked. This was completely unexpected.
Right in front of him, this unfathomably powerful mist rose up and devoured the rest of the thousand souls from the black bead all on their own.
They were sucked in a fraction of a second and completely devoured. This was not good. Liam immediately prepared himself for what was about to come next.
ROAR!!! The white mist enveloped him, and then it started, the beginning of his personal hell. His body trembled, and his soul shuddered, unable to withstand the intense whiplash from the dragon souls that surrounded him.
Liam felt as if his body and everything were going to blast apart into smithereens. He did not want to die. He did not want to lose to this, but at this moment, it felt as if his death would be a kindness.
If he could just die, then he would escape from all of this pain and torture. The suffering was too much for him to bear that he even forgot why he was doing this in the first place.
But before he could completely vanish into this nothingness and lose himself, thankfully, his instincts or his muscle memory or, rather, his soul memory kicked in.
Out of habit, his heavily injured soul, which was getting more and more injured by the second from being thrashed around by the dragon souls, started absorbing the soul essence from the puddle he was sitting on.
However, because of the speed at which he was being injured, very quickly, this puddle also started to dry out. In a matter of seconds, his soul consumed the numerous souls that were previously swirling around in the essence puddle.
It didn't last long at all as this puddle completely disappeared without any trace and the assault of the black dragon souls was far from over. At least this gave him temporary mental clarity, which made him feel the pain all the better. Liam shouted in agony.
He did not intend to underestimate this weapon, and yet somehow, he had done just that. This was why he had delayed dealing with the next seal until now. But he was not in a position to delay any longer, and he had rushed things.
There were consequences for this, and he had to face them now. Not everything was going to go his way, no matter how desperately he wanted them to. Now he could see it clearly. It was a fool's errand all along.
Reborn again? Change his fate? It didn't matter how many chances he got. Perhaps someone like him was destined to fail every single time. Tears streamed down Liam's face. More than the pain, the hopelessness was pushing him to despair.
Can someone like him stand up against a god like that woman? Memories of the dreaded past flashed across his mind. He wanted to simply let go and die, but if he did that, then history would once again repeat itself.
"No. No. No. I cannot lose here." Liam banged on the ground with both his fists. He shouted until his throat became hoarse and got a grip on himself. With one single movement, he then took out another black bead and broke it.
He did not stop there. He broke another and then another one. Suddenly, the puddle that was drained just now was once again flush with soul essence.
Since the black dragon sword was not holding back, Liam went all out as well. He also did not bother saving anything for the future. He used everything in his possession.
The lizardmen's souls, the beast horde's souls and the villagers' souls. He broke every single black bead without any concern. If he was going to go down, at least he was going to do down swinging.
Liam started inhaling all the soul essence around him without any reserve. The black dragon sword continued to do a number on him, and he, in turn, drained the souls faster than the stone tablet stabilized them to hold his ground.
He was only hanging by a thread, but he was still there, bearing it all. Slowly the second round of souls was also being inhaled at an insane pace.
Meanwhile, all of these shenanigans were also sucking the mana dry. The more Liam struggled against the black dragon sword, the more mana was sucked dry.
Soon, the Rock Temple dungeon was completely destroyed and consumed by the stone tablet.
The world around him also collapsed, and he lost even the small support that he received from the stone tablet.
Now only a cluster of souls remained around him, which were dissipating at lightning speed, and the black dragon sword was still raging!
"No! I will not lose here!" Liam shouted again as he started madly pulling all the souls towards himself. With or without the stone tablet, he was going to subdue this sword right here and now.
***
Mass Release Chapter 3~
Please thank Matthias_Schmidt for sponsoring this mass release!