The air shimmered quietly before tearing open like fabric.

Liam stepped out of the swirling portal with a cold expression, its edges folding behind him with a soundless hush. 

His boots landed lightly on the air, dust curling around his ankles. 

He didn’t glance at the other places.

His eyes, deep as a bottomless golden abyss, were fixed forward.

The Goblin Lord turned, smiling with that same deranged, leering grin, the faint shimmer of the cage still glowing around Mize behind him.

“There you are,” the goblin chuckled, stepping closer to her, his thick staff dragging slightly across the air with a scrape.

He then poked Mize's weak body inside the cage playfully before Liam's gaze. 

Her stomach and inches away from her chest.

“So, when your little wife is in danger, that’s when you finally show yourself?” He turned his head slightly to cast a smug look back at Mize, whose weakened body trembled faintly inside the magical restraint, "Alas, another foolish divine path walker, have you not been warned against? That most races possessed the means to counter you?"

"Hahahaha"

Hearing this.

There was also a touch of shame on her face, feeling humiliated. Especially when the staff of other man, creature, touched her. 

She felt dirty...

Liam’s gaze flickered toward her.

Just once. A second at most. 

But the glint in his golden eyes dulled, just a little. 

His expression didn’t shift, but a ripple of quiet stillness followed in his wake. 

"Isn't it interesting?" The goblin smiled, poking a few more times onto Mize's stomach with his staff, "These beings that we thought were invisible, are actually very fragile at one point"

"And that is... " He smiled lewdly, "Their ego and naivety that comes with their strength"

He poked again, this time walking passed through the golden shimmer, and closed his distance before Mize's body. 

He crouched down, and Liam was hesitant, almost wanting to make a move. 

However, "Don't" The goblin lord grinned, giving Liam a playful look from over his shoulder, "Or else, she will die"

Liam stopped. 

And the goblin hand slowly reached down under his gaze. 

Mize panicked, her face paled, and she quickly closed her eyes, body trembling. 

Then, the perspective slowed down. 

The goblin hand moved in this perspective, slowly approaching Mize's chest.

Liam discerned this with a helpless look on his face. Not knowing what to do... 

But then...

'I guess, losing apart of my humanity to save her should be enough'

Cracked... 

“Don’t push me,” Liam said softly, his voice calm, but there was something wrong in it. 

The goblin lord felt something strange, his hand halted mid motion as he cast his gaze towards him.

Huh?

Then, Liam's voice continued, hoarse, overlapped, a low hum layered behind the words, barely audible. 

Reaching the goblin lord's ears.

“Insect.”

The Goblin Lord’s smile froze.

“…What did you just say?”

“Insect,” Liam repeated, stepping forward slowly. His eyes dulled further, the golden hue flickered strangely like a dimly lit flame. 

His shoulders dropped slightly as if he were letting go of restraint itself. 

His voice wasn’t loud, but the way he spoke it, it felt like a weight placed directly on the goblin's chest.

“You… you lowly piece of human filth, know your damn place!”

The Goblin Lord roared, his massive staff glowing red-hot with gathered power. 

He swung down.

But Liam didn’t flinch. 

His hand lifted mid-motion, fingers curling slightly as if about to snap, before something made him pause.

The Goblin Lord’s voice slithered from the front.

“You sure you want to move? I could break her ribs like this. Touch her skin. It’s smooth… for a human.”

His other hand was already reaching toward Mize inside the cage.

And Liam’s hand…stopped mid-air.

His breath... Slowed down, vanished, but he didn’t blink.

Click.

Crack!

Crack!

The Goblin Lord attack reached him. 

The crack around the space collided against his body. 

But then, everything disappeared. 

Liam didn't speak.

He just stood there.

Silent.

Then… something else cracked.

Not in the air. Not on the battlefield.

It cracked in Liam’s mind.

In that moment, something inside him collapsed. Or maybe it was released.

The light in his eyes vanished, not dimmed, but transformed. 

From golden warmth into something older. Deeper. The glow became murky, like liquid amber sinking into a well with no bottom.

Ink...

Ink...

Darkness...

Soul...

The great old one...

His entire presence changed. 

Even the wind recoiled.

In an instant, Liam turned into a mass of horror. Half of his body turned into swirling and squirming tentacles, and his half lifted hand, reached out into the air. 

His eyes, godless. 

The Goblin Lord saw, his expression sank immediately. 

"W-what?"

A pulse surged up Liam’s arm.

And with a sickening sound, the goblin's hand exploded.

There was no warning. One second he held the staff, the next, his fingers burst open like overripe fruit under pressure.

Flesh peeled back in torn chunks.

Bone snapped and splintered, spraying viscera through the air. The blood didn't even get the chance to reach Mize's body as an invisible wind lifted them up. 

The scream hadn’t even reached his throat yet when it happened again.

In the space of a blink, Mize was no longer inside the cage.

She was in Liam’s arms.

No spell, no sound, no ripple of magic. Just a seamless cut from one reality to another.

Liam stood there, holding her gently against his chest as if shielding her from the world itself. 

Her eyes barely opened, unfocused, but her trembling stopped the moment he embraced her. 

He didn’t look at her. 

His eyes were elsewhere.

Or, everywhere. 

Deep pupils of the golden throne, overlooking the world, devoid of emotions.

And without a doubt, under the grit of pain, the goblin lord immediately noticed this.

The Goblin Lord clutched his destroyed arm, staggering back, face contorting in sheer disbelief.

“What… What did you do…? What are you?!”

"You!! What are you!!!"

And then he looked.

Into Liam’s eyes.

And he saw it.

Not gold. Not rage. Not mana or power or divine light.

He saw an eye.

As if the whole perspective was being pulled into a gigantic vortex that spanned light years away, a whole dimension of endless darkness emerged into his sight... 

What!

Inside those endless pools, far beyond the human face that held them, an ancient, celestial eye floated in a void of black.

It wasn't a solitary existence, but perhaps an eye of a huge existence that the goblin lord couldn't make out. 

His brain crashed, like a car hitting a brake in the middle of a road. 

It blinked, the eye blinked, just once... 

But the whole dimension screamed in a million howl, screeching, informations came, and his soul stopped... Functioning.

Instantaneously,  the Goblin Lord screamed.

It was enormous. 

So vast it felt as if it could look through galaxies. Each time he blinked, his soul trembled. It wasn’t rage that came from it. 

It wasn’t even intent.

It was observation.

The eye simply looked. And in doing so, it erased meaning.

He screamed until he could no longer feel his own voice. 

The air rioted, the horde beneath cowered in fear momentarily despite their lack of understanding. The fear that came from beyond reached down into their essences. 

His body convulsed in mid-air, bones snapping one by one under unseen pressure.

His aura cracked apart like eggshells. 

His thoughts dissolved before he could finish them. 

He tried to run, but the everything crumbled.

Within seconds, his flesh turned pale.

Then grey.

Then brittle.

And then, he collapsed.

Not like a body, not like a corpse.

Like ash.

He scattered...

Carried away by a wind that didn’t exist.

All that remained was silence.

Liam stood still, casually giving the horde a glance, and so the same scene repeated, as the horde down below. 

Large scale... 

Turned to ashes that disappeared into thin air.

He turned slightly, raising his hand behind him, and without a word, a soul floated into his palm. 

And a portal emerged on the side as he threw it into the darkness, "Eternal hell... Eternal torture. You will never get to see the light of day again, you will never get to see even darkness"

"All that's left, pain and suffering"

"For touching what's mine, I judged you to eternal hell"

In his embrace, Mize stirred faintly in his arms.

“Liam…”

Her voice was hoarse, breath shallow.

She lifted her hand weakly, brushing against the fabric of his shirt.

She seemed to still be affected. 

Or perhaps a way to farm points?

Who knows...

“I feel… sleepy.”

Liam said nothing.

He looked down at her, then raised a glowing palm, gently placing it above her chest. 

Mize's sight was blurry at the moment, she didn't notice Liam's half horrible form, but she probably wouldn't mind. 

Despite so, Liam still covered his figure in a blurry image. She wouldn't be able to see in her current state. 

A soft pulse of light flickered through his fingers, and his brows furrowed for a second, but then relaxed.

'so the means to contain her was just to drain her energy in an instant? It seems he used an artifact to do it'

'What a headache, it seems that the items that could be used against divine path awakener are quite widely spread now'

“Everything’s fine,” he whispered.

With another flick of his wrist, the air rippled around them, and the scenery vanished.

In its place, warm candlelight, soft velvet sheets, and the faint scent of clean linen returned.

The castle’s bedroom.

He laid her down with care, as if she were made of porcelain. She still gripped his sleeve.

“…Liam.”

“I’m here,” he said quietly. “It’s okay now. Sleep.”

She nodded faintly, and her eyes slowly shut, breathing evening out.

Liam sat beside the bed without a word, resting her hand between both of his, as the silence gently returned.

While Mize remained asleep, unaware of the outside world, countless events unraveled beyond the quiet of her dreams.

Especially at the border.

There, wave after wave continued to break like tides of ruin.

Liam stood at the heart of it all. 

He hadn't wanted to leave her, not so soon, not when she was still recovering, but reality didn’t give him the luxury of choice. 

With a quiet glance back and a heaviness in his chest, he left her resting peacefully.

At the edge of the territory, the horizon never stayed still. 

Every hour brought another surge, millions of monsters, marching without end, each more twisted than the last.

And Liam was always there.

He faced them alone.

Still, amidst all that chaos, there was one thing to be grateful for. 

The worst had passed, for now. 

No more otherworldly lords had appeared. No beings from the distant races had crossed over in these waves.

That alone made Liam release a long breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding.

Good. He didn’t want to use that power again. The cost was a bit... Too much. 

The battle against the goblin lord had proved that.

He hadn't even gone all out, not even close, but still, he’d tapped into something he preferred to keep sealed. 

And that brief touch had already left its mark.

Now, above the battlefield, Liam sat on a throne suspended in the air, shadows coiling lazily around its edges. 

Thin tendrils of darkness curled at his feet, flickering like smoke as they drifted into the windless sky.

His gaze swept over the approaching swarm, cold. His mood hadn’t lightened since that fight.

Then, slowly, he pulled back his right sleeve.

Just a few inches.

Beneath it, something pulsed. A black symbol, twisting faintly under the skin, its form unnatural, alive. It throbbed once, then again, like it was breathing.

Liam's expression darkened. He rolled the sleeve down again, hiding it.

A quiet sigh escaped him.

“I had to use it anyway,” he muttered, brushing his fingers along his chin. “No point dragging that battle out.”

His fingers curled inward slightly, thoughtful.

“But still... relying on that form comes with too many conditions. Too much to pay"

He leaned back against the throne, the shadows bending around him in silence.

“Sure, it’s strong, overwhelming. But that’s not enough if it only lasts a moment.” His eyes narrowed slightly. “Not enough to protect her.”

He remembered too clearly, the goblin lord’s expression when he learned of Mize’s profession. 

That look in his eyes. 

The way his twisted grin stretched wider the moment he realized what she was.

It had struck something deep inside Liam. 

“That can’t happen again,” he said softly. “Mimi’s path... seems a little too popular, even among the infinite races.”

He stared down at the writhing battlefield below, a storm of black tendrils and monstrous forms clashing under his gaze.

“I need to grow stronger. A different path. Another kind of power.”

"No matter the price, even if I have to sacrifice trillion of innocent souls"

Below his feet, the 895th wave of the week surged forward. Only a few more remained before the brief rest period arrived, before the assault paused until sunrise.

More points. That’s what he needed.

More points meant more options.

More power.

“Just a little more…” he murmured, eyes gleaming faintly with something unreadable. “I might have to do something unthinkable to her later... but it’ll be for the best.”

His tone softened, just a little.

“For her safety.”

"She's mine"

"She's mine"

"She's mine"

"If the world is against me, then I will destroy everything to nothingness"

And with that, the battlefield below continued without pause, the night slowly deepening around his silent figure, until the scene faded into the dark, accompanied with his strange whispers. 

"She's mine"

"She's mine"

"She's mine"