Born in Blood-Chapter 572: Dominion. Power. Sacrifice. Malice.

The monster’s body was grotesquely disproportionate — its upper half was enormous, while the lower half, past the midsection, appeared almost comically small.

It had two arms.

The left was slender, tapering to a long, sharp point like a sword.

The right arm, in stark contrast, was thickly muscled, resembling a human hand but with only four fingers, minus the thumb.

A pair of tiny bat wings clung to its back, far too small to support its weight in flight.

Its legs, though humanoid in shape, ended in webbed feet.

Despite how detailed and life-like the sculpture was, everything was coated in a lifeless grey coating of stone.

Liam’s eyes narrowed.

He took in the structure of the chamber: rough, uneven walls, scattered footholds jutting out at odd angles from above—mostly useless, as he could simply fly.

The chandelier bursting with dark flames seemed nondescript... but on second thought, he could always turn it into a weapon—sever the chain and make it fall on the creature’s stiff head.

’Don’t be rash,’ Liam thought to himself.

Behind the statue, the only exit lay shrouded in darkness. There seemed to be nothing guarding him from slipping past the stone creature and making his way out.

...But surely it couldn’t be that easy? frёeweɓηovel.coɱ

No. Of course it wasn’t.

At the base of the statue, he spotted a series of floating red glyphs, transforming and changing shape like ferrofluid.

In total, there were four, each transforming into an ancient character for a brief moment, before breaking down and immediately taking another form.

Directly below these four, was a single piece of ferrofluid.

But it didn’t move at all.

Liam took a second to understand the gist of it.

Although it seemed entirely at random, Liam was sure that each time the four glyphs broke down, they created a different sentence.

Each sentence lasted for about a minute.

And the blank glyph beneath? That was for Liam to input what he thought the sentences meant.

...At least, to his understanding.

’What happens if I get them all right?’ Liam mused.

Logic pointed him towards hassle-free reward and safe passage to the next chambers.

’...And if I get it wrong?’

Well. The opposite.

Brushing past what-ifs, Liam finally put his translator to work. For several minutes, it displayed nothing at all, as though processing the info being fed to it.

And after several minutes...

What do you know?

It works!

The four words read:

"Suffering Trembles Beneath Might."

Liam made a note to kiss the translator’s inscription master on the forehead.

It actually made sense! Albeit, it was strangely worded.

Once again, Liam put his translator to work.

The next words produced were:

"Malevolence Recovers Through Plight."

Liam frowned. The sentence rhymed with the previous one, making him think they followed a certain theme. That made things slightly easier.

’It’s not 100% accurate,’ Liam noted to himself. ’I need to think hard on this.’

Once more, the glyphs broke apart and reformed:

"Death Grows Within Fight."

And the next:

"Blood Flows Amidst Light."

After the fourth sentence, the words reverted back to the first.

Thankfully, that meant there were just four sentences to figure out...

’Could be worse.’

***

Liam took his time.

Hours passed simply on the first sentence alone. It wasn’t as though he had a clock to beat. Having no time limit, and hence no pressure to deal with his problems, certainly gave him the confidence to figure out the puzzle.

After a while, Liam came to realize what themes these four sentences followed. Agony. Death. Suffering. Pain. Obviously, they were all negative, centered around some sort of brutality.

The issue was pinpointing which theme the sentences followed.

It took effort.

But Liam narrowed it down to six total answers for the four sentences.

The first was Power.

The second was Dominion.

The third was Sacrifice.

The fourth was Malice.

The fifth was Cruelty.

And finally, the sixth was Despair.

For the first sentence, "Suffering Trembles Beneath Might", Liam thought Torture fit most. However, it was a bit on the nose, since the word ’suffering’ was the very first word.

...That was where the second word came in.

Dominion.

After all, the passage gave off a sense of "power overwhelming might into submission".

With just one sentence locked in, Liam moved to the next part.

"Malevolence Recovers Through Plight."

In particular, this sentence stoked a feeling of villainy in Liam. It hinted at a sinister force gaining power through difficulty.

Heck, it almost described Liam himself.

That’s why he chose the word ’Malice’ for the time being... even if the first word began with Malevolence.

The third sentence took some deep thinking to get right. All of them did. But "Death Grows Within Fight," could have meant a lot of things.

At first, he thought it meant sacrifice.

But he scrapped the thought.

Sacrifice wasn’t growth.

It was loss.

Growth through loss.

Not through fighting.

What was it, then?

’Death doesn’t represent actual death here.’

’It represents strength.’

’The ability to cause death.’

’In that case, it means power.’

’The ability to inflict death grows through fighting.’

The conclusion Liam arrived at was ’Power’.

Power grows through conflict and struggle. Internal or external.

Finally, he arrived at the last word.

"Blood Flows Amidst Light" was the hardest one so far.

It took hours of thinking with a dead-eyed, unmoving look on his face to think of all the possible meanings.

’It’s sacrifice,’ Liam thought, his eyes regaining a touch of color.

’Blood here could represent someone else’s.’

’Or one’s own.’

’It could also mean death.’

’And ’Light’ is used when describing something positive.’

’It could translate as ’loss leading to a positive outcome’.’

Liam let out a long breath.

It wasn’t humid inside the Tomb. In reality, it was quite cold and chilly despite the dark flames burning above him.

Yet, the hours of thinking actually made Liam’s skin red with heat. The only reason he didn’t sweat was because he had closed off his pores with Transfiguration.

’Here goes something.’

Letting out a breath, Liam locked in his answers one by one.