Villain With The Strongest System

Chapter 62: Liam's Backstory

There was a reason behind why Liam was called the mad principal, why despite his eccentricities and direct challenges made to the major powers within the tower, no major power tried to seek revenge on him.

The various religious orders and even tier 6 lesser gods spoke of him in hushed tones, not just out of fear for the wrath he could unleash but also because of how cruel the nature of his hidden power was—a power that seemed to defy the natural order of life and death itself.

Long ago, before his name evoked terror and awe, Liam was a scholar, driven by an insatiable curiosity about the world and its mysteries.

His quest for knowledge led him down many paths, but none as compelling as the study of life's ethereal counterpart—death, as ever since he lost his brother to the tower, he tried his best to bring him back, going down many questionable routes to try and revive him, as returning him to life became his only goal.

He read countless tomes, studied countless ancient texts, and learnt many lost languages. However, most of what he learnt seemed to be written by either phony necromancers or cult activists that believed in absolute gibberish.

Regardless, in hopes of reviving his brother, he explored every path and left no trail untrekked if it offered even the slimmest hopes of success.

It was during his time as such an explorer that he found an excavation site in an ancient, forsaken temple on floor 52.

It was a temple not found on one of the explored trails of the floor and hence it was extremely dangerous to explore it, yet, confident of the ancient manuscripts he had uncovered, Liam felt sure that the temple contained an ancient artifact that held the secrets of life and death.

It was inside that temple that Liam stumbled upon the Spectre's Locket, an artifact so sinister, yet so captivating that it seemed to call to him from the shadows.

Crafted during a lunar eclipse by a cult long erased from the annals of history, the locket was said to hold the power to bridge the living world with that of the dead.

It was a thing of beauty and terror, made of a dark metal that seemed to swallow light, with a gemstone that pulsed with an otherworldly glow.

Liam, with his vast knowledge of ancient lore, recognized the symbols carved into its surface. They spoke of the underworld, of spirits unrested, and of power untold.

The moment Liam clasped the locket in his hands, his fate was sealed. The locket bound to him and he began hearing constant ravings of the dead whenever he was in physical contact with the locket.

The power it offered was intoxicating. With the opening of the locket, a mist, thick and cold, seeped into the world of the living, a mist that made him near immortal when he stood within it, as although he was not a god, when he stood within that mist, not even gods with their mighty weapons could hurt him.

It was then that he discovered the locket's true ability—to convert the living into specters bound to his will. These specters, once people of flesh and blood, became ethereal shadows, extensions of Liam's burgeoning power, as the more he used the power of the locket, the more it seemed to consume his mind, demanding that he consumed even more souls.

Although Liam did not understand it, the object in his possession was imbued with a unique treasure of the tower called a 'Seed Of Power' with the seed inside the locket being the 'Seed Of Death'.

At its full strength, the seed of death could even enslave a floor 80 monarch, however, the mental backlash and insanity that the use of its powers brought made it a double edged sword such that not many wished to endure.

Although the craftsmanship of the locket was insanely good, limiting its negative effects to a high degree as opposed to wielding the power of the raw seed, for a mortal it was still too much to handle as with extended use, its drawbacks became evident.

Liam was not always the eccentric individual that he now became as once upon a time he was a stable headed scholar, however, as he began exacting justice using the power of the locket and converting the living into his specters, he simultaneously began losing pieces of his sanity, slowly but surely turning more difficult to be around.

As his army of specters grew, so did his reputation. He became known as the ghost controller, a title that barely scratched the surface of the dread he instilled in the hearts of those who knew of him. But it wasn't just the living who feared Liam. The gods themselves, guardians of the balance between life and death, watched him with wary eyes.

His actions were a challenge to their authority, a defiance of the natural order they were sworn to uphold.

Yet, Liam cared little for the consequences of his actions. The locket had changed him, not just in power but in spirit. His thirst for knowledge turned into an obsession with power, his once noble pursuits darkened by the allure of the locket's promise. It whispered to him, promises of godhood, of a world reshaped in his image—a world where death was but a plaything in his hands.

However, what stopped him from turning insane was his passion for teaching.

After founding a university, he began using his power for good, to ensure that what happened to his brother would not happen to other climbers as he became a respected principal and the founder of the number one institution in floor zero.

With reliable friends in the professors, he was convinced of sealing the locket away when he did not need it, as after spending a few months away from the locket, his insanity symptoms improved and he did not behave as eccentrically as he did when he was in contact with the locket.

The other professors always hoped that the day that Liam took up the locket again, never came, however, from time to time there were incidents that drove Liam angry enough to bring out the locket and today's incident was one such moment.

From the second he jumped out of the university window, Maven knew that he had gone to unseal his treasure, and the moment he placed it around his neck, he was bound to become a crazy ghostmancer, the kind that would not stop until he brought those that troubled his students to justice.

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*CLANG*

*CLANG*

*CLANG*

Liam slammed down the concrete pavement of his university quarters as he tried to unseal his buried treasure.

The bloodlust had already clouded his mind, the image of two dead students floating in there constantly, as his frustrations were visible with every hammer strike that he made.

Finally, as his strikes hit an inscripted wooden box, he paused, taking the wooden box out carefully as from within it he retrieved his precious spectral locket.

The moment he touched it, the ravings of the dead began clamoring in his ears as he shouted "QUIET-" to demand their silence.

The color of his pupils markedly darkened as he adorned the pendant, its powers coursing through his veins as he became the master of death once more.