Staring at her, Lucas realized that he was guilty. No matter what, she had sat down and talked to him day after day for two years of in-game time. She had always made an effort to call him, even when he never answered the phone. No matter how much he had lashed out at her when he had wanted to curl up and let the world go on without him, she had tried to cheer him up day after day. If he had discovered that she was Xun Guan and avoided her in the game, he had no doubt that she would have still found a way to be there for him in any way she could. She would have tried to find a way to make him smile. She was good. Looking at her now, he realized that was why he had blamed her the most: so that he would have a reason not to see her, so that he wouldn’t smile again. He had hated himself and had wanted to suffer, and pushing her away had been the easiest way to accomplish that.

“Well if you don’t change your face back to that pretty girl’s today, then who you are isn’t just going to be some wench with a scar: it’s going to be broke. A broke, ugly, disgusting woman that no one will ever want, who has no place to go, and who will never be hired again. That’s all you were to begin with before I gave you a chance to be anything else. This land is mine, and if you’re not mine too, then why don’t you just get the hell out of my world and go back to whatever hole you crawled out of, you stupid slut.”

“You, stupid lowlife fiend!” Lucas yelled, finally unable to watch Liu suffer any more under Lagrand’s verbal abuse. He unleashed a Scorching Skull straight at Lagrand, and the floating fiery head erupted from his staff and shot right toward the scumbag. “Who the hell are you to say she’s ugly?!” Glancing over at Liu, thinking about how she was family, how he would never reject her again, Lucas turned back to Lagrand and added, “And who the hell are you to say she has nowhere to go?” Lucas shot another Scorching Skull at him. “You think she’s worthless? You think she’s hideous?” Lucas roared as the first skull struck Lagrand and flames engulfed him. Lagrand screamed out in pain, and in an even louder voice, Lucas roared back and then launched a third Scorching Skull.