Chapter 21: Displaying Strength
"If you have the strength, come and cripple me."
For a fraction of a second, absolute silence reigned over the Azure Cloud Sect's front gate.
Then, Roderick Graves's face twisted into an expression of pure, unadulterated fury.
The sheer audacity.
A mere Essence Awakening insect, daring to harm his nephew and then openly admitting it right before his face.
There could not be a humiliation worse than this.
"Bastard, are you so eager to die!" Roderick roared.
His aura detonated.
The terrifying pressure of a Level 9 Essence Condensation cultivator exploded outward like a tsunami.
Facing the tyrannical pressure, Maren's face lost all colour.
But Rhain didn't even flinch.
The oppressive wave crashed against him and broke apart like ocean surf against a cliff face.
To Rhain, Roderick's full aura felt like a stiff breeze.
This only enraged Roderick further.
"You insolent, suicidal insect!" Roderick snarled. Veins bulged along his neck and temples.
His Essence surged, condensing violently around his right arm.
He raised his arm, forming a claw shape that aimed at Rhain.
Maren's heart plummeted into her stomach.
Paralyzing fear gripped her chest.
I made a mistake.
A fatal, irreversible mistake.
She should never have let Rhain follow her.
He was a prodigy, but he still very young.
She should have known that with Rhain's explosive personality, he could further enrage Roderick.
Against Roderick, Rhain would be slaughtered before Sect Master Harmon could even arrive.
If Rhain died here, the Azure Cloud Sect's only hope died with him.
"Master Roderick, stop!"
Maren forced her body to move.
Pushing her Level 5 Essence Condensation cultivation to its absolute limit, she blurred across the threshold, inserting herself directly between Rhain and Roderick.
She crossed her arms, forming a thick, condensed shield of silvery essence.
BOOM!
Roderick's claw slammed into Maren's guard.
The defense shattered instantly — the gap between Level 5 and Level 9 was simply too vast.
The residual force caught Maren in the chest, hurling her backward.
Her boots tore deep grooves into the stone path as she was violently pushed back, coming to a halt just inches away from Rhain.
A thin trail of blood leaked from the corner of her mouth. Her arms trembled violently.
"Instructor Maren," Roderick hissed, his eyes burning with venomous rage. "You dare block me for this worm? Do you want to drag your entire sect into the grave?"
"He is an Inner Disciple of the Azure Cloud Sect!" Maren forced the words out through clenched teeth, her body shaking under the oppressive weight of Roderick's aura. "You cannot harm him at our very gates!"
Roderick's eyes narrowed into cold, murderous slits.
"Fine," he sneered. "If you wish to play the loyal dog, I will keep you on a leash."
Roderick shifted his stance. Instead of attacking Rhain, his aura flared, locking entirely onto Maren.
A suffocating, invisible pressure pinned her in place.
She groaned, her knees buckling slightly as she was forced to focus every drop of her essence just to keep from being crushed flat against the stone.
She couldn't move.
Roderick turned his gaze to the three middle-aged men standing behind him.
"Break his limbs," Roderick commanded, his voice dripping with malice. "Shatter his cultivation. But leave him breathing. I want him conscious when I hang his broken body on the town square."
The three men stepped forward.
Essence Condensation — Level 3.
All three of them released their auras simultaneously. To them, this was a joke.
An Essence Awakening Level 6 boy might have caught Brennan off guard, but against three veteran Condensation experts, he was nothing but a lamb waiting to be slaughtered.
"Boy," the man in the center sneered, cracking his knuckles as his condensed essence formed a heavy, rocky layer over his fists. "You should have stayed away from our Graves family's children."
Rhain looked at them.
His dark grey eyes were completely calm as he looked at the man who spoke.
"You talk too much," Rhain said flatly.
The man in the center was angered and wanted to mock Rhain for his arrogance.
But Rhain's figure suddenly blurred in his eyes, darting forward with a speed that completely defied his cultivation level.
The man's eyes widened in absolute shock.
"What—?"
He didn't get to finish the thought.
Rhain's fist shot forward like lightning, carrying his absolute full strength, completely unhindered and raw.
CRACK.
Using purely his monstrous physical strength and speed, Rhain's fist easily tore through the defence of an Essence Condensation Realm.
The defense didn't even slow him down.
The domineering power of the Abyssal Sovereign physique crashed directly against the man's chest.
BOOM!
He was launched backward, flying fifteen paces through the air before crashing heavily onto the dirt road outside the gates, completely unconscious.
The remaining two men froze.
Their brains simply could not process the data.
An Essence Awakening Level 6 boy had just bypassed an Essence Condensation Level 3 defense and ended the fight in a single blow.
"Attack together!" the second man roared, snapping out of his stupor out of pure, instinctual panic.
They lunged simultaneously from the left and the right.
The man on the left drew a short, essence-coated blade, slashing wildly toward Rhain's neck.
The man on the right aimed a heavy, sweeping kick at Rhain's knee, intending to cripple his mobility.
Rhain's expression remained utterly indifferent.
Moving with a burst of explosive physical speed that their eyes could barely track, Rhain ducked beneath the sweeping blade.
He didn't even look at the man on the left. He simply lashed out with his right foot, delivering a devastating, intercepting kick that met the sweeping leg of the man on the right.
Ahhhhhh.
The man on the right shrieked as his leg bent completely backward.
Before he could even fall to the ground, Rhain turned on his heel.
The man on the left, realizing his blade had hit empty air, desperately tried to pull back.
It was too late.
Rhain's hand shot out, his fingers wrapping around the man's throat.
The Abyssal Sovereign Physique's raw strength lifted the grown man entirely off his feet, choking off his frantic gasp.
Rhain didn't hesitate. He slammed the man face-first into the solid stone pillar of the Azure Cloud Sect's front gate.
CRACK.
The stone pillar fractured. The man's body went completely limp, sliding down the cracked stone in a bloody heap.
All this took only five seconds from starting to end.
Silence descended over the Azure Cloud Sect's gates once more.
Roderick Graves stood frozen.
The oppressive Level 9 aura radiating from him wavered, slipping for just a fraction of a second as his mind struggled to process the sheer, impossible brutality he had just witnessed.
Maren, still gasping for air under Roderick's suppression, stared at Rhain with wide, trembling eyes.
Rhain tilted his head slightly, and looked directly at Roderick, his face completely devoid of emotion.
"Now, I have broken their bones also, what are you gonna do?" Rhain asked with a disdainful expression.
Roderick stared at the three broken bodies littering the dirt.
The absolute shock made him forget his anger momentarily.
His mind stuttered.
Essence Condensation Level 3. Three of them.
Dismantled in five seconds.
By a boy at Essence Awakening Level 6.
What kind of monster is this?
Roderick's hawkish eyes trembled as they darted from the fractured stone pillar to Rhain's completely unblemished face.
He had seen geniuses. But he had never seen anything like this.
How could someone be so monstrous?
For the first time in his life, looking into those dark, abyssal grey eyes that swallowed the morning light, Roderick felt a primal, instinctual chill crawl up his spine.
"Why are you making a commotion at the gates of sect, Roderick?"
The voice was old. Heavy.
It wasn't loud, yet it rolled over the area, instantly crushing Roderick's raging aura into nothingness.
Maren gasped, the suffocating pressure on her chest finally vanishing as she slumped forward, coughing.
Rodericd raised his head toward the stone path leading up into the sect.
Walking down the steps was an old man in simple grey robes, followed by a young shivering guard.
Harmon's cloudy eyes were no longer cloudy. They were sharp, entirely locked onto Roderick Graves.
The old man didn't radiate a violent aura.
He didn't need to.
The sheer depth of his Spirit Manifestation cultivation naturally bent the essence of the world around him, creating an invisible, inescapable gravity.
Harmon stopped a few paces behind Rhain.
He cast a brief, unreadable glance at the three men bleeding in the dirt, and then at Rhain, who still stood with perfect, chilling indifference.
Then, Harmon looked back at Roderick.
"This is my Azure Cloud Sect," Harmon said. His voice was calm, but it carried a deadly, absolute finality.
"And you, Roderick, are overstepping your bounds."