In the center of the courtyard, the mercury-like pool of the Salt-Spring bubbled with a violent, toxic light. On a throne of leviathan bone sat Orax the Salt-King. At Realm 3: Essence Condensation, Orax was a monster. To him, the two figures approaching were nothing more than intrusive insects.
"You killed my gate-warden, beggar," Orax rumbled, standing up. The ground groaned under his weight.
Wei Chen stopped ten paces from the pool. He finally let his presence unfurl. For the first time, he stopped suppressing the weight of his progress.
The air around him didn't just grow cold; it grew heavy. The salt at his feet didn't just crack; it pulverized into fine white powder. The aura that radiated from him was not the misty, spiritual light of a normal cultivator. It was the raw, terrifying density of a man who had pushed the physical body to its absolute, theoretical limit.
Body Refining Realm: 9th Stage. The Peak.
Orax flinched. "Body Refining? You... you are a mortal at the peak? How is your presence heavier mine?"
"Because you sought to leave the body behind before you ever understood what it was capable of," Wei Chen said. He raised his hands, his fingers curling into a specific, archaic claw-shape. "You built a house of glass and called it a fortress."
Orax roared, launching a massive fist coated in green, liquid-glass Qi.
Wei Chen didn't dodge. He moved like a weaver at a loom. He caught Orax's wrist—not with strength, but with a Vibrational Lock. Using his Solar-Lunar Marrow, he sent a high-frequency pulse through Orax's arm.
The liquid Qi in Orax's limb turned to steam instantly. The skin of his forearm erupted as the internal pressure detonated.
Wei Chen didn't stop. He stepped into Orax's personal space, his movements a blur of scholar-like grace and barbarian brutality.
A finger-flick to the collarbone. The bone didn't just break; it vanished into dust, collapsing Orax's left shoulder.
A heel-stamp to the thigh. The dense, Realm 3 muscle was sheared from the bone as if by a butcher's blade.
Wei Chen was dismantling him piece by piece, treating the Essence Condensation Master like a faulty machine. He wasn't using Qi to fight; he was using his 9th Stage Body to override Orax's spiritual defenses through sheer physical superiority.
"This," Wei Chen whispered, catching Orax's final, desperate headbutt, "is the failure of your principles."
He gripped Orax's head with both hands. He didn't just squeeze. He twisted and applied a downward pressure that synchronized with the "rebound" of Orax's own internal Qi.
THWACK-SPLAT.
The pressure within Orax's skull, already destabilized by Wei Chen's previous strikes, hit the breaking point. The Salt-King's head detonated outward in a gruesome explosion of bone and brain matter. It looked like a smashed porcupine, the jagged shards of his own skull spraying the courtyard and embedding themselves in the guards who stood paralyzed in the shadows.
The headless mountain of a man collapsed into the mercury pool, his liquid Essence beginning to leak into the water.
Wei Chen stood over the cooling corpse, his breathing as calm as if he had just finished a painting. He looked toward Liara.
"He was a fool, but his Essence is high-grade. Do not let it go to waste."
Liara knelt at the edge of the pool. She reached into the glowing green mercury, her Void Root screaming with a hunger that was now backed by the Void-Eater's Scripture.
"Void-Eater: Great Desalination," she commanded.
The pool began to swirl into a violent whirlpool. The liquid Essence of the dead Realm 3 master and the natural energy of the earth were dragged into her palms. Her skin began to glow with a deep, pulsing violet light.
Body Refining: 1st Stage... 2nd Stage... 3rd Stage...
She broke through the sub-stages with the sound of snapping thunder, her vessels hardening and her spirit expanding as she drank the power Orax had spent decades hoarding.
Wei Chen turned his back to the feast, his silver blindfold reflecting the green glow.