Chapter 18: Sparring with Maren
"Are you a threat to my sect?"
The question was blunt. Direct. Stripped of all ceremony.
Rhain understood the weight of the question perfectly.
"No," Rhain said decisively.
A direct answer to a direct question.
Harmon's eyes didn't leave his face for a long time.
Forty-seven years of leading a sect in hostile territory had made Harmon Vael an exceptional judge of character.
He had survived not through strength — his Spirit Manifestation cultivation was strong, yet not strongest — but through an almost preternatural ability to read people.
Then Harmon leaned back.
"Maren," he said, without looking away from Rhain.
"Sect Master."
"What is your assessment?"
Maren's nerves tensed. She had been expecting this question.
"His combat ability far exceeds his nominal cultivation level," she said. Her voice was careful. "His physical strength, speed, and Essence density are inconsistent with the Essence Awakening Realm. His suppression aura alone was sufficient to affect me — an Essence Condensation Level 5 cultivator."
She paused.
"Furthermore, when I brought him here this morning, his aura was noticeably stronger than it was yesterday. He appears to have broken through again overnight."
Harmon's bushy eyebrows rose by a fraction.
His gaze sharpened on Rhain.
"Is this true?"
"Yes," Rhain said.
He didn't care about revealing some of his strength, if it can solve some problems.
"What level are you now?"
"Essence Awakening, Level 6."
There was a brief silence.
Level 6.
Harmon's expression didn't change, but he was silently calculating.
He was also a pragmatist.
And the pragmatic reality was this: the Azure Cloud Sect was dying.
Two hundred outer disciples, and just twenty inner disciples.
A handful of Essence Condensation elders. One Spirit Manifestation — himself — who was past his prime and unlikely to advance further.
Their territory was shrinking. Ironpeak Sect, another major sect in the area was expanding rapidly.
The sect's power and status in the area had decayed to the point where they struggled to recruit even marginally talented youths.
Most of the youngsters are joining the Ironpeak Sect, because of their superior strength and better resources.
Otherwise, why would it have been that most of their outer disciples were at the first and second level of Essence Awakening Realm.
At the current trajectory, the Azure Cloud Sect would cease to exist within a few decades. Perhaps sooner.
Harmon leaned forward and asked.
"What is your true combat strength?"
Rhain was silent for a moment.
Harmon wasn't asking about his realm. He was asking about what he could actually do — the gap between his cultivation realm and his real strength.
Rhain looked at the old man.
Then he shook his head.
"I don't know," Rhain said.
Harmon's eyes narrowed, "You don't know?"
"I have never used my full strength," Rhain stated simply. "There has never been a need."
Silence descended on the massive hall.
Maren's lips twitched slightly. Brennan was Level 8, and Rhain had crushed him with a 'fraction.'
Harmon studied Rhain for a long time. The old man's cloudy eyes seemed to sharpen, peeling back the layers of the boy sitting across from him.
Then, Harmon slowly stood up.
He smoothed his grey robes and gestured toward the open space in the center of the hall.
"Then let us find out," Harmon said. "Strike Maren. With everything you have."
Maren straightened instantly, stepping away from the wall and moving into the center of the room.
Rhain didn't move immediately.
He looked at Maren, then back at Harmon.
A slight frown creased his forehead.
"I might hurt her," Rhain said.
It might sound arrogant to others, but only he knew he was just being frank.
Maren's lips curved.
It was the first real smile Rhain had seen from her — and it was the confident, almost amused smile of a veteran who had just been told to worry about a child's punch.
"You're Essence Awakening Level 6," she said. "I'm Essence Condensation Level 5. That's an entire major realm above you."
She let the numbers speak for themselves.
"You won't hurt me."
The gap between Awakening and Condensation was not a step. It was a chasm.
The qualitative transformation of condensing one's Essence into a denser, more refined state created a fundamental difference in durability, speed, and power output.
In the normal order of things, no Essence Awakening cultivator — regardless of level — could threaten an Essence Condensation Level 5.
Rhain looked at her for a moment.
He didn't argue further.
There was no point in arguing with someone who had already decided.
Harmon watched the exchange. Then he spoke, his voice dropping half a register.
"Maren."
She glanced at him.
"Put up your full guard."
Maren nodded respectfully, but internally, she completely ignored the warning.
Harmon saw it. He said nothing more. He stepped back toward the far wall of the hall, folding his arms, giving them space.
Maren took a relaxed stance.
She was already treating this as a demonstration, not a fight.
"Whenever you're ready," she said.
Rhain stood across from her. Six paces of distance between them.
"Ready?" Rhain asked.
"Begin," Maren said confidently.
Rhain moved.
He really didn't hold back anything.
The Abyssal Sovereign Physique awoke entirely.
The yawning void in his dantian spun with terrifying, violent hunger, flooding his pristine meridians with a tidal wave of heavy, dark essence.
Except the two rare-grade martial arts, Rhain used everything in this attack.
BOOM!
Pure, unadulterated physical speed propelled him forward.
Maren's relaxed smile died instantly.
Impossible, her mind screamed.
She finally realized the magnitude of her miscalculation. Harmon had told her to put up her full guard, and she had ignored him.
Panic surged.
She frantically tried to draw upon her Level 5 Essence Condensation power.
The liquefied essence in her core erupted, rapidly forming a thick, glowing barrier of condensed energy in front of her. A defense that should have been completely impenetrable to anyone beneath her realm.
It was too late.
Rhain was already there.
A straightforward punch fueled by the absolute limits of his Sovereign-Grade physique.
His fist collided with her condensed essence barrier.
CRACK.
The impenetrable barrier held for exactly a fraction of a millisecond. Then it shattered like glass, and dissipated.
Maren's eyes widened in shock.
The fist drove straight through the collapsing defense and slammed directly into her hastily crossed forearms.
The force was terrifying.
Maren was instantly lifted off her feet. She didn't stumble. She became a projectile.
She was launched backward across the vast expanse of the Sect Master's Hall with horrifying speed.
BOOM!
She crashed into the far wall.
Maren slumped to the floor, coughing violently.
Her arms which had direct contact with Rhain's fist, trembled, completely numb.
She felt it hard to breathe. The sheer concussive force had driven every ounce of oxygen from her lungs.
Rhain slowly lowered his right fist.
He looked at the breathless Maren, then turned his dark eyes toward Harmon Vael.
"I told you," Rhain said quietly. "I might hurt her."
Harmon hadn't moved.
He stood near the edge of the hall, his hands still folded behind his back.
But the old man's cloudy eyes were now wide open, staring at the crater in the floor, and then at the boy who had made it.
Those cloudy eyes were suddenly blazing with a light that hadn't been there in decades.