The morning sun broke through the heavy mist surrounding the Lin Clan’s inner sect mountains, casting sharp, golden shafts of light across the expansive slate courtyard of the Elite Training Grounds.
Ye Chen paused at the stone archway, his eyes sweeping across the scene before him.
This was where the true core of the Lin Clan’s younger generation gathered—cultivators who had long left the mundane struggles of the outer courts behind.
The air hummed with the raw resonance of elemental Qi.
Spiritual steel clashed with sharp rings.
Advanced martial arts struck ironwood targets with heavy, rhythmic thuds.
This is a different world, Ye Chen thought calmly.
The outer court is a pond.
This…
this is a lake.
He stepped through the archway.
He wore his new deep-blue moon-silk robes, the gold trim along the collar catching the morning light with subtle brilliance.
His basic iron sword was tied to his waist with the same simple hemp rope.
To any outside observer, he still looked fragile and pale—his presence entirely lacking the loud, roaring energy signatures of the surrounding elite youths.
But beneath that deceptive, calm exterior lay the newly forged Asura Iron Flesh.
His bones were three times denser than normal.
His weight was perfectly anchored to the earth.
The silver Qi within his veins flowed with the silent, dangerous velocity of a subterranean river.
They see a weak boy, Ye Chen thought, a faint smile touching his lips.
They have no idea what walks among them.
As his boots clicked against the slate tiles, the surrounding noise began to die down.
One by one, the elite disciples stopped their training.
Their eyes narrowed as they locked onto him.
Whispers spread like wildfire.
“That’s him… the one from the valley…”
“He crippled Lin Hao and Lin Cheng…”
“He looks so… ordinary. How is that possible?”
The terrifying tales from the Hidden Cloud Valley and the shocking fate of Lin Hao had reached their ears.
But their pride as inner sect seniors refused to allow them to show fear to someone who had been labeled a ‘broken-root waste’ for half a decade.
“So, the outer court stray has finally decided to show his face in the true sect.”
The heavy, condescending voice boomed from the eastern corner of the grounds.
The crowd of disciples immediately parted, creating a wide path as a tall, broad-shouldered youth strode forward.
Ye Chen’s eyes flickered with recognition.
Lin Kai, he thought.
The Third Elder’s top enforcer.
Fourth Layer of Qi Condensation.
Fire-attributed cultivation.
A true battlefield veteran who has hunted rogue cultivators in the wilderness.
He wore the deep crimson robes of the Third Elder’s inner faction, and his massive frame radiated an oppressive, blazing wave of heat.
Unlike the minor bullies Ye Chen had crushed before, Lin Kai was the real thing—a killer, not a spoiled young master.
Lin Kai stopped five paces away, his heavy stone-crushing broadsword resting casually on his shoulder.
His eyes, burning with a vicious spark of calculated anger, looked down at Ye Chen.
“You used a few underhanded tricks and a hidden movement style to catch Lin Hao off guard, Ye Chen,” he said, his voice carrying across the silent courtyard.
“The elders might be bound by the ancestral decrees of the valley trials, but the inner court is governed by a different law—the law of raw absolute strength.”
He paused, letting the words sink in.
“Nobody will save you here.”
Ye Chen stood perfectly still, his hands tucked loosely inside his wide blue sleeves, his face an unyielding mask of stone.
He did not drop into a stance.
He did not flare his Qi.
He simply looked at Lin Kai with the profound, stagnant indifference of an immortal looking at a passing fly.
He thinks raw power decides everything.
The cold, ancient eyes of the Azure Cloud Sovereign flickered with faint amusement.
He has no idea how wrong he is.
“The laws of this minor clan have never governed my actions, Lin Kai,” Ye Chen said softly, his voice slicing through the tense silence like an icy wind.
“If you are here to avenge the cripples your faction sent into my path, draw your steel.”
He paused.
“Otherwise, get out of my way. I do not waste my breath on barking dogs.”
A collective gasp rippled through the surrounding crowd.
Barking dogs?
He just called the top Fourth Layer enforcer a dog to his face!
Lin Kai’s face twisted into a dark, murderous purple.
His aura exploded outward with a violent hiss.
Flames of red Qi wrapped around his broadsword, scorching the air and causing the stone tiles beneath his heavy boots to crack from the immense heat.
“Arrogant waste!” he roared.
“Today, I will show you the massive gulf between a mortal fluke and a true inner sect vanguard!”
He raised his blade.
“Die!”
Lin Kai launched himself forward with the force of a falling meteor, executing his signature high-grade mortal technique—the Blazing Solar Cleave.
The heavy broadsword came down in a brutal, diagonal arc.
Fire Qi trailed behind it like a roaring whip of flame, aimed directly at Ye Chen’s neck.
The sheer atmospheric pressure of the strike compressed the air, making it difficult for the surrounding disciples to even draw a breath.
Too slow, Ye Chen thought calmly.
His body did not move.
His hands remained tucked in his sleeves.
His silver Qi remained dormant.
I do not need to dodge.
I do not need to block.
He simply stood his ground.
Just as the burning steel was an inch away from his left shoulder, he extended his bare right arm horizontally, his fingers slightly curled, meeting the flaming edge with raw flesh.
CLANG!
A massive, deafening sound of metal striking solid iron resonated across the entire training grounds.
A violent burst of sparks and trapped heat blew the dust outward in a ten-yard circle.
The crowd’s laughter froze instantly.
Their eyes nearly popped out of their sockets, their breaths hitching in collective shock.
Lin Kai’s flaming broadsword had stopped dead in mid-air.
It could not descend by even a fraction of a millimeter.
Ye Chen’s bare forearm was perfectly intact.
The expensive silk sleeve had been scorched away to reveal flawless, jade-like skin that radiated a subtle, metallic silver sheen.
There was no blood.
There was no burn.
His skin had literally deflected a full-force strike from a Fourth Layer cultivator’s weapon with absolute ease.
“Impossible…” Lin Kai stammered, his eyes wide with naked terror.
He felt the immense, immovable mass of Ye Chen’s arm beneath his blade.
“What kind of demonic physique is this?! Your body… It is made of forged steel!”
Ye Chen’s dark, ancient eyes locked onto Lin Kai’s trembling gaze.
“You call this steel?” he whispered, his voice carrying a chill that froze the young enforcer to his core.
“Lin Kai, your understanding of the physical shell is as shallow as your faction’s future.”
Before Lin Kai could pull his weapon back to retreat, Ye Chen’s right hand moved like a striking phantom.
His fingers clamped around the flat of the flaming blade. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
His raw grip instantly crushed the fire Qi into dead embers.
With a sudden, brutal twist of his wrist—backed by the immense kinetic mass of his Asura Iron Flesh—he violently yanked the broadsword forward.
Lin Kai’s balance shattered instantly.
His massive frame was dragged off his feet, stumbling forward directly into Ye Chen’s space.
Ye Chen did not form a fist.
He simply brought his left hand out of his sleeve, his palm coated in a thin, concentrated layer of liquid silver Qi, and drove it with pinpoint accuracy into the center of Lin Kai’s exposed chest—directly over his sternum.
BOOM!
The sharp, echoing thud sounded like a battering ram hitting a fortified fortress gate.
The silver Qi exploded inward, systematically fracturing Lin Kai’s chest bones and disrupting the fire energy channels feeding his dantian.
Lin Kai let out a ragged, bloody shriek as his body was lifted completely off the ground, flying backward through the air like a broken sack of stones before crashing heavily against the stone archway at the entrance of the grounds.
The heavy stone structure cracked from the impact.
Lin Kai slumped into the dirt, unconscious, a continuous stream of dark blood dripping from his lips.
The entire Elite Training Grounds fell into absolute silence.
Not a single disciple dared to breathe.
The enforcer who had ruled the Fourth Layer court with an iron fist had just been dismantled in a single move—by a boy who had not even drawn his sword.
Ye Chen calmly adjusted his sleeves, his face perfectly serene, his breathing completely steady as if he had merely brushed a speck of dust off his shoulder.
He turned his head slightly, his dark, bottomless gaze sweeping over the dozens of terrified elite disciples.
They immediately lowered their eyes, none of them daring to meet his stare.
Good, Ye Chen thought coldly.
They understand now.
The old Ye Chen is dead.
The one standing before them is something else entirely.
At the edge of the courtyard, hidden behind the shadow of a large stone pillar, Lin Xinyue stood frozen.
Her hand clutched her purple robes.
Her chest heaved as she stared at the scene with profound, unspeakable awe.
He did not even use his Qi, she thought, her heart pounding.
He stopped a Fourth Layer cultivator’s full-force strike with his bare arm.
What kind of monster has he become?
She had calculated a timeline in her mind—based on his progress in the valley, she had estimated that Ye Chen would need at least two more months to match the inner court elites.
She had been wrong.
He was not preparing for the tournament.
He was already dominating it before it even began.
Ye Chen did not linger.
He walked past the broken body of Lin Kai, his boots clicking rhythmically against the slate tiles as he headed toward the meditation chambers.
The first fly of the inner court had been crushed.
The Third Elder’s faction would soon realize that sending their younger generation to face him was nothing more than feeding sheep to a primordial dragon.
Lin Bowen, Ye Chen thought, recalling the peak Fourth Layer cultivator who had been watching him with malice in the Martial Pavilion.
You were wise to stay silent today.
But your time will come.
He pushed open the door to the meditation chamber and stepped inside.
The true slaughter had only just begun.
Author’s Note:
The inner court just witnessed a monster.
🔥
Lin Kai — the Fourth Layer enforcer — crushed in a single move.
No sword.
No Qi.
Just raw Asura Iron Flesh.
The Third Elder’s faction is about to realize they’re not hunting a boy.
They’re hunting a calamity.