Sign-In System: Starting With Invincible Physique

Chapter 52: The Red Silence

Vargas pressed his trembling, blood-soaked hands against the base of the golden pillar, and slowly forced himself to his feet.

Every slight movement caused intense agony from the fractured bones in his chest.

A few paces away, Drask was in an even more miserable state.

The devastating internal damage from the Void Fist had drained almost every last ounce of his combat strength.

He was swaying on his feet.

Across the vast antechamber, the sharp clashing of metal rang out continuously.

"Die! Die for killing my family members!"

Byron grumbled like a madman, swinging his sword wildly at Roderick.

Clang! Clang!

Roderick casually raised his broadsword, effortlessly deflecting the frantic strikes.

Despite both of them being at the ninth level of the Essence Condensation Realm, the disparity in their actual combat experience was glaring.

Roderick was completely dominating the exchange, easily swatting Byron’s blade aside and forcing him to retreat step after step.

"Byron, save Drask and Vargas!"

Vespera shrieked, she was standing by Valerius’s side to protect him.

Hearing the voice, Vargas looked over and saw the miserable state of Vargas and Drask.

Bryon was left speechless.

How long has it been since the fight had started?

How could these two already have half their foot in the grave?

"Damn it!" Byron cursed.

He forcefully disengaged, abandoning his duel with Roderick, and kicked off the stone floor, hurtling straight toward Rhain’s position.

"Where do you think you are going?" Roderick’s pupils flashed with killing intent.

He gripped his broadsword and surged forward to intercept Bryon.

"Leave him. Go help others."

But before Roderick could cross even half the distance, a calm voice stopped him.

Rhain’s dark grey eyes remained fixed on Vargas, "I can deal with them alone."

"Understood!" Roderick gave a heavy nod.

He immediately spun around, redirecting his broadsword and charging right into the ranks of the lesser Ironpeak and Barlowe experts to relieve the pressure on Noran, and others.

"Over here! All of you, surround him!" Byron arrived near Rhain, and roared at the top of his lungs.

Hearing Byron’s command, five experts from the Ironpeak Sect and Barlowe family abandoned their current skirmishes and rushed over.

Their cultivations ranged from the fourth to the eighth level of the Condensation Realm.

In the blink of an eye, an encirclement was formed.

Exactly eight people locked Rhain in the center.

Vargas stood at the front.

Behind Rhain stood the wounded but still dangerous Drask.

Byron guarded the right flank, while the five newly arrived experts covered all gaps.

Yet, standing in the absolute dead center of this unnerving death trap, Rhain’s expression remained as placid as a still lake.

"You think you are invincible, boy?" Vargas revealed a cruel expression. "Today, I will show you exactly why they called me the Red Silence."

Suddenly, Vargas’s aura changed.

A blood red light flashed in his eyes.

In a fraction of a second, the aura radiating from Vargas multiplied exponentially.

It surpassed the realm of Essence Condensation, and scraped the boundaries of Spirit Manifestation Realm.

"ATTACK!" Vargas ordered, his voice completely devoid of human reasoning.

At his command, all eight experts moved simultaneously.

Byron swung his blade, Drask poured the last drop of his essence thrusting his fist forward, and the five surrounding experts unleashed their strongest, ultimate martial arts all at once.

And Vargas himself lunged directly at Rhain’s face, his blood-red dagger carrying a momentum that sought to pierce straight through Rhain’s skull.

Eight lethal, full-powered strikes from eight Essence Condensation experts, all converging perfectly on a single, stationary target.

Standing at the edge of the battlefield, Seris’s delicate hands clenched into tight, trembling fists.

Her eyes were fixed on Rhain surrounded by the encirclement of eight experts.

A deep sense of helplessness pierced her heart.

When she broke through to the eighth level of the Essence Awakening Realm and awakened her innate ice essence, she had genuinely thought that she was strong enough to be of some help to him.

But now she realised that nothing had changed at all.

I am still utterly useless... Seris bit her pink lip, the feeling of unwillingness burning in her soul.

In the center of the death trap, facing eight simultaneous, full-powered strikes designed to totally obliterate him, Rhain’s lips curved into a malicious smile.

His pupils turned golden.

To a normal expert, the converging strikes formed a flawless net of death.

But under the Eyes of Truth, it was riddled with weaknesses.

A Level 6 elder on his left flank was half a heartbeat slower than Vargas.

That minor delay created a microscopic tear in the encirclement’s pressure—a flaw others might spend hours trying to spot.

Swoosh!

Shadow Flicker Steps pushed to the absolute extreme!

He fractured into eight perfectly identical afterimages, filling the enclosed space with overlapping shadows.

This speed was near teleportation level for all Essence Condensation Realm.

Rhain materialized right beside the Level 6 elder, and blasted his fist forward.

The compressed dark essence bypassed the elder’s frantic defense and detonated inside his body.

BOOM!

The elder’s entire body burst open from the inside out like an overinflated balloon.

Chunks of flesh, shattered bone, and a torrential rain of dark red blood violently splattered across the polished golden floor, raining down on the faces of the surrounding experts.

At that exact moment, the devastating, full-powered strikes of Vargas, Byron, Drask, and the remaining experts converged perfectly on the empty space Rhain had occupied just a heartbeat prior.

But there was no target.

With their momentums pushed to limits, they couldn’t simply pull their attacks back.

BANG! CRACK!

A shockwave erupted as their ultimate martial arts collided directly against each other in the center of the encirclement.

"Ahhh!"

Two of the lower-level experts shrieked in agony as Byron’s stray sword qi and Vargas’s blood-red dagger aura ripped through their hastily raised defenses.

Instead of obliterating Rhain, the misdirected attacks heavily injured their own allies!

Vargas, Drask, and Byron stumbled back from the recoil, their eyes darting wildly.

They finally realized Rhain had completely vanished from his spot.

And then, their gazes fell upon the gruesome, unrecognizable chunks of meat that used to be a Level 6 Condensation expert.

A terror instantly gripped their hearts.

"FABIAN"

Byron’s eyes turned crimson as he stared at the mangled remains.

The man Rhain had just popped like a blood balloon was a core elder of his Barlowe family!

"You demonic bastard! I will flay you alive!" Byron growled hysterically.

Completely abandoning all reason and the strategic encirclement they had planned, Byron kicked off the ground and wildly lunged at Rhain, his blade carrying a desperate, suicidal momentum.

The flawlessly planned death trap was instantly broken.

"Fool," Rhain mocked unconcernedly.

He didn’t try to dodge.

Iron Mountain Shroud.

The third Uncommon Grade martial art that he had received from the sect library.

A dense layer of dark essence hardened over his skin, although just an Uncommon grade martial art, Rhain had practiced it to the extreme.

Byron’s blade slashed down, carrying the full, desperate fury of a Level 9 expert.

At the exact same time, Rhain simply thrust his bare right fist precisely toward Byron’s throat.

Clang!

The sword smashed into the barrier. The full force of the attack managed to shatter the Iron Mountain Shroud, blowing it apart.

But the strike had lost most of its power.

The blade hit Rhain’s shoulder and stopped dead.

The Shadow-Stealth Cloak was not just for hiding. As an Uncommon-Grade artifact, its defensive properties easily blocked the weakened strike.

It didn’t even leave a scratch on the fabric.

Byron realised this and wanted to retreat, but it was already too late.

Rhain’s fist was already there.

He punched straight forward, slamming straight into Byron’s throat.

CRACK.

His knuckles crushed Byron’s windpipe and snapped his cervical spine in half.

Byron’s eyes bulged. His sword clattered to the golden stone floor.

His eyes lost all their luster, as his lifeless body fell backward, dead on the spot.

The clash had happened in the span of a single breath.

The man who had charged in to save his allies was the first to die.

The very first expert at the ninth level of the Essence Condensation Realm had fallen.

"BYRON!"

Vargas growled, his blood-red dagger tore through the air, leaving a crimson trail as it aimed squarely for Rhain’s neck.

However, the dagger could once again only slice through the empty hair.

Rhain materialized instantly in front of the two lower-level experts who had been severely injured by the shockwave of their own allies’ misdirected attacks.

Seeing the dark-robed reaper suddenly appear before them, their faces drained of all color.

"N-No! Wait—!"

They didn’t even have the time to finish their desperate pleas.

BANG! BANG!

Their heads exploded instantly, bursting like overripe melons.

Two more Essence Condensation experts were dead in the blink of an eye.

Seeing this scene of ruthless butchery, the remaining two lower-level experts in the encirclement felt their courage completely shatter into dust.

Their minds broke.

"Monster... he is a f*cking monster!" one of them shrieked hysterically.

They lost all thoughts of loyalty, pride, or revenge, the two experts turned around and scrambled wildly toward the edges of the antechamber, desperately fleeing for their lives.

Rhain’s didn’t chase them.

Instead, Rhain turned his cold gaze toward the stumbling, miserable figure standing nearby.

Drask.

The internal devastation caused by Rhain’s earlier Void Fist had shattered his meridian channels and pulverized his organs.

Rhain charged at him.

Seeing Rhain approach, a flash of cornered desperation ignited in Drask’s dimming vision.

Ignoring the pain, he forcibly raised his hand and attacked Rhain.

But the strength behind the blow had decreased significantly.

It was incredibly pathetic.

Smack.

Rhain casually raised his left hand and caught Drask’s fist effortlessly, stopping the strike dead in its tracks as if he were catching a leaf falling from a tree.

Then he grabbed Drask by the throat, and hoisted the towering Level 9 expert off the ground with a single hand.

Drask’s mind was filled with despair.

Rhain looked into Drask’s terrified eyes.

"It is time to go," Rhain said chillingly. "But do not worry. I will send your young master and every single member of your sect to accompany you very soon."

Behind Rhain, Vargas had finally recovered his stance.

"DIE, YOU BASTARD!" Vargas shrieked.

Seeing Rhain’s back completely exposed while holding Drask, Vargas’s dead eyes flared with a vicious, bloodthirsty light.

This was the perfect opening!

The blood-red dagger whistled through the air, aiming to pierce through Rhain’s spine and puncture his heart.

It was inches away.

At that exact moment, Rhain swung Drask’s suspended, massive body directly into the path of the incoming blade.

Squelch!

Drask’s body stiffened.

The dagger pierced straight through his back.

He slowly lowered his head, staring blankly at the blood-red blade protruding from his own chest.

Absolute, overwhelming unwillingness and deep resentment flooded Drask’s mind.

He opened his mouth, trying to utter a final curse, but only a thick torrent of dark blood spilled out.

The last trace of light in his eyes rapidly extinguished.