Chapter 82: Journey to the Mirravele City

The Greymist Beast Mountain Range.

For ordinary cultivators, or even small mercenary groups, traveling through this region was synonymous with suicide.

The deeper one ventured into the mountains, the more dangerous the beasts became.

It was common knowledge in the Outer Frontier that in the deepest, darkest areas of the mountain range, there were beasts residing at the Spirit Manifestation Realm.

Because of this, merchants and travelers always took the massive, days-long detour around the mountains to reach Mirravele City.

But Rhain had absolutely no time to waste on detours.

This was the quickest, most direct route to the great city, cutting the travel time down to only one day.

As for the danger?

With his current strength, unless an army of late-stage Spirit Manifestation beasts ambushed them simultaneously, nothing in this mountain range could stop him.

Beside him, Seris scanned her surrounding vigilantly.

Over the past night, she had successfully consolidated her cultivation and had even made another minor breakthrough, officially stepping into the second level of the Essence Condensation Realm.

Her innate ice essence continuously circulated through her meridians, keeping her mind sharp and her senses completely focused.

ROAR—!

Suddenly, a loud roar rippled through the air.

The Ironmare charger halted, letting out a nervous, low whinny.

Rhain frowned as he looked forward.

Through the thick, grey mist, a massive silhouette slowly padded onto the path

It was a White Striped Blood Tiger.

Rhain’s awakened Spiritual Sense swept over the creature in a fraction of a second.

’Sixth level of the Essence Condensation Realm.’

Rhain gave the snarling tiger a troubled look.

He was already planning to swat it away.

But his gaze drifted toward the girl riding beside him.

She had recently broken through, but the cultivation base meant nothing without application.

Seris had drawn her blade the moment the beast appeared, her purple eyes locked onto the tiger.

"Seris," Rhain spoke to her, "Dismount. You’re fighting it."

"O-okay!" Seris gave a nervous nod.

She did not want to be a beautiful flower hidden behind his back.

She wanted to stand beside him.

Seris slipped off her charger, and stepped forward, the temperature around her body plummeted as her ice essence activated.

Feeling the sudden drop in temperature, the Tiger felt provoked.

It kicked off the ground with explosive speed, its massive jaws snapping directly toward her neck.

Seris thrust her Frost-Bite sword forward.

Hundred Flowers Sword Art!

Icy sword essence bloomed in the air like a mesmerizing field of frozen lotuses.

The beast’s thick, iron-like claws smashed heavily against her icy sword net.

The brute physical force of a Level 6 beast was overwhelming.

Seris’s delicate body was violently pushed backward, and her arms trembled from the heavy impact.

"Don’t meet its raw power head-on," Rhain’s calm, commanding voice echoed from the side. "Your ice essence is meant to freeze and redirect, not to act as a blunt shield. Fluidity. Let the third stance flow into the fifth."

Hearing his instruction, Seris forcibly suppressed the numbness in her arms.

The tiger pounced again, its massive claws whipping through the air.

Swoosh!

This time, Seris didn’t try to block it.

She gracefully twisted her waist, executing the footwork Rhain had corrected in their courtyard.

The claws missed her by a hair’s breadth, shattering a thick tree trunk behind her into splinters.

In the same fluid motion, her blade danced.

Squelch!

A beautiful, icy-blue lotus blossomed against the tiger’s flank, slicing through its tough hide and instantly freezing the blood around the wound.

"Graaaawr!" the tiger shrieked in pain and fury.

The beast roared in pain and fury.

It whipped its heavy, steel-whip-like tail, smashing directly into her hastily raised sword.

Clang! Clang! Clang!

Frost Bite Sword clashed continuously against the beast’s calws.

Rhain sat comfortably on his mount, resting his chin on his hand.

"Ugh. Seriously... your stance is too wide," he muttered his complaints, while giving instructions.

But as the fight dragged on, a subtle shift occurred.

The pressure of real, life-or-death combat began to strip away her hesitation.

The icy-blue sword light she emitted grew sharper.

When the tiger lunged for her throat, Seris didn’t just block—she pivoted, her blade blossoming into a chilling crescent arc that sliced a deep, freezing gash across the tiger’s head.

"Well, she’s adapting fast!" Rhain tilted his head. Slowly, an approving smirk stretched on his face.

But after twenty minutes of high-intensity combat, Seris’s essence reserves were running dangerously low.

"ROOAAR!"

The White-Striped Blood Tiger, covered in freezing wounds and entirely maddened by pain, pounced at her aggressively again.

Seris’s eyes widened, as she raised her sword to block the attack

But she knew that she definitely wouldn’t be able to deflect.

"You did well," Rhain’s calm voice suddenly drifted into her ears.

Before the beast’s claws could even touch a single strand of her silver-blue hair—

Swoosh!

Rhain didn’t even move from his mount.

His hand drifted downward.

He casually picked up an ordinary stone from the dirt beside his charger.

Flick.

The stone tore through the air.

It punched straight through the tiger’s skull with the force of a cannonball.

The massive beast didn’t even register what had happened.

Its momentum carried it forward for a split second before it crashed into the dirt, utterly lifeless.

The forest became quiet again.

Seris stood there, panting heavily, her icy sword still raised.

She stared at the corpse, then turned her head toward Rhain in stupefaction.

"You... you killed it with a rock?"

"It was taking too long," Rhain quickly replied, brushing the dust off his fingers. "Also, good work. Your essence control is improving. You have already mastered it to forty percent, It should not be a problem for you to produce forty Ice swords."

For every ten percent of the Hundred Flowers Sword Art one comprehended, they could manifest ten additional ice sword lotuses.

Once Seris could comprehend it to a flawless one hundred percent, she would be able to conjure a full hundred sword lotuses simultaneously, unleashing the true, devastating power of the Epic-Grade art.

If she could reach that level of mastery, an ordinary Essence Condensation cultivator would not be able to stand against her.

Hearing his genuine praise, a sweet, exhausted smile bloomed on Seris’s pale face. The exhaustion in her delicate body seemed to wash away instantly.

But looking at the dead tiger with a gaping hole in its head, she still pouted, her pale purple eyes showing a trace of annoyance.

"I could have defeated it myself, you know," she muttered aggrievedly, lightly kicking a pebble at the tiger’s massive paw. "I still hadn’t used my special ice sword attack."

Rhain looked at her.

Inwardly, he didn’t doubt her words for a single second.

That transcendent, icy-blue sword light had been powerful enough to freeze Dorian Krath—a Level 7 Spirit Manifestation expert—dead in his tracks.

Against a Level 6 Essence Condensation beast, that strike would have shattered the tiger into a thousand frozen pieces.

But Rhain’s dark grey eyes turned serious.

"I know, but you must not rely on it." Rhain said sternly. "That attack completely drains your innate ice essence in a single strike. In a real battle, if you fail to kill every single enemy with that move, you will be left entirely drained of essence. A trump card is completely useless if it just leaves you helpless and waiting to be slaughtered by whoever is left standing."

Hearing his solemn warning, Seris bit her pink lip.

She knew he was entirely right.

"I understand," she nodded obediently, carefully sheathing her Rare-Grade Frost-Bite sword. "I will soon master Hundred Flowers Sword Art to hundred percent."

"That’s a good girl! Let’s go now. We are losing daylight." Rhain said, turning his attention back to his Ironmane Charger.

Seris quickly climbed back onto her beast, following closely behind him.

The two of them continued their journey.

Along the way, Rhain let Seris fight against a few more beasts.

But he didn’t let the fights drag on for very long, often finishing it quickly, if Seris couldn’t.

Any high-level beast that dared to harbor malicious intent was either crushed into submission by Rhain’s overwhelming Abyssal suppression aura from miles away, or casually slaughtered with a flick of a stone before it could even enter Seris’s line of sight.

A day later.

The two Ironmane Chargers stepped out from the treeline, coming to a halt on a high ridge.

Rhain pulled the reins, his dark grey irises reflecting the colossal sight before him.

"It’s... huge..." Beside him, Seris gasped in awe as she looked at the colossal city before them.

The ancient stone walls stretched hundreds of feet into the sky and spanning as far as the eye could see.

Massive iron gates stood open, swallowing a steady stream of merchant caravans, cultivators, and beasts.

Above the city, a few streaks of light could be seen zipping through the sky—if one looked closely, they will find a few people riding the back of flying beasts.

From the distance, it gave off a feeling of magnificence, grandeur, and majesty.

Compared to this towering behemoth of a metropolis, Greymist Town truly looked like nothing more than a forgotten remote village.

This was the absolute center of the Outer Frontier.

They had finally arrived in the Mirravele City.