Sign-In System: Starting With Invincible Physique-Chapter 34: Absolute Disparity

Chapter 34: Absolute Disparity

The reason Greymist Beast Mountains was named ’Greymist’ due to the grey colored mist that surround the mountain-range all year around.

The deeper one ventured into the mountain range, the thicker the pervasive grey mist became.

The Essence here was heavily tainted with this mist and the bloodthirsty aura of the ferocious beasts that roamed the peaks.

Low, guttural roars of those ferocious beasts could be occasionally heard from deep within the mist-shrouded forests, but none dared to approach the marching group.

Rhain walked calmly while scanning his surroundings with his sharp eyes.

Seris was closely following him. She was slightly nervous.

Despite having reached the eighth level of the Essence Awakening Realm, her mindset had not fully caught up to her sudden leap in power.

Noticing the abnormality of Seris’s current state, Rhain’s footsteps slowed down half a pace to walk shoulder to shoulder with her.

After an hour of travel, the dense forest abruptly opened up.

They arrived at a massive, barren valley carved deeply into the heart of the mountains.

In the absolute center of this desolate crater hovered a massive, shimmering distortion in the fabric of space itself.

It was a swirling vortex of chaotic silver and grey energy, crackling with violent turbulence.

Ripples of translucent, distorted energy pulsed rhythmically, emitting a profound, ancient aura that made the nearby air feel suffocatingly heavy.

The entrance to the Hollow Realm.

But they were not the first to arrive.

Camped near the edge of the spatial tear was a large, highly disciplined group of men and women.

They wore opulent crimson robes trimmed with gold, their auras sharp, arrogant, and extremely aggressive.

The Barlowe Family.

The moment the Azure Cloud Sect and the Graves family stepped into the valley, dozens of hostile gazes instantly locked onto them.

The atmosphere, already heavy with the chaotic spatial energy of the tear, instantly plummeted to a freezing point.

At the very front of the crimson-robed group stood a slender, middle-aged man with a sickly pale complexion and incredibly sharp, serpent-like eyes.

He held a cane made of dark serpent-wood, though he clearly didn’t need it for support.

Lowen Barlowe. The Head of the Barlowe family.

"Well, well," Lowen’s thin lips curled into a mocking, venomous smile as his gaze swept over the arriving group. "I was beginning to wonder if the dying cloud and the rotting grave had finally developed some sense and decided to stay home."

Harmon Vael’s expression remained completely indifferent, but his eyes chilled.

Dorris Graves, however, was not known for his patience.

"Keep your venom behind your teeth, Lowen," Dorris sneered, stepping forward. "If you’re so eager to die, I don’t mind burying you outside the Hollow Realm before the gates even open."

Lowen let out a cold, rasping laugh. "Big words, Dorris. But your Graves family has been growing weaker every year. I wonder how many of your precious elites will actually walk out of that vortex this time?"

The provocation was blatant.

Dorris’s face darkened.

BOOM!

The tyrannical, suffocating pressure of a Spirit Manifestation Realm cultivator erupted from Dorris’s body, sweeping across the barren valley like a golden hurricane.

Lowen’s serpent-like eyes narrowed. He simply tapped his wooden cane against the rocky ground.

BANG!

An equally terrifying, blood-red aura exploded from Vance, crashing directly into Dorris’s pressure.

The two Spirit Manifestation auras collided in the center of the valley.

The sheer force of their spiritual pressure caused the loose rocks on the ground to shatter into dust.

The weaker disciples from both the Graves family and the Barlowe family instantly paled, stumbling backward as the oxygen was forcefully squeezed from their lungs.

Victor gritted his teeth, sweat pouring down his face as he violently circulated his Level 9 essence just to remain standing.

Even Seris’s breathing became laborious, a thin layer of icy silver light instinctively wrapping around her delicate body to resist the crushing weight.

Rhain casually shifted his footing, placing himself half a step in front of her.

While the two family heads clashed their auras, Rhain’s dark grey eyes calmly swept across the Barlowe family’s ranks.

Twenty people.

Fifteen middle-aged experts at the Essence Condensation Realm.

The strongest among them is at Level 9.

Five youths at the Essence Awakening Realm.

The strongest is at the absolute peak of Level 9.

The overall strength, the distribution of realms, the underlying foundation—the Barlowe family was roughly equal to the Graves family in every conceivable metric.

It was a delicate, incredibly fragile balance of power that had kept Greymist Town in a stalemate for decades.

"You bark loudly, Dorris," Lowen sneered, his red aura grinding against the golden pressure. "But a dog’s bark doesn’t change the fact that its teeth are dull."

Dorris’s eyes blazed with fury. His golden essence began to violently condense around his fists. "Let’s see if my teeth are dull when I rip your throat out!"

But before Dorris could take another step—

The ground violently trembled.

"Why squabble outside the graveyard, Dorris? You will all have plenty of time to rot once you are inside."

The voice rolled across the valley, carrying a tone of absolute, unquestionable tyranny.

The moment that voice echoed, the fiercely clashing auras of Dorris Graves and Vance Barlowe were forcibly shattered.

Harmon’s eyes widened slightly, his face instantly hardening into an expression of unprecedented solemnity.

Rhain turned his head toward the northern ridge of the valley.

Marching down the rocky slope was a group of thirty people.

They wore grey robes, and every single one of them exuded an aura of bloodthirsty violence.

The Ironpeak Sect.

But Rhain’s eyes bypassed the thirty elites entirely, locking onto the man leading them.

He was a giant of a man, easily standing a full head taller than Dorris.

His face was sharp, his jaw squared, and his eyes burned with a tyrannical brutality.

Dorian Krath.

The Sect Master of the Ironpeak Sect.

And the undisputed, absolute strongest person in the entirety of Greymist Town.

Even Fourth Elder Torin and Roderick Graves felt a heavy, suffocating weight press against their chests.

So this is the ceiling of Greymist Town, Rhain thought, Rhain’s expression was completely unchanged.

While everyone else looked at Dorian Krath with varying degrees of terror and reverence, Rhain’s dark grey eyes openly measured the giant of a man.

Dorian’s Spirit Manifestation Realm cultivation was clearly several levels higher than Harmon’s, Dorris’s, or Lowen’s.

Spirit Manifestation—Level 7.

He was two minor realms above Harmon and three realms Dorris and Lowen.

He was the anchor that allowed the Ironpeak Sect to aggressively expand and slowly choke the Azure Cloud Sect to death.

But it wasn’t just the Dorian that made Rhain’s eyes narrow.

It was the absolute, logic-breaking lineup standing behind him.

With his sharp gaze, Rhain cataloged their forces in the span of a single breath.

And the sheer disparity, caused him to lose his composure momentarily.

Standing directly behind Dorian were three figures—two middle-aged men and one woman.

All three of them were at the ninth level of the Essence Condensation Realm.

Rhain’s gaze locked onto one of the two men.

His face was entirely covered by a dark cloth mask, leaving only a pair of dead, emotionless eyes exposed.

The masked man’s essence was incredibly violent, compressed to a terrifying degree that practically reeked of slaughtered blood.

Rhain could clearly feel it—this masked man was unequivocally stronger than both Torin and Roderick.

He was the absolute strongest Essence Condensation Realm cultivator present in the entire valley.

He contrasted this with his own side.

The Azure Cloud Sect had Fourth Elder Torin. The Graves family had Roderick.

Their united force only had two Essence Condensation level 9. The Ironpeak Sect had three peak Condensation experts on the field.

Technically, the Azure Cloud Sect possessed a Third Elder, Thorne, who was also at the ninth level.

But Elder Thorne was very old, his vitality waning, and he remained entirely in life-or-death seclusion desperately trying to break through to the Spirit Manifestation Realm.

He couldn’t enter the Hollow Realm.

Three peak Level 9 elders against two. And the masked man alone severely tipped the scales.

But the despair didn’t end with the elders.

Rhain’s gaze shifted to the ten disciples standing at the rear of the Ironpeak formation.

Two of them were radiating the undeniable pressure of the ninth level of the Essence Awakening Realm.

That alone matched Victor Corvin, the supposed "unrivaled genius" of the Azure Cloud Sect.

But the young man standing at the very front of their disciple group was the true centerpiece of their arrogance.

He wore silver-trimmed black robes, his chin raised high, looking at the Azure Cloud disciples with a thoroughly bored expression.

His aura was completely unhidden.

Essence Condensation Realm—Level 1!

A youth who had already shattered the boundaries of Awakening and stepped into true Condensation!

Valerius Krath. The son of the Sect Master, and the undisputed, most talented genius of Greymist Town.

Dorian Krath stopped in the center of the valley, his oppressive gaze sweeping over the gathered factions.

"Harmon," Dorian’s voice rumbled like thunder, carrying a terrifying concussive force that made the eardrums of the weaker disciples bleed. "You brought quite the lively batch of sheep to the slaughterhouse this year."

The Ironpeak disciples standing behind Dorian smirked disdainfully.

The Azure Cloud elders’ faces flushed with humiliation and rage, but under the terrifying weight of Dorian’s aura, none of them chose to speak.

Harmon Vael took a step forward.

"The Hollow Realm has not yet opened, Dorian," Harmon said, his voice ordered, despite facing the hopeless odds, "Do not celebrate your victory before the blood is spilled."

Dorian let out a booming laugh that shook the valley.

His cruel gaze slowly drifted across the thirty members of the Azure Cloud Sect.

He looked at Torin, at Maren, and finally, his eyes swept over the disciple group.

For a brief second, Dorian’s gaze brushed past Rhain.

In Rhain’s eyes, there was not a single shred of fear.

Dorian’s brow knitted slightly.

But before Dorian could single Rhain out, the swirling vortex in the center of the valley suddenly let out a piercing, high-pitched whine.

Dorian, Harmon, Dorris, Lowen and others immediately turned theur heads to look up at the massive, swirling spatial vortex hovering in the center of the crater.

The chaotic silver and grey energies were beginning to slow, the violent turbulence gradually stabilizing into a massive, shimmering gateway.

The Hollow Realm was finally opening.