The qi here was dense. Not just thick—but crushing.
It pressed against Jalen's skin like a second atmosphere, seeping into his pores, coiling around his bones. Every breath felt like swallowing molten stone. He could feel the flow beneath him—deeper in the fissure, where the light pulsed brighter, slower, and heavier.
He wanted to go down.
But something in him—instinct, maybe—warned him.
If he descended further, his body would rupture. Not from attack. From abundance or worse.
Even at the early stage of the Enlightened Realm, his meridians weren't ready to drink from a river meant for dragons.
So he stayed where he was. At the edge. At the limit. Eyes closed and began to refine.
Qi rose—not flared, not forced. Just revealed.
The stone beneath him trembled. The air thickened until it felt like breathing through molten glass. His meridians strained. His bones flexed. His qi pool began to collapse inward, folding tighter, denser, and sharper.
He wasn't here to stabilize.
He was here to refine. To compress. To see how far the Enlightened Realm could stretch before it broke—or he did.
Pain lanced through him. His breath caught. His vision blurred.
Still, he didn't stop.
He couldn't.
Because this was the only path forward.
And he would walk it.
Even if it killed him.
—
Unseen, from a distant outcropping above, Ridge watched.
It had already shocked him when the boy slipped through the Flare estate's formation without triggering a single alarm. But this—coming to the Kanto Ridge, a place even seasoned cultivators avoided—was something else entirely.
The ambient qi here was too wild, too saturated. Most who tried to cultivate near the fissure died on the first attempt. And even if, by some miracle, they survived, they either went mad or returned hollow-eyed and broken.
And yet… this boy had withstood it longer than anyone Ridge had ever seen. No signs of deterioration. No panic. Just stillness.
Ridge narrowed his eyes. He still couldn't sense the boy's cultivation. Not clearly. But based on his age, his bearing, and the way he moved, Ridge would've guessed peak Pearl Realm. Maybe early Amethyst, if he was being generous.
Impressive for a kid his age. But not enough to survive this place.
If he kept absorbing this qi, he was bound to die.
Ridge had considered warning him. But his orders were clear: observe, not interfere.
Then—a flicker in the trees. A shadow that didn't belong.
Black robes. No insignia. But the movement was too clean, too precise. A peak Gold Realm cultivator, cloaked in suppression powder and silence techniques.
An expert from the Shadow Sect.
He was tasked with eliminating Jalen. And now, with confirmation from his sources inside the Flare clan that the boy had left the estate's protection, the opportunity had finally come.
What better time to strike than tonight while his guard was down?
The assassin moved—fast, silent, a blade of condensed poison qi aimed straight for Jalen's spine.
And then—
He stopped.
Midair.
Frozen.
And then—he shattered.
Not his body. His mind.
The assassin's scream never left his throat. His spirit sense collapsed inward, crushed by something vast and cold and ancient.
This was due to Jalen execution of his fourth technique: Wind Spirit Needle.
The needle pierced the assassin's spirit sea directly, severing thought from form and memory from motion. His soul recoiled, then fractured.
His body followed a moment later, falling like a puppet with its strings cut.
Ridge's breath caught.
He'd thought this was a battle the boy was bound to lose—that he'd probably die if he didn't intervene. But somehow, without lifting a finger, the boy had swatted a peak Gold Realm cultivator like a pesky fly.
And that wasn't even the most shocking part.
The energy that had surged from the boy—the wind qi pressure that crushed the assassin's spirit—felt like it belonged to someone in the early stage of the Enlightened Realm.
That shouldn't be possible.
It didn't make sense. Enlightenment wasn't just rare—it was distant. Most cultivators didn't reach it until they were four or five centuries old.
And yet this boy—fifteen years old—had not only stepped into that realm… he'd survived it.
Ridge couldn't reconcile what he'd just seen with everything he knew about cultivation. The logic didn't hold. The rules didn't apply.
Then, a moment later, the boy spoke—calm, quiet, and without turning.
"Have you seen enough?"
Ridge flinched.
He knows I'm here.
Given what he now understood about the boy's cultivation, it shouldn't have surprised him. And yet—it did.
"Let me guess," Jalen said, still facing the ridge. "The Flare Patriarch and his wife ordered you to follow me."
His tone wasn't accusatory. Just tired. Certain.
He'd noticed Ridge's presence since morning. He didn't mind—not really.
So long as Ridge didn't get in his way.
That was the line.
Ridge didn't respond. He didn't move.
He simply watched.
Jalen didn't press.
He simply wiped the blood trailing faintly from the corner of his mouth—residue from the backlash of his interrupted refinement—then resumed cultivating.
As if nothing had happened.