Riven didn't move.
Not at first.
The air still hadn't settled — still sharp, still crackling from the sonic echo that had ripped through the ring. It wasn't just the sound — it was the silence that followed.
A silence broken only by the drip… drip… drip of blood on stone.
He stared at what remained of Yel.
The legs. The heap of cloth. The way the body had folded in on itself like a discarded cloak, everything above the waist just—gone.
Gone.
His stomach churned. With fear. With disbelief.
"Wh... why?" he managed, voice dry.
Vaern didn't stop walking. Just waved a hand for him to follow. "What do you mean?"
Riven didn't move.
"You killed him," he said.
"Correct," Vaern said, without looking back.
Riven blinked. "But why—"
Vaern turned then, golden eyes calm — too calm.
"I told you I wouldn't let you embarrass yourself."
He jerked his chin toward the corpse.
"He said too much. And heard too much."
"But… he's dead."
"And?"
Vaern's eyes narrowed. "This is the real world. He was a servant disciple. I'm not. I didn't like what he said. I didn't like what he heard. He's dead."
He said it like it was obvious. Like it was normal.
Riven's chest felt tight. And not just from bruises anymore.
What if tomorrow Vaern didn't like how he looked?
The casualness of it all — the effortless way Vaern erased someone, then moved on like it didn't matter — that stuck.
It reminded him of someone else.
Just for a moment, a flicker of a memory: cold eyes. A still hand. A single move — quiet, precise — and children's necks no longer holding their heads up.
He didn't want to remember that.
Not now.
"Let's go," Vaern said again.
And this time, Riven followed.
Silence walked with them.
Heavy. Crawling behind his ears like a memory that hadn't quite stopped bleeding.
He didn't speak. Didn't ask.
Didn't look back.
Not at the training ring.
Not at what was left of Yel.
A short walk later, deeper into the Combat Dungeon, they entered a plain-looking room.
Reinforced stone lined the walls, veins of dark iron crisscrossing like they were afraid something inside might try to escape.
No windows. No seating. Just one thing at the center: a blocky slab of metal inlaid with faint silver script, slightly raised from the floor like a battered altar.
Behind it, four small bells hung from a worn wooden frame.
Each one larger than the last. Each marked with a character: Low, Mid, High, and Peak.
"This is it," Vaern said. "The F-rank assessment plate."
His voice broke the silence like a window cracking under pressure.
For a moment, Riven was almost grateful.
Until Vaern waved his hand toward the formation.
And Riven flinched.
Just slightly.
A twitch. Barely there. But it was real.
A flash of memory — the gesture, the sound, the sonic boom. The aftermath.
Red. Everywhere.
Vaern didn't notice.
Or pretended not to.
"Hit it," he said simply. "No qi."
Riven stepped forward, jaw tight.
The plate stood waiting — like it wanted to be struck.
He stared at it a second too long, chest still tight, heart louder than it should've been.
Then he settled into his stance. Just like Vaern had taught him.
Breath in.
Weight forward.
And—
CRACK.
His fist slammed into the metal.
Shit! This hurts!
For a second, there was only silence.
Then—
Ding.
DING—
DOOOONG.
Three bells rang.
Low. Mid.
Then High — a deep, echoing toll that rattled the floor and settled into Riven's bones.
There was a beat of silence.
Then—
"…High," Vaern muttered. "Without qi."
His golden eyes narrowed. Just slightly.
"Even I used to only reach Mid-grade without qi," he muttered to himself.
Then, slowly, a grin pulled at one side of his face — not wild, but sharp. Calculating.
If this kid added just a smear of qi…
He could probably punch at peak-grade strength. With ease.
He slapped a hand onto Riven's shoulder.
"Alright. That settles it."
"Settles what?"
"I'm going to whip you into shape for the Trial."
And that was the start of Riven's hellish training.
Every morning, Riven woke before dawn, his legs still sore from the day before.
He slipped into his stance beneath the pine tree behind his residence — body aching, mind still half-wrapped in the memory of a corpse twitching on stone.
But soon he pushed it away.
He had to.
Survive first. Think later.
That was the rule now.
Mornings were for Falconburst Kick.
Vaern said it was the right skill for someone like him.
It focused on speed.
"If you land even one hit, most fights end there," he'd said.
So Riven drilled it. Repeated it. Refined the motion until his hips snapped like a whip and the air cracked when his leg moved.
Midday was for combat.
A different ring every time.
A new opponent.
Outer disciples. Volunteers.
Some smug. Some curious.
Some just there to rack up merit points.
No qi. No skills. Just fists.
And pain.
He won more often than he should've — his strength doing most of the work.
When his hits landed, they hurt. When they didn't, he just kept standing.
But some fights didn't go his way.
The smarter ones circled his right side.
They baited out reactions.
Exploited openings.
He bled.
He bruised.
Once, a sweep knocked him flat, breathless and coughing blood.
Vaern never stepped in.
Just watched.
Then corrected him after.
Every single time.
And every time, Riven came back better.
His form tightened. His instincts sharpened.
He stopped swinging wild and started thinking.
Feints. Footwork. Misdirection.
His one arm? Still a weakness.
But now he used it — as anchor, shield, bait.
His legs did the rest.
Evenings were for cultivation.
He returned home caked in sweat and dirt, Mira giving him increasingly weirder glances as he collapsed onto his bed, muttering curses.
He absorbed qi daily, transforming it into his own, expanding his dantian.
Trying to push deeper into the Inner Essence Realm.
He wasn't far.
Something waited just past the next breath —
A flicker.
A pressure.
All he needed was time.
But time…
Was running out.
Two weeks passed in a blur.
Now there were only two weeks left until the Trial.
And he still hadn't touched the second skill he'd chosen.
Still hadn't used qi in a single fight.
Still hadn't been allowed to learn the qi application of Vaern's basic martial arts volume.
At this rate…
He wasn't sure if raw strength would be enough.
And maybe… just maybe… Kael had known that all along.
He hadn't said much that day. Just told Riven he needed to learn to fight.
Then sent him to the one person in the sect who might understand what he was —
Or what he could become.
Did he know?
That Riven's strength wasn't normal?
That even without qi, he could still hit like a beast?
Riven didn't know.
But...
I hope he didn't know.
He didn't like the idea that Kael might understand more about him than he did himself.
"Riven."
Vaerns voice dragged him out of his thoughts.
They were standing in front of a gate.
Old. Rusted. Steel bars curled inward like the maw of a predator.
A heavy lock sat at the center — engraved with the sect's symbol, and something that looked suspiciously like a warning seal.
The Combat Dungeon's deeper levels.
Riven stared through the bars.
The hallway beyond was dark.
The kind of dark that didn't care about your thoughts.
Or your excuses.
"What's this?" he asked quietly.
Today, Vaern hadn't taken him to the usual rings.
No rotating sparring partners.
No tips.
No warm-up.
Vaern cracked his neck.
A slow, deliberate motion.
"The next part of your training," he said.
Then, with a dark grin:
"No more soft treatment."