Chapter 458: Nest of Maniacs

Hundreds of disciples attacked Priam and Suien directly, swinging their fists with blind fury.

They all possessed the Philosopher Sage Rank, though at varying levels. The three women, however, were at Level 1, putting Suien—who was at the peak of the lower Rank—at a massive disadvantage.

Unlike the troglodytes from before, these people activated their Elemental Physiques right from the start.

Among the men, blazing auras of Fire, Lightning, Earth, and Wind erupted, making the air crackle. As for the three women, two wielded the Wind element, while the third wielded Lightning.

However, despite unleashing the full extent of their elemental powers, none of them used Ether or creation essence. They relied strictly on the raw strength of their physical bodies and their mastery over their internal elemental control.

“FUCK THIS!” Suien roared, pushing her elemental control to its absolute limit.

She wasn’t good at fighting without using her inscriptions. And the situation was even worse when her three direct opponents belonged to a higher Rank.

However, since nobody there was using their full power, she felt completely at home. After all, she had assimilated all the combat knowledge Priam had taught her and survived countless difficult, life-or-death battles. Despite her young age, she was a monster in hand-to-hand combat.

Priam snorted and had to jump into the brawl as well.

With hundreds of fighters charging at the pair all at once, Priam and Suien’s fists and legs moved frantically.

*BANG!*

Unable to block three powerful opponents simultaneously, Suien felt a heavy kick crack against her back, forcing her to take two steps forward.

“Are you all fucking crazy?! We came here because we were invited by the leadership of your own sect!” Suien roared furiously. Those troglodytes were far too uncivilized!

“You’re the crazy one! And even if you’re not, we’ll beat you until you are!” shouted one of the disciples, pressing her as she swung an elbow at her.

Priam snorted. “Since you don’t know how to talk like civilized people, let’s put you all in your place.”

The very next millisecond, Priam moved like a ghostly blur among several dozen opponents, delivering sharp punches and kicks that sent gigantic bodies flying through the air.

“Fuck, you think I’m that easy to intimidate?!” Suien roared. She simply ignored the direct punch coming straight at her face and landed a left hook right in the woman’s nose.

*CRACK!*

It was a straightforward exchange of damage. With a muffled groan of pain, the woman staggered backward, clutching her nose as involuntary tears streamed down her face. It wasn’t from emotion, but from the sheer violence of the impact on her nerves.

Even with blood gushing from her nose, the woman didn’t back down. With a furious curse caught in her throat, she charged straight back into the fight.

Suien had chosen to trade direct blows because she trusted the power of nature to heal her. Nobody was using any powers beyond the element they wielded, but the power of nature was also like an element she controlled, so it couldn’t be considered cheating. But…

“Fuck, that hurts like hell!”

Suien roared and violently kicked one of her attackers in the knee, just as a heavy punch struck the back of her head, immediately raising a massive lump.

Too late, she remembered a crucial detail she’d recently learned from the crystal containing the complete version of the technique Priam had given her.

The missing stages in the previous, imperfect version of the technique were precisely the ones that inscribed deep magical runes, granting the user’s physical attacks an anomalous effect.

Whenever someone from that sect attacked using their Elemental Physique—regardless of which of the five elements they wielded—their blows carried a continuous destructive property.

It was an energy similar to a curse that inflicted persistent damage on an opponent’s physical body, making rapid regeneration nearly impossible. As a result, her power of nature had barely any effect.

Clutching the enormous lump on her head, Suien was thoroughly pissed off. Seeing the three women charging toward her again with mocking grins, Suien unleashed a vicious roundhouse kick into one of their chests.

She didn’t hold back even one percent of her strength. The woman flew backward like a missile, plowing through and dragging a dozen disciples along with her in the crowd. Then Suien brought both fists crashing down onto the heads of the other two women, driving them into the rocky ground.

At the same time, agonized screams and the sounds of cracking bones echoed throughout the crowd as Priam took down the disciples like flies.

He moved with such absurd agility that nobody could even scratch his clothes. His movements were nearly impossible to follow, and the disciples were genuinely terrified.

“HE’S A MONSTER!”

Priam landed a heavy blow to the backs of two disciples’ necks, knocking them unconscious on the spot.

Since he didn’t want to cheat by using weapons… Priam improvised one to make his life easier.

He grabbed the legs of the unconscious disciples and began mercilessly swinging them through the air, using them as human sledgehammers! Desperate screams rang out as the surrounding crowd was swept away and hurled into the distance with every swing.

Priam looked like a starving wolf devouring sheep stupid enough to try to corner him.

Meanwhile, Suien was already straddling one of the women on the ground, relentlessly punching her in the face. Her fists were covered in dense ice gauntlets, making every impact ridiculously heavy.

*BANG! BANG! BANG!*

Blood sprayed in every direction.

The other two attackers were already sprawled off to the side, their faces completely disfigured and their bodies unconscious.

It was hard to say what was more terrifying: Priam taking down dozens of disciples of the same Rank without being touched even once, or Suien, a full Rank below her opponents, beating three stronger women to a pulp with such ease.

“Damn it, we need to work together and… aaagh!” One of the disciples was trying to come up with a combat strategy in the middle of the chaos when Priam’s kick landed squarely on his ass, launching him into the clouds like a shooting star.

At first, that hundred-strong crowd of idiots had banded together to corner Priam. Now, their only concern was saving their own skins. But Priam had become the hunter: he chased them down, caught them one by one, and gave each of them a beating they’d never forget, making them scream and squirm like children.

Priam ignored their whining. Whenever he caught up with a fleeing disciple, he gave them a beating they’d never forget.

It took him a little longer than Suien to clear the area simply because he had to chase down the cowards. In the end, the entire battle hadn’t even lasted five minutes. The overwhelming majority were sprawled on the ground, groaning in pain, while the rest disappeared over the horizon.

“It’s over! Enough, we’re not fighting anymore! You win, you fucking bully!” shouted one of the fallen disciples, covering his face.

Only then did Priam stop. But what intrigued him was that, despite having thoroughly beaten those guys to a pulp, their injuries began regenerating right before his eyes. Priam noticed that it wasn’t an ordinary form of healing. It didn’t resemble anything he knew.

Even the three women who’d been brutally beaten by his little sister were already crawling around and getting back to their feet.

“Damn it… We only came to welcome you. Did you really have to be so brutal, you lunatic?!”

One of the women grumbled as she snapped her dislocated arm back into place. Suien had been so merciless that she’d broken all three women’s arms and legs, on top of pounding their faces until they blacked out.

The other men on the ground were also grumbling and cursing. However, before their whining could continue, a figure appeared out of nowhere and kicked the complainers in the ass, sending them flying through the air.

“You useless brats! A loss is a loss! Why keep whining like stray dogs?!” cursed a man as tall and broad as an iron tower.

“Elder Lione,” Priam said politely, wearing a slight smile. “I’ve come as promised, and I’ve brought my little sister.”

Suien hurried to Priam’s side and bowed to the Elder with exceptional politeness.

The Elder nodded, then… his eyes lit up when he looked at Suien.

“Water Elemental Physique? And she enjoys hand-to-hand combat, too? Hmm… Extremely abnormal, just like her older brother.”

Priam nodded. The reason behind this was simple: for a woman to develop a natural affinity for the Water element, she needed to possess an extreme attunement to Yin energy.

However, Yin was an extremely feminine trait. With such a characteristic, one would expect her to display an aversion and repulsion toward brutal physical combat—traits typically associated with the masculine Yang polarity.

Living proof of this was that the women who’d appeared earlier were, at most, specialists in the Wind element. Although Wind was predominantly Yin, it also contained a considerable amount of Yang. Purely Yin women were practically nonexistent in a sect that worshiped physical supremacy and hand-to-hand combat.

Elder Lione broke into a wide grin. “Haha… good thing you arrived early. Come with me.”

With that, the Elder turned around and cursed the recently defeated disciples once more, waving his hands around and calling them useless for failing to handle two people, even when fighting as a group.

To make matters worse, the three women had lost together to a single opponent who was an entire Rank below them. It was a monumental humiliation.

The disciples lowered their heads obediently, not daring to talk back even once. However…

As soon as the trio had walked far enough away, the disciples started stirring again.

Some began feverishly speculating about Priam and Suien’s origins, which quickly escalated into a heated argument about the battle that had just taken place.

All it took was a single spark to ignite the powder keg: one female disciple blamed her companions for their lack of cooperation. On the other side, a big, burly guy fired back, calling the others useless. As a result…

Before Priam and Suien could walk more than a few meters, another full-blown brawl erupted behind them.

Suien was left speechless, her mouth hanging open. Those people were addicted to beating the shit out of each other. There was no other explanation!

“All the disciples in my sect share this exact same temperament. They’re young and full of pent-up energy, so exchanging punches frequently isn’t a bad thing. On the contrary, it makes them more resilient,” Elder Lione explained, turning to Suien with an ironic smile.

“However, the young men here know nothing but fighting and have absolutely no idea how to interact with the few women in the sect. To avoid unnecessary trouble, the rule is simple: they’re strictly forbidden from approaching within one meter of a woman or demanding a duel. Only if a woman herself wishes to do so can she challenge them to a fight, and only then are they authorized to fight back. The punishment for even a single violation is expulsion from the sect. So feel completely at ease here.”

Suien nodded. Thinking about it, she recalled that all the men had maintained a physical distance from the women the entire time, even leaving them to fight separately at a safe distance.

This rule hadn’t been created because of any limitation in physical aptitude or raw power. For Mages and Sages, physical potential was independent of gender.

The real problem was physical interaction between the opposite sexes. This was an environment full of young men who knew nothing but fighting, with little social finesse or self-control. Without strict rules, things could easily spiral out of control.

The Elder turned his attention to Priam. “Boy, I can tell from your aura that you assimilated the complete technique in a very short time. Good work.”

“The Elder gives me too much credit. I’m immensely grateful to the sect for lending us the technique and welcoming us. I’ll never forget this kindness,” Priam replied courteously.

The Elder shook his head vehemently. “Don’t you dare say those words again in the future, or you’ll get beaten up. Everyone in our sect is straightforward. What favors? What gratitude? Just keep it in your heart, and that’s it! If you say that kind of nonsense out loud, our sect will turn up its nose at you. You should treat this place like your own home… or you’ll get a beating. Well, to sum it up… you’re probably going to get beaten up either way, so you might as well get used to it.”

‘Did I just walk into a nest of maniacs?’

Priam and Suien had the exact same thought, and their expressions changed in perfect sync when they heard that.

They continued forward, with the Elder leading them deeper into the sect.

After crossing the final mountain pass, they were greeted by an overwhelmingly vast expanse. It was a sea of barren, rocky peaks devoid of any vegetation, where every structure had been built entirely from roughly hewn stone. The architecture exuded an extreme sense of ruggedness.

Eventually, they arrived at a colossal plaza. To be precise, it was an entire mountain that had been cleaved in half by brute force to create that enormous stone platform.

As soon as they stepped into the area, Priam counted more than five thousand disciples gathered there.

“All of these are core disciples, the absolute elite of the Heavenly Elemental Body Sect. In the outside world, every single one of them possesses enough power to go toe-to-toe with the top disciples of any sect out there. They are the pillars of our future,” Elder Lione declared, his chest puffed out with pride and satisfaction.

At that very moment, a female figure stood out from the crowd and approached them.

She was about as tall as Priam, with a rounded face and delicate features. Her light brown hair was trimmed into a short cut, framing a pair of brilliant, intensely violet eyes. A white cloth headband was tied around her forehead.

Her physique was athletic and well-sculpted. She wore minimalist training attire: just a white compression band covering her chest and loose brown martial arts pants.

A dense, suffocating aura of the Earth element radiated from her. Even without activating her Elemental Physique, every step she took made the ground beneath her feet and the very space around her tremble.

“What power…” Suien’s heart skipped a beat. It was the first time she’d ever felt such an oppressive physical presence emanating from another woman.

“I’m Aella,” the woman introduced herself, slightly inclining her head in a respectful greeting to the two of them.

“Priam,” he replied concisely.

“Suien,” she said, bowing politely.

Elder Lione broke into an enigmatic smile.

“Aella is one of the greatest experts of the new generation. According to the fundamental rules of the sect, she has the right to challenge you to an immediate fight. This is an explicit sign of the respect she has for you. If she considered you a weakling unworthy of her time, she would’ve simply turned around and challenged someone else. In short, if you can’t shut everyone up with your fists here, you won’t be able to officially join us.”

The anticipation in the eyes of the thousands of disciples surrounding them intensified to feverish levels. The tension in the air was palpable.

“Your aura is formidable. I’m certain you won’t refuse my challenge.” Aella stared at Priam, her pupils burning with pure bloodlust for battle.

Immediately afterward, she shifted her gaze to Suien, assessing her with a hint of admiration.

“Water element? Interesting.”

Aella turned toward the crowd. Another figure stepped forward: a short woman wearing a white training bodysuit that hugged every curve of her athletic body, with long red hair tied into a ponytail that swayed down her back.

“I’m Grizzy,” she introduced herself, bowing slightly to Suien.

She was exactly the same level and Rank as Suien. However, she was undoubtedly a terrifying core disciple of this sect.

And as always, any Golden Tickets and Stones are welcome. ??