Sign-In System: Starting With Invincible Physique-Chapter 12: Crippling Gaelen

Chapter 12: Crippling Gaelen

Rhain stood up from beside Seris.

He had waited all afternoon for this exact moment.

Seris reached out, her fingers lightly brushing his wrist.

"Rhain," she said softly.

He looked down at her.

"He’s still Rank 2," Her pale violet eyes looked at him seriously, "I know you are very strong but please, be careful."

Rhain looked at her for a moment, before gently removing her hand from his wrist.

"It won’t take long."

He turned and descended the stone steps.

Down in the ring, Gaelen was already waiting.

He was trying to look calm, but the slight tremor in his hands exposed him.

He had watched Rhain casually cripple and dismantle disciple after disciple. The arrogance he had displayed just hours ago was gone, replaced by the desperate, cornered appearance of a rat.

Rhain reached the center of the platform.

He didn’t take a stance.

He just stood there, his arms resting loosely at his sides.

"Begin," Maren said.

Gaelen roared.

It was a sound born more of terror than fury. He violently circulated every drop of his Level 4 Essence, wrapping his body in a dense, protective shroud. He cocked his fist back, preparing to unleash his full force attack.

He didn’t even get to take a step.

One instant he was standing fifteen paces away.

The next instant he was behind Gaelen.

To the two hundred disciples watching, Rhain simply ceased to exist in his starting position.

Only Maren saw it. Her eyes widened.

She had tracked the movement — barely. The speed was so fast that it defied the limits of the Awakening realm.

Gaelen’s reinforced guard — the wide stance, the layered Essence defense, the careful positioning— was rendered completely meaningless.

Because Rhain wasn’t in front of him.

Rhain was behind him.

And before Gaelen’s brain could even register the shift in air pressure—

CRACK.

Rhain’s foot planted squarely on Gaelen’s butt.

Gaelen was launched forward as if fired from a ballista. His arms flailed uselessly as his center of gravity was completely shattered.

Smack.

He crashed face-first into the hard stone of the arena, his momentum grinding his face against the dirt and rock.

His nose broke on impact. Blood sprayed on the ground.

Before a single coherent thought could form in Gaelen’s fractured mind, a weight descended on the back of his skull.

Rhain’s foot pressed down.

Crack.

The stone beneath Gaelen’s face fractured.

Gaelen’s mouth and nose were forcibly crushed into the dirt. He choked, a muffled, pathetic gagging sound escaping his lips as he tried to drag air into his lungs.

Rhain casually twisted his heel against the back of Gaelen’s skull.

He looked down at Gaelen with an expressionless face.

He wants to act like Brennan’s dog.

Then he will become a dog. From today, he will only crawl.

Ugghhhh!

Gaelen let out a muffled groan, the humiliation was hurting more than the pain in his body.

He thrashed, his hands slapping against the stone as he tried to push himself up.

Rhain didn’t let him.

Bending down, Rhain grabbed Gaelen’s right arm by the wrist and the elbow.

Gaelen’s eyes widened with absolute terror, he knew what was going to happen next.

He desperately tried to turn his head to beg for mercy.

But it was already very late.

Rhain didn’t hesitate.

He twisted.

SNAP.

The radius snapped first. Then the ulna. Then the elbow joint dislocated with a pop that echoed across the silent arena.

Gaelen tried to scream.

He opened his mouth to unleash a howl of absolute agony, but with Rhain’s boot still grinding his face into the dirt, the scream had nowhere to go.

It emerged as a suffocated gurgle, choked off by mouthfuls of dust and his own blood. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

Rhain dropped the ruined arm. It fell to the stone like a dead thing, bent at angles that arms were never meant to bend.

He picked up the left.

CRACK.

Another muffled, pathetic convulsion.

Gaelen’s body arched like a dying fish, his nervous system completely overwhelmed by the pain.

But Rhain wasn’t done.

A promise was a promise.

He stepped off Gaelen’s head.

The sudden release of pressure caused Gaelen to suck in a desperate, rattling breath — a drowning man breaking the surface.

It was the last conscious breath he would take for a long time.

Rhain mercilessly raised his boot and brought it down on Gaelen’s right knee.

Crunch.

The knee bent the wrong way.

Then the left.

Crunch.

All four of Gaelen’s limbs were bent at unnatural angles. The bones were completely shattered, the joints pulverized beyond any hope of simple recovery.

In the span of ten seconds, the second-ranked genius of the outer sect had been reduced to a complete cripple.

The arena was paralyzed.

Absolute, soul-crushing terror gripped the onlookers.

Those who had been knocked out by Rhain earlier in the day stared at the platform with pale, bloodless faces.

Suddenly, the shattered sternums and broken forearms they had suffered felt like acts of profound mercy.

This—this methodical, ruthless dismantling—was what happened when Rhain Voss actually wanted to hurt someone.

Gaelen was completely doomed. Even if he survived, he was worse than a dog now.

On the platform, the twitching stopped.

Gaelen’s eyes rolled back into his head. The sheer magnitude of the pain finally triggered his body’s ultimate defense mechanism, dragging him down into the black abyss of unconsciousness.

Rhain was still unsatisfied, he raised his leg once again.

Rhain Voss."

Maren’s voice cut through the silence like a blade.

"The opponent is unable to continue. Step back. Now."

Rhain stopped, turned to look back at Maren’s fierce eyes without any fear and then turned back to look at Gaelen’s broken body.

Then, very casually, he drew his foot back and delivered one final, heavy kick to Gaelen’s ribs.

One final, contemptuous strike to the ribs. Hard enough to ensure that when Gaelen woke up — he would feel it with every breath for weeks.

Gaelen’s limp body slid three feet across the stone.

Rhain didn’t spare a single glance to Gaelen as if he just kicked a trash can, and walked off the platform.

His expression did not changed once throughout the entire sequence.

The arena was silent. No one cheered. No one whispered.

The second-ranked genius of the outer sect — the disciple who had held his position for three years had been utterly ruined because he provoked Rhain.

Maren’s heart beat heavily against her ribs.

She had seen prodigies before. She had seen cruelty before. The path of cultivation was paved with both.

But she had never seen this.

Such cold, detached brutality.

Is this boy a blessing or a curse for our dying sect?