After their meal, Kael and Rue returned to their mats at the mural mountain. The barriers rose around them, sealing them in silence, and they resumed their cultivation.
Kael's focus shifted to a different mural. This one depicted a figure standing at the edge of a stormy ocean. Waves crashed against his body—not breaking around him, but breaking on him, shattering into spray against skin that refused to yield. The figure's posture radiated pure ferocity. Raw, unfiltered power. Each wave was higher than the last, embodying a destructive force that escalated infinitely, yet the figure remained unmoved. His body was the anchor. The immovable point against which the ocean's fury broke.
Kael studied the mural for weeks. The aura flow. The intent. The way the figure's body aura didn't just defend—it absorbed the impact, hardened against it, and grew denser with each collision. It was a body art that turned the body as hard as a leviathan's carapace.
