Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 1234: Singular Technique

The moment fist met lance, a titanic implosion erupted with warping force and might, slamming into both parties. A sinkhole tore open beneath them, the resulting attack erupting with enough force to erase everything within a three hundred thousand kilometres radius. Sound collapsed, air collapsed, the wind screamed, and space shredded. The clouds above were ripped apart.

As the impact tore into both of them, they allowed themselves to move with the blast, their bodies streaking backwards, their eyes and senses never leaving the other.

The gauntlet around Vellamira’s left fist vanished the next instant, as she wasn’t a hand-to-hand martial artist. Her fans vanished from their positions and reappeared in her hands, their sizes already shrinking to normal. She stepped into the air like it were a solid platform. Treating it like some sort of trampoline, she shot forward towards Yveric in a burst of motion.

In a picosecond, she was already upon him, her body flickering into reality above him. Her foot extended towards the sky above, and without a shred of hesitation, she brought it downwards.

Yveric didn’t have enough time to speak in order to teleport away, so he had no choice but to block. His head snapped towards the incoming attack, and he raised his lance to block with pure reflexive speed and reaction time.

And with the force of a thousand comets, Vellamira’s lower leg slammed into the lance with apocalyptic fury. The impact drove Yveric down towards the earth below. He immediately landed on his feet, his lance supported by both arms as he held it overhead.

The earth beneath his feet shattered and gave way, a ravine tearing open. His hands shook, his nose bled, his shoulder dislocated, and his organs screamed.

’So this is the difference between a Crownstar Life Ranker and a Sinvaira.’

Yveric thought to himself as he held on for his dear life.

He had always known that the difference between Sinvairas and Crownstar Life Rankers was immense. Although he had never faced one before, he knew that as a fact, as he had heard stories on how many powerful people fall to a singular Sinvaira.

Even right now, although Vellamira wasn’t using Astra Energy or her abilities and whatnot, he could tell that, even with the physical strength and speed she was displaying, she was simply playing around, as this wasn’t her best.

He couldn’t help but reminisce a bit, as this battle reminded him of the gap between the Primarch and himself whenever they have a light spar a few couple of years.

He stopped reminiscing as he drove his lance upwards, pushing Vellamira backwards. Vellamira rotated through the air, her right-hand fan opening as she unleashed a diagonal downward slash with it.

The moment she did, distance seemed to become meaningless within the realm of her Fansmanship. The next moment, a thin, shredding silver line collapsed against Yveric’s chest.

The breastplate he wore tore open, ripping apart like paper, and his skin followed as a diagonal injury running from his shoulder to his waist appeared. The sound of his flesh opening echoed in the air as blood splattered.

Yveric gritted his teeth. Even with Enhanced Reaction Time and Enhanced Senses, he hadn’t seen or reacted to the attack.

”Temporal Reversal.”

His voice came once more, his Astra Energy burning to fuel his words into reality. Time seemed to glitch as the next moment, the injury vanished and his breastplate became whole again, leaving him as good as new.

The moment Vellamira landed on the ground, Yveric spoke once more.

”Temporal Halt.”

Another huge chunk of his Astra Energy vanished. Although Word Law was a busted ability, it required a huge amount of Astra Energy, an amount of energy that not everyone could afford.

Not everyone was as busted as the Wargraves, who possessed a special physique, nor were they like Asher, who possessed an insane amount of energy, or Arianna Haellight.

Vellamira’s body immediately froze once more, time halting everything in place aside from thought.

Yveric was already gone, his figure appearing midair as he fell from the sky, his body gathering momentum, speed, strength, and force as he channelled it all into his lance.

His eyes locked onto Vellamira as he snapped his hand backwards like a bowstring. The Astra Energy already cloaking his lance intensified as he thrust downwards with enough force to rewrite a terrain.

[Singular Technique: Driving End Thrust]

Vellamira’s eyes remained on the attack as it screamed towards her body. Her body broke free from the constraints of time, as the power gap between her and Yveric was simply too great for her to be affected by it for long.

Raising her fan, she swung it skywards as she put an even greater amount of strength into it this time. A compressed, thin silver line raced upwards to meet the descending gigantic lance.

Time seemed to halt for a moment as both attacks met. Then, time snapped back into place as blinding white light erupted, followed by a devastating, devouring outburst of insanity. The section of the World of Reflection they fought in convulsed, threatening to collapse into shards of glass.

But it held on. Smoke covered everything as the heat climbed to skin-melting degrees. Debris rose in all directions as dust churned. Through the hazy battlefield, Yveric appeared. He had lost his left arm, an injury stretched across his face, and various smaller marks covered his body.

But he remained standing, his eyes burning with the determination to hold on and kill his opponent, or at least stall her until his Primarch returned. Until then, he never planned on dying.

”Enhanced Regeneration.”

He murmured as his skin snapped shut, a new limb growing in its place. He didn’t use Temporal Reversal again, as the cost would be too high to achieve the same effect.

Across from him, Vellamira stood without an injury. She simply covered half of her face with her left-hand fan, but the smile hidden behind it could never be mistaken. In her eyes, she was simply a cat playing around with her food, and she was enjoying it.

It had been a couple of centuries since she had made a personal move. But even as she had fun, she didn’t forget her purpose. She was counting down the ten minutes Kraymar had given her in her mind.

”If this is the best you can do, Yveric, then why are you even here?”

She asked in a playful tone, like she didn’t know she could defeat him from the beginning, like she didn’t know that this outcome was bound to happen.

”How about you stop stalling and use everything you have? By the time Azaron returns, you’ll be dead anyway, so just show me what you have.”

She continued, her tone containing nothing but factuality.

Yveric stayed silent for a moment, his eyes shifting towards Kraymar, who was still sitting in place. He knew it was impossible to hold Vellamira back forever, and even if he could, he was sure that skeleton would eventually make a move.

So, stalling for Azaron’s return was, at the end of the day, not advisable. He had to take one of them with him, at the very least. That way, even if he failed in his duty, he would still have achieved something.