Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 244: Need A Hand?

Monsters and Emovirae encompassed William as he tore forward, bones erupting all around him in grotesque shapes and finely honed forms, his body flickering in and out of existence as he ripped through their ranks like a phantom of war.

Butt, no matter how many he slew, more seemed to advance endlessly, as though an infinite tide had been unleashed to drown him. He was stronger than ever, faster, more ruthless, but strength was not infinity. He did not possess infinite Astra energy, nor did his stamina stretch beyond mortal limits. Every strike, every breath, carried a cost, and William could feel the weight pressing upon his body even as his claymore gleamed with death.

With impossible grace, he suddenly dove to the side, instincts sharper than razors guiding him as if fate itself bent to his will. His claymore tore upward in an arc of devastating elegance, slicing through the neck of a monstrous foe with insulting finesse. The creature’s head flew free in a fountain of black blood, but before the satisfaction could register, another monstrosity lunged, its massive fangs snapping toward his skull as though eager to bite it cleanly from his body.

”Shit!’ William cursed in his mind, Astra already coiling within him as he prepared to manipulate the bones of the battlefield once again. But before he could act, the heavens themselves seemed to answer.

From above, a blurred figure descended like a spear hurled by the celestials, cleaving through the air with unstoppable velocity. With an earth-rending blast, the figure impacted against the lunging monster, reducing it into little more than scattered meat and broken flesh.

The earth shuddered. Dust and debris erupted skyward with volcanic force, obscuring everything in a storm of gray chaos. But the figure was far from finished. From his body, as though he were the epicenter of a world-ending calamity, came the sound of crackling thunder. Reality itself seemed to tremble as blinding purple radiance exploded outward, expanding in a dome of destruction that swallowed everything in its reach.

The thunderous energy ate alive everything within meters of his strike. The battlefield screamed. The air filled with the scent of charred flesh, so thick and heavy it could almost be tasted, while blood pooled in steaming rivers. Corpses dropped with heavy thuds, bones shattered into fragments too small to be identified, scattered like meaningless dust upon the ground.

William did not need to guess who had arrived. His lips curved into a smile despite the carnage. With this presence at his side, the unbearable weight of the battlefield would finally ease.

Through the swirling clouds of dust and smoke, a voice rolled like thunder, sharp and mocking.

”Aren’t you a bit too weak for someone who is ranked fourth?”

The presence emerged fully from the haze, towering at six foot six. Purple hair crowned his head like a regal mantle, his matching eyes gleaming with soft amusement as they locked on William. His very existence seemed to hum with Lightning, as if the world bent in acknowledgment of his power.

William sighed, exasperated yet unsurprised. ”I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this, Asher, but stop comparing diamonds to stone. Not everyone is as talented as you.”

Asher’s grin widened, his eyes alight with both humor and calmness. ”Need a hand?”

William opened his mouth to reply, but before he could form words, Astra energy surged violently from Asher’s Astra veins. It pulsed outward like the heartbeat of a god, a rhythm too vast for his a being of his Life Rank.

Purple lightning laced the battlefield in majestic beauty, weaving across space like serpents of divine judgment. They collapsed into one another, merging and intertwining until they formed twenty colossal hands of pure lightning, each one towering like the appendages of some forgotten deity of destruction.

The monsters, Emovirae, and even hardened criminals who fought nearby froze in their tracks. Their blood turned to ice, their spines shivering under the weight of instinctive terror. They could not understand what they witnessed, yet their souls screamed of the danger it bore.

Asher only grinned wider. With a thought, the colossal lightning hands descended, crashing downward with the inevitability of judge’s gravel.

Astra pulsed. Abilities flared. Barriers erupted, domes of desperate defense rose, and countless attacks launched upward to meet the falling destruction.

It did not matter.

The ruin was absolute.

The twenty hands collapsed upon everything over a hundred meters, pressing down with crushing inevitability. Defenses shattered like glass under a hammer, attacks burned away like candles before an avalanche. The air split with an ear-sickening shriek as flesh tore apart, bones cracked, and blood exploded in crimson arcs. The ground itself melted, stone turning black and molten under the impossible force of destruction.

One strike. One breath. One impossible attack.

The death toll rose by the hundreds in an instant. Dust billowed upward, the battlefield drowned in shrieks and screams of despair as monsters, Emovirae, and criminals alike were consumed. Their voices tore through the battlefield only to be silenced as quickly as they rose.

Yet still, some lived. Battered, broken, yet alive. To Asher, that survival itself was a sin. His lips curved into a smile, and a single word slipped from his mouth.

”Detonate.”

The lightning hands, already catastrophic, began to crackle with heightened intensity. Their purple light flared brighter, thunder clapping as arcs of electricity slammed into each other. The air slowed for one eternal heartbeat.

And then it came.

A disastrous monstrosity of apocalyptic force erupted, a concussive purple blast that devoured reality in incandescent brilliance. The battlefield and space itself seemed to buckle under the weight of the blast, swallowed by calamitous titanic waves of pure destruction.

Dust rose into the sky in the shape of a mushroom cloud, as though a nuclear weapon had been unleashed. The storm of smoke and debris choked the air, making students gag on their own breath. The earth liquefied, turning molten under the sheer heat of the explosion, glowing as if the battlefield had become the surface of a star.

When the final shockwave settled, the battlefield was no more. Only death and dust remained.

Asher raised his hand with casual grace, then flicked his wrist. Another pulse of Astra energy exploded outward, sweeping the suffocating smoke and fumes from existence in an instant.

When the veil lifted, nothing remained. Not a single corpse. No blood, no shattered bones. The overwhelming heat had erased everything. The ground, still glowing and quivering like liquid fire, was all that bore witness to the annihilation.

And there stood Asher. Smiling. Grinning as if he had done nothing more than swat away a few bothersome insects.

He had pushed Perfect Astra control, Star Energy, and Lightning mastery to their absolute limit in a single attack. One strike had overturned the entire battlefield, flipping the board effortlessly in their favor.

All eyes stared at him. Horror radiated in every gaze, the fear raw and undeniable. His attack had been too sharp, too exact, killing only enemies, while sparing the students who now trembled in disbelief.

William, who had once stood at Asher’s side, now found himself flung far ahead by the sheer shockwaves. He rose to his feet, his body shaking, eyes wide in disbelief as he looked upon Asher.

He had copied Asher’s abilities before, granting himself half of Asher’s power. Fifty percent of his firepower.

And yet...

What he witnessed now shattered every belief he held.

Even with one hundred percent of Asher’s power, he realized with bone-deep certainty that he could never hope to match this overwhelming brilliance, this sheer and unfathomable force. What stood before him was not merely a comrade, but a cataclysm in human form, smiling with all the arrogance of a higher existence.