Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 845: Difference In Power

Asher wasn’t the only one who hadn’t moved since Isaac’s sneak attack. The Shadow Assassin’s main body and its other clone still hadn’t moved either. Neither of them acknowledged Isaac, their eyes remaining locked on Asher the entire time, as though he alone was worthy of their attention.

With a force that shattered the upper floors of the high-rise building they stood upon, both bodies closed the distance between themselves and Asher in a single blur, the very concept of distance seemingly foreign to them.

One attacked from the left while the other came from the right, their daggers screaming toward his throat and heart as they targeted his vital points with terrifying precision. Asher didn’t even bother dodging. He simply remained where he was, and as their attacks landed, his body phased through them as though he were nothing more than an afterimage.

The moment he phased through both attacks, Asher moved. He leaped into the air, his body suspended a few meters above the ground as his legs snapped outward in opposite directions. His left leg connected with the clone’s head while his right leg slammed into the main body’s chest, both strikes carrying devastating force.

With calamitous impact, both of them shot backward like wrecking balls before crashing into rows of parked cars in the opposite direction.

It wasn’t that physical attacks were impossible against the Shadow Assassins, as was the case with Isaac. No, one simply had to be fast enough to land an attack before they could even think about phasing through it.

As Asher landed lightly on his feet, he closed the distance between himself and the Shadow Clone at blistering speed. Without missing a beat, he drove a punch straight into the Shadow Clone’s sternum while it was still embedded within the wrecked car. The Shadow Clone folded forward like paper beneath the sheer force of the blow as the car instantly burst apart into twisted metal and shattered alloys.

The Shadow Assassin was already on the move as it raced toward Asher in a blur. But Asher had already sensed it. He casually caught the Shadow Clone by the collar before spinning on his heel and hurling it toward the main body as though it were nothing more than a baseball.

The Shadow Assassin reacted instantly. It effortlessly caught the Shadow Clone before spinning on its own feet and throwing the clone straight back toward Asher with booming force. But as the Shadow Clone closed the distance, Asher simply raised a hand and slapped it aside like a ragdoll, its body crashing into a street bench before colliding with a nearby light pole.

As Asher was about to move and meet the Shadow Assassin head-on, tendrils of darkness suddenly rose from his own shadow and tightly bound his legs in place, halting his movement.

The Shadow Assassin immediately released another grid-shaped barrage of shadow strings that shot forward with slicing force, moving to dice Asher into countless cubes of flesh. Asher merely raised a hand and lazily threw a punch forward. The resulting wind pressure immediately billowed outward with cataclysmic force, slamming into the incoming attack and dissolving it into fleeting wisps of shadow before it could even reach him.

As Asher blocked that attack, the Shadow Clone was already moving once more. It opened its mouth, and from deep within its throat, what appeared to be concentrated darkness gathered under its control of Astra energy. Without missing a beat, it unleashed a devastating dark bolt.

Asher’s head immediately tilted to the side while his hand snapped upward. He opened his palm and calmly tanked the dark bolt head-on as though it were nothing. The air trembled violently, the earth shattered beneath them, while both the wind and even the sound barrier cracked under the tremendous force of the attack as everything surrounding them was flattened.

Yet the sheer destructive force behind the attack wasn’t even enough to make Asher take a single step backward, nor did it force him to use any affinity or ability to defend himself beyond his bare hand.

But the Shadow Assassin wasn’t simply standing there doing nothing. No, it was already moving. With Asher restricted from taking a single step while simultaneously blocking the dark bolt, it appeared behind him like a true assassin, its dagger singing toward Asher’s throat with lethal intent.

Asher couldn’t help but muse at the predictability of it all. These Shadow Assassins always loved attacking from behind. A faint smile appeared across his face as he vanished from where he stood, teleporting away at the very last moment. The instant he disappeared, the dark bolt that the Shadow Clone had been firing crashed directly into the chest of the Shadow Assassin. The overwhelming force behind the attack blasted the Shadow Assassin backward as nearly half of its chest was obliterated by the very same attack that Asher had been tanking as though it were insignificant.

The Shadow Clone had no choice but to cancel its own skill, and the moment it did, Asher appeared in a blur high above the battlefield before shooting downward from the sky. His fist crashed into the Shadow Clone’s head with ruinous force, driving both his fist and the Shadow Clone’s skull deep into the concrete below as everything within a two-kilometre radius was immediately wiped into ruin beneath the resulting shockwave. A massive ravine tore open through the streets as enormous chunks of earth, asphalt, and concrete were ripped backward in violent waves of destruction.

The Shadow Clone couldn’t survive such an attack. A direct punch from Asher to the head wasn’t something that just anyone could survive.

Asher simply stood over the dissipating Shadow Clone.

The very next instant, the Shadow Clone stopped dissipating. Instead, the darkness and shadows that made up its body transformed into an inky liquid that rapidly spread across the earth, covering an area nearly three kilometres wide. Everything caught within its range immediately began sinking into the darkness as though it had become an endless sea of quicksand.

Asher had absolutely no intention of finding out where he would end up if he were swallowed by the inky darkness. His Astra energy pulsed violently as his body immediately shone with radiant brilliance. His Light Affinity exploded outward with blinding luminosity. A titanic explosion of light erupted moments later, shattering every building, vehicle, pane of glass, and street within a three-kilometre radius while instantly erasing the engulfing sea of inky darkness.

Asher couldn’t help but sigh. Truly, even among Rank 7 beings, differences in strength existed. He had fought Debro while going all out, yet Xal’Thar hadn’t even been capable of forcing him to that extent. At the very least, Xal’Thar had managed to make him exert a little effort. But this Rank 7 Shadow Assassin couldn’t even make him become serious. It was weaker than Xal’Thar, and Xal’Thar himself had been weaker than Debro.

Three Rank 7 beings, yet three entirely different levels of power.

But Asher understood that this Rank 7 Shadow Assassin was only weak when compared to him. If another student had been standing in his place, they would have already suffered catastrophic losses.

His purple eyes locked onto the Rank 7 Shadow Assassin as it stared back at him with murderous intent. Asher simply lifted a finger, his Astra energy humming softly as he formed a brilliant sphere of light above his index finger. The Shadow Assassin didn’t dare hesitate. It immediately retreated, fully aware that light and most elemental attacks were its greatest weaknesses. But before it could even create a reasonable amount of distance between them, a colossal beam of light erupted from the sphere hovering above Asher’s finger with a deafening buzz.

The beam tore cleanly through its entire body, erasing everything from the neck downward without granting it even the slightest opportunity to activate its absurd darkness regeneration ability.

The Rank 7 Shadow Assassin merely stared at Asher as it slowly dissipated into countless motes of shadow and darkness.

Asher’s head tilted upward toward the rankings floating high above the battlefield. He remained firmly in first place, while Arianna still occupied second place, although her score continued increasing at a steady pace.

Teo Swig floated downward before landing beside Asher. He had originally planned on joining the fight, but after witnessing the sheer scale of destruction that both Asher and the Shadow Assassin had unleashed, he wisely decided to remain far away instead.