Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 855: Second Round Ends [GT Ranking Bonus Chapter]

As the warping, churning smoke and sizzling heat gradually began to dissipate, Asher’s figure came into view. His posture remained calm, his bearing unchanged, as he hadn’t lost a single Vitality Point. Although the scale and destructive force behind the attack had been immense, it still wasn’t enough to injure someone of Asher’s capabilities.

Asher’s hand brightened as he tapped into his Light Affinity, a whip of pure light forming within his grasp. Without hesitation, he swung it toward the two Monsters with wicked ease. The birds screeched as they vanished from their positions in crimson streaks. But Asher didn’t stop. His arm simply moved as he manipulated the whip, and within a few seconds, he caught one of the Crown-class Monsters.

Without missing a beat, Asher swung it around several times, gathering momentum and force before, with maddening strength, slamming it into a skyscraper. He didn’t stop there. He continued rotating it as the Monster tore through building after building, its back obliterating everything in its path.

The Monster screeched before its body erupted in blazing orange flames as it immediately burned away Asher’s whip of light from its leg. The moment it succeeded, its body finally came to a halt as a collapsing skyscraper caved inward upon it.

Asher’s Omni Perception tingled, and in a blur, he vanished from where he stood at light speed, his Light Affinity enhancing his movement as his ordinary flight speed couldn’t keep pace with these Monsters that had been built purely for speed. The instant he moved, a barrage of flaming constructs shaped like swords, spears, and tridents tore through the location he had occupied only a moment earlier.

The moment he dodged, the constructs immediately changed direction as though they possessed some sort of homing capability, relentlessly chasing after Asher’s new location. Asher’s body vanished in another yellow flash, blipping effortlessly from one point to another as he dodged, repositioning himself through light enhanced movement with flawless precision.

Then he vanished again, flying directly toward the Monster that had launched the attack, the flaming constructs faithfully following behind him. The moment he drew close enough, he disappeared once more, causing the flame constructs to immediately lock onto their own creator instead.

But the bird simply vanished from where it had been, its body appeared directly behind Asher as though it possessed some sort of teleportation ability.

Asher’s head snapped backward as he saw the Monster unleashing another plasma beam attack from its eyes.

‘These birds really make those Shadow Assassins look like slowpokes,’ Asher mused to himself before phasing straight through the attack as though it didn’t even exist on the same spatial plane as him.

Asher vanished in another yellow spark, his figure appearing directly above the Monster in a blur. His hand moved toward his rapier as he unsheathed it before swinging it toward the Monster’s back with flawless technique. The Monster simply rotated in midair, its talons shooting upward as it used them to block Asher’s rapier strike. Brilliant sparks burst apart the instant metal met claw.

‘Such battle sense and combat acumen,’ Asher thought as the bird floated upside down, its back facing the ground.

The bird flapped its wings once more, unleashing a torrential mixture of wind and flames at point-blank range as it attempted to swallow Asher whole. But Asher merely waved his hand. The intertwined attacks were effortlessly knocked aside as though they carried no real power behind them.

The Monster vanished once again, reappearing some distance away, but thanks to his light-speed movement, Asher had already closed the gap. His rapier flashed in a single fluid motion, it sliced cleanly through the bird’s leg.

The Monster screeched in agony as plasma rapidly gathered around its body before instantly detonating outward in raging madness, refusing to allow Asher any opportunity to press his advantage.

Asher’s figure appeared behind the bird, his sword singing through the air in a silver streak as he moved to finish it in a single strike.

The bird frantically flapped its wings, its speed reaching an entirely new peak as instinct, survival, and the fear of death pushed it beyond its previous limits. But before it could escape very far, Asher simply froze the space surrounding it.

Manipulating space itself, Asher reversed its momentum, dragging the fleeing Monster back to its previous location, directly in front of him. Virelass flashed once more and blood splattered across the air like crimson paint upon an invisible canvas.

Asher immediately released his control over space as the enormous corpse began plummeting toward the ruined city below, crashing into the devastated earth with tremendous force. Asher stared at it for a brief moment before shifting his gaze toward the location of the remaining Crown-class Monster.

The instant his eyes locked onto it, the bird stomped onto a duplex building with both legs, the immense force of the impact launching it skyward toward Asher like a living missile.

Asher didn’t even bother dodging. His rapier blurred as countless silver sword lines appeared before him, each one effortlessly slicing the entire building into innumerable fragments of concrete, steel, and shattered glass.

The next instant, every single fragment froze in midair beneath Asher’s precise control.

Using gravity, Asher immediately launched every boulder, slab of concrete, piece of steel, shard of glass, and fragment of debris from the destroyed building straight toward the bird. The speed and momentum behind each projectile were immense and utterly ridiculous, each carrying enough force to carve deep ravines into the earth.

Seeing this, the bird vanished with a single flap of its wings, its body becoming nothing more than a crimson streak before appearing directly beside Asher.

The next moment, plasma gathered around it, forming numerous swirling whirlpools before erupting into an endless barrage of explosive plasma rays, far greater in both quantity and intensity than before.

Asher didn’t bother dodging, he simply opened dozens of portals before himself, each effortlessly swallowing the incoming attacks. Another series of portals immediately opened behind the bird and before it could even react, its own plasma attacks slammed into its body with sundering force, blasting it directly toward Asher.

Asher’s rapier flashed toward its neck as he attempted to decapitate it, but its wings beat frantically as it barely managed to dodge at the final possible instant, Virelass doing nothing more than shearing away several feathers from its body.

The bird immediately dove downward, desperately attempting to create distance between itself and Asher.

Asher’s purple eyes narrowed. Just as he was about to pursue it, his body suddenly froze as he completely lost control over himself.

At that exact moment, an announcement thundered across the battlefield.

“THE SECOND ROUND OF THE INTER-EMPIRE COMPETITION OFFICIALLY COMES TO AN END AS ONLY SIXTEEN STUDENTS REMAIN!”

The announcement reached every student on the battlefield, leaving everyone stunned.

Even Asher himself was surprised, as he hadn’t expected the number of remaining participants to decrease so rapidly, even if these wannabe Phoenix Monsters were exceptionally powerful.

But unknown to Asher, and to every other student, Arianna had deliberately kidnapped the third Crown-class Monster simply because she wanted it to attack her. She had planned to use its overwhelming destructive power to eliminate as many students as possible in a single strike. That was the reason she had attacked first before luring it far away from the remaining two Crown-class Monsters.

‘Someone is certainly behind this,’ Asher thought as he recalled team names disappearing from the rankings at a pace far faster than normal.

His eyes lifted toward the dome where the rankings were displayed. But before Asher could think any further, he, and every other student scattered throughout the city, vanished instantly as Arianna had already achieved her objective.

The remaining Crown-class Monster was left stunned, momentarily wondering what had just happened. But before it could even react, its head suddenly exploded outward like an overripe melon.

The source of the attack remained completely unknown.

And with that, the second round drew to a close.

—–

AUTHOR’S NOTE: In less than a week from today, I’ll be going back to uploading two chapters per day. Sigh… It was a fun ride. Although I’m tempted to keep writing four chapters a day, my greed and laziness are just too strong.

Thanks for reading. Love y’all to the moon and back (⁠ ⁠◜⁠‿⁠◝⁠ ⁠)⁠♡