Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 901: World Embodiment [Magic Castle Bonus Chapter]

The moment Asher was done healing, he closed the distance by teleporting, his body arriving before Arianna as he drew Virelass from her sheath with fluid precision.

Arianna’s right eye shone as she tapped into her Genesis ability, calling upon yet another broken skill she had copied. However, before the skill could even be brought into existence through her Astra energy, Arianna felt her Astra energy… vanish.

Her eyes widened in shock as she frantically raised her own short sword to block through nothing but sheer physical strength and instinctive reflexes. The moment her blade met Asher’s, a sundering burst of power exploded outwards as the Lightning element cloaking Virelass consumed her and hurled her backwards with rocketing force.

The reason her skill had failed was simple. Through Star Energy, Asher had momentarily severed her connection with Astra energy. Earlier, he couldn’t do this simply because Arianna’s control over Astra energy was far too refined, while his own control over Star Energy had not yet reached the necessary level.

But now, his control over Star Energy had risen in the midst of battle, forged within the blazing intensity of combat. Although Arianna’s control over Astra energy had also improved, Asher’s talent was simply too monstrous, as she could not match his genius when it came to sheer natural aptitude.

Hence, his improvement eclipsed Arianna’s own growth, granting him the opportunity to use the ability. Although, unlike against Xal’Thar, where he could maintain the ability for several minutes if he wished, against someone as outrageous as Arianna, he could only nullify her Astra energy for a mere split second, catching her completely off guard at the perfect moment.

Left to Asher, he would have loved to keep this particular ability hidden until later and use it as a decisive trump card to claim victory. However, geniuses like Arianna were unpredictable. Even at this very moment, she was still improving. It was far wiser to capitalize on the advantage while he still possessed it, and that was exactly what he had done.

Arianna’s body lay atop a table, covered in sword wounds, lightning burns, and numerous injuries. Even the devastating strike Asher had landed on her back earlier, the one that had shattered both her scapula and spine, was still in the process of healing.

At this moment, she had less than three percent of her Astra energy reserves remaining, having poured more than twenty percent into that Black Hole attack alone, as even activating it consumed an enormous amount of Astra energy, not to mention the immense expenditure required to sustain it.

She rose weakly from her back before shifting into a sitting position. She had never imagined she would be pushed to this point. Never before had any of her enemies driven her into such a desperate state. Her Astra energy was nearly exhausted, while her stamina had almost reached its absolute limit. At this moment, she was standing on her last legs, as her entire Genesis Archive ability relied heavily upon Astra energy.

The Archive ability of her left eye required Astra energy to analyze skills. The Genesis ability of her right eye required Astra energy to reproduce those analyzed abilities into reality. Without Astra energy, all she possessed was her swordsmanship, and with her stamina so heavily depleted, even that could no longer compensate for everything she had lost.

‘What was even that ability?’ she thought to herself as she recalled the unmistakable sensation of being disconnected from her Genesis ability for a brief split second. She knew she wasn’t imagining things or being delusional. She trusted her senses completely.

The next moment, Asher walked into the building, entering the office space as his purple eyes landed upon Arianna, who sat weakly with countless injuries covering her body. Even her regeneration had slowed significantly at this point, as she refused to waste the little Astra energy she had left by continuously feeding it into her healing technique.

“Had enough?” Asher asked as he walked forward.

But his footsteps came to an abrupt stop the very next moment as his instincts warned him not to take another step forward. Asher couldn’t understand why his instincts were warning him, as Arianna appeared completely spent, yet he trusted those instincts implicitly and did not dare advance another step.

Arianna climbed down from the table before speaking. “I won’t lie, I never came here expecting to encounter someone like you, someone capable of pushing me into such a state.” Her tone remained low as a gentle smile appeared upon her face. “But it seems I’ve been far too arrogant to believe there wasn’t anyone as talented as me.” She stared silently at her hands before her amber-gold eye slowly rose to meet Asher’s purple gaze.

“You can feel it, right?” she spoke once more. “Your instincts are warning you not to come any closer.” She immediately deduced why Asher had suddenly halted. “Not to belittle all the hard work you’ve put in until now, but I advise you to forfeit… please.” She spoke as though she were genuinely pleading with him not to force her into doing what she was about to do.

Asher remained silent for a brief moment before finally speaking. “Show me the trump card that gives you this confidence, Arianna Haellight.” A smile appeared upon his lips as he immediately settled into a battle stance, fully prepared to welcome whatever Arianna was about to unleash.

Arianna remained silent for several seconds before she finally spoke.

“As you wish.”

The moment those words left her lips, the entire Coliseum shook as though something unimaginably calamitous was descending upon it. The air itself screeched violently as though reality was being torn apart, while the building they stood within trembled violently from its very foundations.

Arianna Haellight’s lips parted once more as she spoke;

“World Embodiment”

In less than a moment, an incomprehensibly massive column of green energy descended from the heavens, bursting through the towering skyscraper floor after floor before crashing directly upon Arianna’s body with earth-shattering force.

Arianna’s body slowly began to float into the air as every one of her injuries healed at a visible rate. Her Astra energy reserves surged back to one hundred percent, while her physical strength climbed to an utterly absurd level.

Brilliant green energy formed elegant plates around her body like divine armor, while a magnificent helmet crowned with a pair of wings stretching proudly toward the heavens materialized over her head. Her twin swords vanished completely as the surrounding green energy forged an entirely new pair of blades capable of matching her newly ascended strength.

Arianna gently landed upon her feet, now standing like an ancient Valkyrie that had descended from the heavens to grace the mortal world.

This was Arianna’s second innate ability, one she had been born with, her final trump card. It was an ability she had never once used in an actual battle, having only ever activated it while training against her father, Azazel Haellight.

It was an ability that made her one with the world itself. Within this state, she possessed infinite stamina and infinite Astra energy, as the world continuously supplied both energies to her without end. Furthermore, every skill reproduced through her Genesis ability immediately became three times more destructive, while her control over Astra energy also rose proportionately to accommodate such overwhelming power.

She truly was a child loved by the world.

Arianna’s eyes slowly opened, shining with nothing but boundless power. She gazed toward Asher, who stood completely dumbfounded by the breathtaking sight before him. Time itself seemed to bend around her existence as she appeared before Asher almost instantaneously, yet Asher’s eyes were still fixed upon the position she had occupied only a heartbeat earlier, as his perception and visual acuity had not even registered her movement.

She merely touched his chest with the tip of a single finger.

Like a baseball fired from a cannon, Asher’s body was launched backwards with catastrophic force. His body tore through everything across a three-hundred-kilometer radius as the momentum acting upon him showed absolutely no signs of slowing, continuing to propel him onward with terrifying violence.

Asher’s body finally came to a stop. Every single bone within his body had been shattered beyond recognition, his flesh torn apart, while his mind teetered on the brink of collapse beneath pain unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Every instinct within him screamed for release, yet even screaming felt impossible.

Virelass immediately sprang into action as Crimson Pact activated at full capacity, desperately struggling to keep Asher’s heart beating and his life intact, refusing to allow her master to die even as his body hovered on the very brink of destruction.

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Bonus Chapter sponsored by Sluggish_Slug