Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 641: Calculator

Over five thousand kilometres away from Morgana’s battlefield was another battlefield, but on this battlefield stood the third and last Great Elder, Damien Wargrave, a man whose presence alone seemed to distort the very flow of the surrounding atmosphere.

Just like Azaron, the man possessed golden eyes and golden-coloured hair, but if one looked closely, on Damien’s forehead, one would find a tattoo, a mathematical symbol, (Σ), which represented the mathematical summation symbol, a mark that seemed almost insignificant at first glance, yet carried a deeper, almost ominous implication tied to the nature of his power.

A smile was on his face as he stared at his opponent, who wore the same smile as him, as they both stared at each other like predator observing predator, neither willing to break the silence first, yet both fully aware that only one of them would walk away from this battlefield with dignity intact.

Damien Wargrave’s awakened soul-bound weapon was a pair of gauntlets, as he was a Martial Artist, which was rare within the Wargrave bloodline, and just like his elder brother, Morthen, he also didn’t awaken an affinity like other Wargraves, but instead, an ability, something far more abstract and far more terrifying in the right hands.

His ability was called Calculator, which basically allowed him to perform four distinct functions; addition (+), subtraction (-), multiplication (×), and division (÷), four concepts so simple that even children could understand them, yet within his grasp, they transcended their mundane nature.

These were simple, basic arithmetic operations people used in their daily lives, usually to calculate money, simple and efficient, things that held no danger in ordinary circumstances. But here, on this battlefield like many others, Damien Wargrave was going to use them in battle, turning simplicity into overwhelming dominance.

An ability so simple on the surface, yet utterly devastating in his hands and in its application, capable of warping the logic of combat itself.

The Cabinet Member didn’t wait for Damien to move; he acted with swift ease, closing the distance between him and the Wargrave in a burst of motion, the ground quaking under his foot as he erased the distance between them with explosive speed. The moment he arrived, he thrust his blade towards Damien’s forehead with lethal precision.

Damien didn’t react as though he hadn’t seen the man, as though his perception couldn’t keep up, but the next instant, his hand blurred upwards as he stretched out a finger, and with insulting ease, he stopped the attack with a single finger, halting it completely as though it carried no force behind it. A violent windstorm exploded outward between the both of them, distorting the air itself, but neither of them took a step back.

The Cabinet Member frowned; he was a Crownstar Life Ranker, and although the Wargrave family were known to be physically stronger than most, it wasn’t to the point that his attack was supposed to be stopped so effortlessly by a single finger, such a display defied his understanding.

Suddenly, his eyes fell on a plus (+) symbol floating a few centimeters above Damien’s head, faint yet unmistakable. He wondered what it was, but he couldn’t understand it; still, he maintained his vigilance, his instincts screaming that something was deeply wrong.

Without missing a beat, he unleashed a storm of attacks, his scimitar blurring as he thrust a thousand times in a matter of a nanosecond, each strike aimed with deadly intent. But again, Damien stopped all of them with a single finger, neither taking a step back nor forward, as though rooted in place.

The Cabinet Member immediately blurred backwards, as he dared not remain near this ridiculous freak of nature, his confidence beginning to crack ever so slightly.

The truth was simple, it wasn’t that the Cabinet Member was weak, it was simply that Damien’s Calculator ability was... overpowered beyond conventional logic. He had used the addition aspect of his ability to increase his own speed and strength to absurd levels, hence making whatever his opponent was doing seem like child’s play, insignificant and slow.

This was one of the applications of his ability; he could apply it to himself, multiplying his strength, speed, endurance, Astra energy, and regeneration to levels that broke common sense. And not only that, he could also perform the same on his opponent by dividing or subtracting their own physical parameters, weakening them without direct contact.

The moment the Cabinet Member put some distance between him and Damien, the next moment, a division (÷) symbol appeared above Damien’s head, but before the man could even understand what was happening, Damien was already before him, his hand streaking forward as he unleashed a punch at the man’s chest with battering force.

And with rocketing impact, the Cabinet Member shot backwards, his body turning into a streak across the battlefield. He couldn’t understand it, he couldn’t follow Damien’s speed, he hadn’t seen it, he hadn’t sensed it, it felt like teleportation, but he had seen teleportation abilities of all types to know what teleportation truly looked like.

Damien hadn’t teleported, he had simply divided the distance between him and his opponent to zero, hence making him appear before the man in an instant, with a speed that surpassed teleportation itself, a concept that shouldn’t have been possible.

The Cabinet Member collapsed against a distant mountain before he came to a stop, the impact shaking the surrounding terrain. He swiftly rose to his feet, his eyes snapping towards the position where Damien had been last. But the moment his eyes snapped there, his senses picked up a presence beside him; it was Damien once again.

The Cabinet Member’s reaction was instantaneous; this time, he didn’t attack physically, he unleashed his ability, Explosion, that simply allowed him to detonate anything he had ever touched into a towering calamity capable of widespread destruction. With that, the mountain, the ground, and everything within a kilometre radius immediately lit up and detonated in a catastrophic chain reaction, but the next moment, the explosion seemed to halt as though it had been cancelled by an unseen force.

And indeed, it was, Damien had divided every component of the explosion to zero, heat, shockwave, blast wave, smoke, momentum, force, all nullified with effortless precision. His Calculator ability didn’t just work against tangible things but also against abstract quantities, concepts that normally couldn’t be interacted with.

The Cabinet Member couldn’t understand why his own ability wasn’t working; this was his first time in two centuries that he was experiencing such a phenomenon, something that completely defied his accumulated experience.

"This is why I hardly leave the estate, you people are simply too weak to make me even want to try," Damien’s voice echoed as he sighed in disappointment, his earlier excitement completely gone. He had been smiling earlier, looking forward to at least some level of a pleasant fight. As a Cabinet Member of the Royal Family, his opponent was supposed to at least be strong... but it seemed he had chosen the weakest opponent of them all.

The symbol floating above his head turned into a multiplication sign (×), glowing faintly with power, and with that, his hand blurred as he unleashed a slap against his opponent’s cheek, the sound of the impact echoing throughout the battlefield like thunder. And with that, the Cabinet Member’s body tore sideways with mind bugging force, his cheek torn off from his face, his jaw dislocating violently, his teeth shooting out from his gums, as his brain slammed against his skull.

With a final impact against the shattered ground, the man lay motionless, unconscious, his face completely unrecognizable, as he, a Crownstar Life Ranker, had been defeated with just two attacks, a punch and a slap, a humiliating and decisive end.

Damien shook his head slowly, then turned and walked away without a second glance. The First Great Elder, his older brother, Morthen, had already instructed everyone not to kill their opponents; if not, he would have ended his opponent by simply exploding his head like an overripe watermelon with that final slap, a fate far worse than what had just occurred.