Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 854: Plasma [GT Ranking Bonus Chapter]

Asher’s figure tore downward from the sky as he landed atop the roof of a building with force. Stepping onto the ledge, he glanced down at the two Crown-class birds before him with a grin on his face.

His eyes shifted to the side, and there he could see Arianna Haellight floating with her teammate beside her. His purple eyes met her amber-gold ones. She didn’t speak. She merely nodded in his direction before vanishing from the sky as she teleported away with her teammate in tow.

Teo Swig, who had just landed beside him, stood in silence for a moment before speaking. “I don’t think challenging these two Crown-class Monsters is a good idea.” His tone remained calm, though he could feel every instinct and every fiber of his being screaming at him to run.

He didn’t need to be told that he would die from a single glance from either of those two Monsters.

“Ohhh!!! You think I can’t take both of them on at the same time?” Asher asked as he stared down at the Monsters, their eyes meeting his.

Teo Swig shook his head as he replied, “That’s not what I mean.” He sighed. “Although this leaves a bad taste in my mouth to say, but if I take on a Grave-class Monster without backup, I’ll lose Vitality Points, causing me to be disqualified and you to lose half of our total team score. At the end of the day, the Inter-Empire Competition created the team round because they already knew this would happen,” he explained.

Although Zis had managed to eliminate three Grave-class Monsters by himself, he had paid an immense price for it, one that would permanently affect the rest of his performance throughout this entire round.

“Don’t overthink it. If I was going to leave you and fight these two, then it obviously means I’ve already considered that,” Asher replied with a smirk.

He hadn’t considered anything, he was simply lying through his teeth. He had only come here because he wanted to take on all three Monsters at once, but Arianna had stolen one away and left the remaining two for him.

“What do you plan to do?” Teo Swig asked as he wondered what Asher’s strategy was.

“Simple. If the Inter-Empire Competition staff can place an energy cloak over us, then I’ll simply do the same using Astra energy,” Asher replied with a smile.

He didn’t actually plan to use Astra energy. He planned on covering Teo Swig with Star Energy so that no matter how much damage the boy received, his Vitality Points would remain unchanged. After all, these Grave-class Monsters couldn’t possibly hope to tear through Star Energy.

Teo Swig wanted to explain that Astra energy wouldn’t make any difference since these Monsters could simply tear through it. But he ultimately remained silent, as he was certain Asher already knew that. If Asher still insisted despite knowing it, then it meant he had complete confidence in his Astra energy.

Asher placed a hand on Teo Swig’s shoulder as he allowed his Star Energy, disguised as Astra energy, to flow through the boy’s body, overlapping the invisible energy cloak the staff used to monitor Vitality Points.

“No need to overthink it,” Asher began. “You can test it by tanking an attack from a Mark-class bird first, then gradually scale it upward. So fight without reservation and stop worrying about pain or losing Vitality Points,” he explained, knowing it might be difficult for Teo to simply take his word for it. But at the end of the day, it was up to the guy to test it himself.

Teo Swig remained silent for a moment before nodding his head. The next instant, he vanished from where he stood as he shot toward the nearest enemy without a shred of hesitation. If what Asher had told him was true, then he could fight Grave-class Monsters without fear, and that thought alone thrilled him to his core.

“It’s just the three of us now,” Asher spoke as he slowly began to levitate into the air with a smile on his face. “Shall we begin?” he asked in a playful tone.

The very next instant, his Astra energy rumbled outward, seeming to smear the very air with a brilliant golden glow. The sky churned violently as countless bolts of purple lightning gathered and collapsed into one another. In the next moment, the lightning descended in the form of a wingless dragon that tore through the heavens with an eardrum-shattering roar.

The two Crown-class Monsters didn’t delay. They refused to remain perched where they were. Their enormous wings flapped as they twisted out of the way with blinding speed, shattering the upper floors of the building they had been perched upon. The moment they dodged, Asher’s wingless lightning dragon swallowed the entire building whole, erasing it and everything within several hundred meters, reducing it all to nothing but burning debris.

Although the Monsters had successfully dodged, the resulting shockwave still slammed into them. But the shockwave meant nothing to them. They simply glided along with it as though it were nothing more than an ordinary gust of wind.

The first Crown-class Monster moved, immediately unleashing its basic attack as twin plasma beams shot toward Asher with terrifying speed. But Asher simply vanished from the sky as though he had never been there. The moment he dodged, the twin plasma beams razed everything within a four-kilometer radius to the ground with unimaginable heat and absolute destruction.

The power and temperature behind those plasma beams were obviously several times greater than the earlier plasma attack that had been fired at Asher and Arianna.

Asher appeared directly above the second Crown-class bird, which had yet to make its move. His leg rose high into the sky before crashing downward toward the Monster’s back with brutal force, as though he intended to shatter its spine with a single strike. But the Monster was prepared. In the next instant, an Astra energy barrier instantly formed around its body.

Asher’s foot collided with it.

A thunderous impact blasted through the air as spiderweb-like cracks spread across the surface of the Astra energy barrier. But it didn’t matter to the Monster.

It had already blocked the attack, that alone was all that mattered.

The Crown-class Monster vanished from where it had been hovering, its speed surprising even Asher’s flight speed.

The first Crown-class Monster was already making its move as the next instant, Asher found himself completely encased within a colossal sphere of superheated plasma. Without the slightest shred of mercy, the bird immediately compressed the plasma sphere before detonating it with Asher trapped inside.

The entire sky above the city battlefield was instantly swallowed by the catastrophic explosion. Clouds melted away, space itself trembled, and the detonation expanded with devastating proportions beyond ordinary comprehension. The blast violently warped the surrounding air, atmospheric pressure, and even gravity across a twenty-kilometer radius.

Students all across the battlefield couldn’t help but freeze where they stood, their eyes instinctively rising toward the sky in complete shock as they wondered what kind of battle could possibly produce destruction on such an ridiculous scale.

But the moment that thought crossed their minds, the answer immediately followed.

They couldn’t help but swallow hard. Even from the streets below, they could feel the unbearable heat radiating from the plasma explosion. Buildings were melting before their eyes, and the air itself had become suffocating to breathe.

They couldn’t help but wonder… how was Asher supposed to survive an attack like that?