CLEAVER OF SIN-Chapter 578: Vine

Number Four immediately activated his own ability. The moment he clapped his hands, vines burst out from the earth below Asher’s feet with booming force. The impact from which they erupted from the earth alone was enough to injure anyone caught within its reach. Asher did not hesitate; he immediately moved out of the way, his body turning into a blur as he vanished from where he had been standing.

But the moment he moved, the vines followed as though they possessed a homing guidance system. Without missing a beat, they lashed out with deadly force and crushing weight, their sheer speed and strength tearing apart the air itself. Seeing the incoming attacks, Asher immediately tapped into his Astra energy. The energy flowed through his Astra veins and then outward as he channeled his Light element. Without missing a beat, he vanished from where he stood as his body became a golden blur of motion and velocity.

His rapier blurred endlessly as he diced and sliced every incoming vine with ridiculous speed and force, the wind rippling in alarm as Virelass blurred through the air with lethal precision. Suddenly, Asher’s eyes snapped toward the side, and from behind him, more vines came, each thicker than the last, each one resembling enormous writhing tentacles that sought to bind and crush him.

’They are endless,’ Asher thought to himself.

Without missing a beat, he jumped into the air as he realized he could not continue cutting the wooden vines forever. But the moment he appeared midair, Number Four acted again. He pointed toward Asher, and immediately the widened vines sharpened into deadly spikes. Like bullets from a gun, they exploded forward, their spiked edges gleaming as they rushed forward with the intent to tear him apart.

Asher stared at the incoming attacks, yet he did not bother to react outwardly. The moment they arrived before him, space froze as every attack halted midair as though time itself had been suspended. It was as if the very concept of motion had been denied. Gravity then acted upon Asher, immediately pulling him down toward the earth as his body plummeted downward with frightening speed.

But before his foot could even touch the ground, Number Six’s golden box appeared at his landing spot. It opened up as though ready to swallow him whole, its interior radiating an ominous glow that promised annihilation to anything that dared enter.

Asher immediately halted his descent as he floated in place, defying gravity with effortless ease. Without missing a beat, he shot forward like a rocket, his body blurring through the air as he rushed toward the three of them. But the moment he got close, Number Six’s golden boxes appeared in the tens, all of them floating midair like silent sentinels awaiting command.

But it was not only that, Number Four, Number Five, and Number Six were gone, as they had all entered Number Six’s golden boxes.

The next moment, two new golden boxes appeared beside Asher, and from them Number Four and Number Five emerged. Their spear and scimitar screamed toward Asher’s sides with deadly intent.

Asher was not caught off guard. His body simply shifted with ridiculous ease as his rapier spun within his hand spun. With a single elegant swing of his weapon, he parried both attacks simultaneously, the clash of metal echoing sharply through the air.

But before he could even counterattack, both of them vanished from their respective boxes, leaving them empty. Before Asher could react, both boxes suddenly exploded outward with a titanic detonation that rang out with an ear-shattering bang. The forest quaked violently as though it were about to be torn asunder at any given moment. Gigantic sinkholes opened throughout the land as though the abyss itself was bleeding into reality, swallowing trees and chunks of earth alike.

Asher’s body appeared high in the air as he levitated there with silent ease and composed calmness. His mind spun through layers of information and rapid calculations.

’So Number Six’s golden boxes also possess spatial features... but I think they can only teleport between boxes, and she can also cause them to explode outward,’ he reasoned internally, his mind already searching for methods to counter such an ability.

The next moment, Asher’s head snapped upward.

There, high above, a bird-type beast could be seen flying through the sky. Without hesitation or mercy, the bird flapped its enormous wings. The next moment, an overwhelming torrent of wind force tore toward Asher’s body with destructive intensity.

But Asher did not even blink, his rapier simply flashed as he reduced every incoming wind blade to nothing but weakened fragments of themselves with ridiculous ease, the sliced gusts dispersing harmlessly into the atmosphere. He vanished from where he hovered and reappeared above the bird-type monster. His rapier sliced downward as he aimed to separate the creature’s head from its neck in a single clean strike.

But before the blade could fall, another golden box appeared above him, from within it, Number Five stepped out, portals swirled around him like twisting spirals of unstable space, and from them bird-type monsters poured outward in numbering waves, their wings blotting out sections of the sky as their shrieks echoed throughout the battlefield.

Asher’s eyes flashed sharply, he immediately ignored the monsters and went straight for their summoner.

With a thought, he teleported directly toward the man.

But Number Five seemed capable of reading teleportation and sensing spatial ripples. The moment Asher appeared before him, he simply dove backward into his golden box, the box vanishing instantly the moment he disappeared inside it.

Various roars filled the sky as though the monsters wished to tear the heavens down with their fury. Their roars, screeches, and beating wings created a deafening storm of sound.

But Asher did not spare these monsters even a glance, he did not bother swinging his rapier anymore. With a mere thought from him, Astra energy bent to his will, space itself responded to his command and instantly, the space around the monsters’ heads compressed violently, and with that sudden compression their skulls exploded outward in grotesque bursts of blood, brain matter, and feathers.

The sky above seemed to immediately dye red due to the suffocating volume and scent of spilled blood. After all, he had just killed over fifty monsters without even blinking. The next instant, their lifeless corpses plummeted from the sky, crashing violently into the earth with thunderous booms that shook the surrounding land.

Asher also vanished from where he stood in the sky, his figure reappearing below as the corpses rained down around him like grotesque offerings falling from the heavens. It was almost as though they were heavenly manna that the heavens themselves had bestowed upon him.

’Number Five seems to be a summoner,’ he guessed silently, his mind returning to the portals that had opened around the man, but moments later he dismissed the idea, being able to summon over fifty monsters at once was already outrageous. 𝒇𝒓𝙚𝒆𝔀𝓮𝓫𝒏𝓸𝙫𝓮𝓵.𝓬𝙤𝙢

Thus Asher arrived at another conclusion, Number Five possessed a Beast Tamer ability. The moment that thought crossed his mind, Number Five’s presence appeared once again. He stood atop another floating golden box high in the air.

He snapped his fingers and numerous portals opened up around him, and this time, snakes poured out. But unlike the previous moment when he summoned roughly fifty monsters, this time the snake-type monsters appeared in the hundreds.

Each one stretched several meters long, their thick scales shimmering under the sunlight with cold brilliance. Their slit eyes locked onto Asher with chilling hostility as their bodies coiled and twisted through the air, their gazes were cold, their hisses echoed across the battlefield, and every single one of them stared directly at Asher.