Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 253: I’m Done Here

Thalric didn’t smile or smirk at Asher’s question; he simply remained expressionless, much like many other members of the Wargrave family. Just as Asher had ignored his statement earlier, Thalric ignored Asher’s question entirely, as though he hadn’t heard a single word. His face was unreadable, stoic, calm, almost lifeless, the kind of composure that only those born into the Wargrave bloodline seemed to master.

He began to move forward, his steps unhurried yet deliberate. Slowly, he walked past Asher as though his younger brother were nothing more than air. Ice cracked beneath his boots, the sound sharp and crisp in the quiet aftermath of battle. He passed Doris’s headless corpse without sparing it even the faintest glance, as if she had been nothing more than a fleeting nuisance, insignificant in the grand design of things.

Then, without warning, he halted. His back was still turned toward Asher, his shoulders relaxed, his head tilting slightly to the side. His voice came low and calm, carrying through the still air with quiet weight.

”Mother would be proud.”

The moment those words left his lips, Thalric’s form blurred and vanished, his body dissolving into a phantom streak of motion. The faint crackle of energy lingered briefly in the air before fading altogether.

Asher stood there, unmoving for a moment. He wasn’t stunned by Thalric’s words, no, he already knew his older brother’s previously bitterness stemmed from their late mother. What truly caught him off guard was something else entirely.

’Did that idiot just smile?’ he thought, his expression twisting slightly in disbelief. It wasn’t even a question, more like a quiet realization. In all the time he had known Thalric, not once had he seen a genuine smile. Every grin, every curve of his lips, had always been an expression of mockery, cruelty, or arrogance. But this time was different.

Even though Thalric had tried to hide it, Asher’s Omni Perception had caught it all, a fleeting, subtle smile that carried warmth rather than disdain.

’Is this idiot turning into a tsundere older brother or something?’ Asher thought to himself dryly. With a tired sigh, he shook his head. He couldn’t make sense of this ”mother-obsessed boy.”

His gaze drifted across the battlefield, surveying the destruction left in their wake, the devastation he, Doris, and Thalric had brought upon the Separate Dimension. Sword marks carved deep trenches through the earth, stretching dozens of meters. Jagged spikes of ice jutted out of the ground, freezing the terrain in unnatural stillness. Even though Doris was gone, the air still carried a biting chill, the remnant of her element lingering stubbornly. The land was torn apart, ravines and craters scattered in every direction like scars upon the world.

Asher stood there quietly, taking it all in. To others, the destruction might have been horrifying, but to him, it carried a strange beauty. The cracked earth, the frozen mist, the silent devastation, it was the kind of scene he had once only imagined while reading fantasy novels or watching anime.

Back on Earth, he had fantasized about scenes like this, landscapes reshaped by power, battles that scarred reality itself. And now, he no longer needed to imagine. He could create such destruction with his own hands. Although still on a smaller scale, it didn’t change the truth, he could alter the land itself through sheer strength.

’Is his affinity decay... or something close to decomposition?’ Asher wondered, his thoughts circling back to Thalric. He recalled vividly how Thalric had reduced Doris’s ice attacks to dust, disintegrating them effortlessly. Even when Asher had chosen to teleport away from her strikes, Thalric hadn’t moved at all. Instead, he met each assault head-on, his element devouring hers as though the laws of nature bent around him.

It was fascinating, and dangerous.

Asher would have liked to do the same, to stand unyielding before every attack, but he wasn’t foolish. The Astra energy within Virelass, the rapier floating quietly beside him, was limited. He couldn’t afford to waste it just to look defiant or proud. This was a battlefield, not a stage. Countless enemies still lurked somewhere beyond the fog, and wasting energy for pride’s sake was the fastest route to death.

Fatigue weighed on his muscles, but he refused to stop moving. His instincts screamed against stillness, in places like this, immobility meant death. He turned his head slightly, preparing to plunge back into the fog of battle. But before he could take a single step, a massive presence descended from above.

The sheer force of it crushed the air. Asher’s body tensed instinctively, every nerve on high alert. His head snapped upward, and his heart thudded hard in his chest. The presence that descended wasn’t just strong, it was overwhelming, suffocating. If this presence belonged to an enemy, then he was finished. Dead barely a year after transmigrating into Crymora.

But as his eyes locked onto the figure floating in the sky, recognition flickered across his mind. The tension in his body shifted from dread to wary relief. He knew that presence.

It was the same man who had stopped him when he had snuck into kindergarten.

The man didn’t speak. He didn’t need to. His very existence carried authority. With a single motion, he lifted one hand and waved it gently through the air.

In an instant, the world responded. The air began to swell, expanding like an overfilled balloon. Then, it detonated, the explosion wasn’t of fire or sound, but of sheer force. The atmosphere itself ruptured in a cataclysmic wave that tore outward.

The effect was immediate and absolute. Across the entire Star Academy grounds, reality bent beneath his will. Astra energy pulsed like a living river, flooding the sky. Criminals, Emovirae, beasts, monsters, everything froze for a single, terrifying heartbeat. And then, the wind came.

It shredded them apart.

Their flesh was ripped from bone, their bodies torn into unrecognizable fragments. Blood burst into the air in a rain of crimson and black, splattering across the ruined earth. The screams that should have filled the air never came, they were snuffed out in an instant, drowned beneath the storm of annihilation.

Within moments, the Star Academy had become an ocean of blood. Its color was impossible to define, a dark, swirling amalgamation of countless ichors from beasts and monsters of every kind. The metallic stench thickened the air, making it almost impossible to breathe. Even the seasoned second- and third-year students, those who had fought and killed for over a year, felt their stomachs twist.

For them, this was no battlefield. It was a slaughterhouse.

Bodies had been reduced to fragments, yet amidst the flowing tide of blood, organs, skulls, and mangled limbs drifted across the surface like debris in a grotesque sea. It looked less like a battlefield and more like a cauldron of death, a stew of flesh and ruin.

”I’m done here,” the man’s calm voice echoed through the blood-soaked air. And with that, he vanished. No flash of light, no dramatic exit, he was simply gone, as though he had never existed at all.

No sooner had he disappeared than another presence emerged. A woman appeared midair, sitting gracefully on a floating broomstick. A wide-brimmed hat shadowed her face, giving her the appearance of a witch from an ancient tale.

With a simple snap of her fingers, Astra energy pulsed outward. A blinding white glow enveloped the entirety of Star Academy, spreading warmth through the carnage. Instantly, waves of healing energy surged through every surviving student, mending their wounds and restoring their bodies to peak condition.

Their stamina returned, their pain vanished, though their Astra reserves remained depleted, as natural recovery would have to take its course.

The witch’s calm gaze swept across the academy one last time before she turned away. Her broom rose higher into the sky, and as she drifted upward, she repeated the same words the man before her had spoken.

”I’m done here.”

And just like him, she vanished, leaving behind nothing but silence, blood, and the heavy stench of death.

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AUTHOR’S NOTE: Hey everyone, we are still stuck on the 23rd rank on the golden ticket ranking. What is happening? ༼⁠;⁠´⁠༎ຶ⁠ ⁠۝ ⁠༎ຶ⁠༽