Cleaver Of Sin

Chapter 589: Casual Kick

Asher stayed silent at Debro’s words; his words were indeed true. While the Wargrave family consisted of monsters, they didn’t break the power scaling system and jump power levels simply because they could. While they could fight above their Life Rank, above the Swiftstar Life Rank, they could mainly fight above their sub-Life Rank, not crossing an entire Major Life Rank, let alone bridging the gap between two Major Life Ranks, a feat that remained almost beyond even their monstrous capabilities.

Although this might seem unimpressive, it was exactly this that separated the Wargraves from others, exactly this that separated monsters from geniuses. After all, from the Swiftstar Life Rank onward, it was an entirely different scale of evolution and power scaling. From this point, every difference in sub-Life Rank carried a massive increment in power, control, and overall mastery.

Debro’s words held the truth, but he was talking to Asher, someone who had gotten to the Swiftstar Life Rank barely a year since his awakening; nobody else within the history of Crymora held such a record, a feat that in itself defied all established expectations and quietly hinted at something far beyond ordinary genius.

Hearing Debro’s words, Asher didn’t reply; there was no need to exchange any more words with a sick, mad, and twisted man. He simply stood where he was, waiting for an opening, not daring to act recklessly for even a single second, his focus narrowing to the present moment with absolute precision.

Seeing Asher’s silence, Debro spoke one last time, ”Don’t make me do this to you, Ash,” he immediately called Asher Ash as though he had known him for a long time, the familiarity in his tone unsettling and unwarranted.

But to Asher, it was just a name; there was no need to react to it, nor acknowledge it in any form.

”I’m sorry in advance, Ash,” Debro spoke, his tone possessing a trace of guilt, but in the very next instant, his presence erupted and slammed directly into Asher’s shoulder with the force of a descending comet. He had used this method to make Asher kneel before; to him, this was the most efficient method to subdue Asher and take him back to his domain without unnecessary resistance.

Asher felt the immense pressure on him as though Crymora itself had been placed upon his back, an overwhelming weight that sought to force him down, but he didn’t react. He simply stood where he was with an indifferent calmness. Previously, when Debro had made him kneel, he had merely allowed himself to be caught as he didn’t want to act rashly, but now, there was no need to feign weakness or compliance anymore.

Asher’s eyes shifted to the weapon hanging on Debro’s waist. ’So he uses a katana; he truly is the male version of that woman called Doris,’ Asher thought to himself, not daring to take his eyes off the man, his senses heightened to the extreme.

”It seems you are more talented than the Empire gives you credit for, as expected of you, Ash,” Debro stated as he saw Asher resist his pressure with surprising ease. But the moment those words left his lips, he was gone from where he stood, his body now beside Asher as though he had teleported, leaving behind no trace of movement.

He had moved faster than wind displacement, faster than sound, faster than any sonic boom; the moment he appeared beside Asher, his foot rose ever so slowly, yet paradoxically faster than anything Asher had ever witnessed. With the force of a shattering war drum, his foot tore through the air towards Asher’s chest with unstoppable and mind numbing momentum that cracked the air apart as though it was nothing but a fragile thing glass.

Asher was stunned. The man had moved beyond his perception, beyond his senses; it was as though Debro had never been standing in front of him to begin with and had always existed beside him all along, unnoticed and unfelt.

Asher’s entire body screamed death, a chilling sensation tearing down his spine, his blood running cold, his blood vessels tightening as his blood flow heightened instinctively. He couldn’t see the attack; he didn’t even consciously know there was an attack, but still, he was able to react. His Absolute Physique flared to life once more, as Battle Intuition, Instinctive Adaptation, and Optimal Movement Efficiency exploded forth like three collapsing supernovas simultaneously, forcing his body into motion beyond conscious thought, his body and mind drifting into pure override of instincts and pure absurd reflexes.

Immediately, Asher’s forearms rose before him as he shielded his chest, his forearms forming a desperate yet solid wall. The moment his arms came into position, Debro’s foot crashed into them with merciless force, the impact reverberating through his forearm and entire body like an earthquake.

Asher felt the impact in real time; before he could even blink, the momentum tore him backward like a kite caught in a violent wind storm. His body tore through trees as though they were nothing more than fragile paper, splintering and shattering upon contact. His body ricocheted off the earth like a rubber ball, then slammed into a mountain, tearing through solid rock as though it offered no resistance, and with a final booming impact, his back collided against a distant hill like a hammer driving a nail into place.

The moment Asher came to a stop, he felt only a single thing: pain.

Raw, unfiltered, unadulterated pain unlike anything he had ever experienced before. Every inch, every part of his body, every single organ screamed in agony, his brain seemingly incapable of processing anything else at that moment as the only signal his nerves relayed to it was overwhelming, relentless, endless and ceasless pain.

Asher didn’t move; his body felt weak, weaker than it had ever felt before. With just a single, casual kick from Debro, he had been thrown backward for over two kilometres in radius. His body was utterly battered; his hands had been reduced to mangled flesh, his bones shattered into fragments, his muscles torn apart, and his flesh reduced to something barely holding together. Not just his hands, his entire body had suffered catastrophic damage.

His spine had fractured from the sheer force of repeated collisions with trees and mountains, as the momentum behind Debro’s kick had been nothing short of monstrous.

He bled from everywhere, his eyes, his mouth, his ears; his teeth were missing, his lips torn apart, his breastplate completely destroyed, reduced to useless fragments scattered across the battlefield. His vambraces had been blown off entirely by the force of Debro’s casual kick, leaving his arms exposed, and only his greaves remained on his legs, though they weren’t cracked and perfectly intact.

Against the hill he had been launched into, his blood splattered across its surface as he remained there for a brief moment before slowly sliding downward into a seated position, leaving a smeared trail of crimson behind him.

With just a casual kick, Debro had demonstrated the terrifying power a being at the Wavestar Life Rank could possess, a level of strength that turned distance, durability, and resistance into meaningless concepts before it.