Chapter 447: Barehanded
William’s eyes widened in pure and utter shock as he saw Asher standing before him. He had seen him rise to his feet from his chair, he had seen Asher take a single step forward, yet that step alone had brought Asher directly before him. Still, he couldn’t understand how a single, casual step could erase the distance between them so completely, as though space itself had folded obediently beneath Asher’s will.
With a gentle and unhurried motion, Asher’s right hand moved. His fingers curled naturally around Virelass’ hilt as he drew the rapier from its sheath, the soft, hissing sound of steel sliding free filling the surrounding air. Asher’s movents were slow, deliberate, almost lazy, yet paradoxically fast. William found that he couldn’t move at all. His body refused to respond. Without missing a beat, Asher’s rapier rose upward toward the sky, its silver edge gleaming faintly, then descended from above like a judge’s gavel delivering an unavoidable verdict.
William could see everything in slow motion, as though ti itself had been dragged to a crawl for him. Every detail burned into his mind with brutal clarity, yet his body refused to obey. He couldn’t react to any of Asher’s movents. Then, suddenly, reality snapped back into place, the world surging forward once more. Instinct scread, and without hesitation he raised his claymore above his head, moving to block the incoming strike with everything he had.
A heavy clang thundered outward with overwhelming force as tal t tal. Sparks exploded in every direction, a violent shower of light as the weapons screeched against one another. William felt as though he was bracing himself against a mountain. The sheer pressure bore down on him rcilessly as Asher gazed down upon him from above.
William’s black eyes t Asher’s shining purple ones, and in that instant he felt utterly exposed. The ground beneath his feet cracked as he struggled to hold his ground, his muscles tightening and straining as he drew every ounce of strength from his body. The next second, his knees trembled, then buckled slightly, before one of them finally gave way entirely, kissing the earth below. All he could do was grit his teeth and endure.
’How can he be this strong?’ William thought to himself as he suffered under the unbearable weight of a single attack from Asher. He had believed that he understood the difference between them, that he had at least grasped the gap in their strength. But what he had known before was nothing more than his own interpretation, a shallow estimate that failed to even approach the true disparity between them.
The sound of feet striking the earth echoed sharply through the forest as Caldor blurred forward once more. This ti, a new spear was firmly in his grasp, having pulled a Rank 5 weapon from his space ring in a flash of light. He didn’t dare use anything lower. After witnessing Asher’s strength, he had concluded that the Tenth Sun might simply shatter any lesser weapon without effort.
Asher heard the incoming attacker and rely flicked his wrist to the side. Virelass shifted effortlessly as he redirected his force, sending William flying away as though discarding a lifeless puppet. Without missing a beat, Asher turned smoothly, his rapier moving in a clean streak of silver as he parried Caldor’s incoming attack. The motion was so casual that it looked as though Asher were humoring a child’s clumsy struggle rather than facing a trained warrior.
But Caldor neither complained nor hesitated. His face remained resolute, his eyes sharp and focused. He drew his spear back and thrust forward again, this ti aiming directly for Asher’s kneecap. Asher simply lowered Virelass and blocked once more with absurd ease. In the very next mont, Annabelle closed the distance from the side. Her movents were swift and silent, her presence barely registering as her dagger tore toward Asher’s waist with lethal precision.
Asher’s shoulder shifted slightly. His arm blurred, his rapier rotating in a flawless silver arc as it moved from knee to waist, intercepting Annabelle’s strike without him taking a single step forward or backward. Without any pause, both siblings launched another coordinated assault. Annabelle attacked from the right, Caldor from the left. Finch, having recovered, didn’t hesitate either as he joined the fray, attacking from behind with his chain.
Asher adjusted his posture smoothly as he dodged Finch’s chain attack. At the sa ti, he parried Annabelle’s blade and slipped past Caldor’s spear with ridiculous ease and fluidity. His movents were so clean and precise that they felt almost unreal. Before any of them could react, Asher’s rapier blurred again, moving faster than their eyes or minds could follow.
The only thing that filled their ears, and their brains, was the sickening sound of flesh tearing, followed instantly by searing pain. Blood splattered into the air and rained down onto the ground as Asher injured all three of them simultaneously in a single, flawless stroke.
Finch, Caldor, and Annabelle imdiately blurred backward, desperately creating distance between themselves and Asher. Trails of blood followed them as they clutched their injuries. Annabelle had been struck across the shoulder, Finch across the stomach, and Caldor across the hand. The wounds weren’t deep, but blood flowed freely, staining their clothes and the earth beneath their feet.
Asher’s eyes shifted calmly toward Finch. Without uttering a single word, he took a step forward. That step erased the distance between them just as it had with William earlier. Finch was unable to react to such an absurd display of speed, but his chain did. It unraveled instinctively, snapping through the air as it ford a protective barrier around him. The mont the barrier solidified, Asher’s rapier crashed against it. Soul weapon t soul weapon, and a piercing, screeching pitch of tal filled the air. Finch could only watch from within the barrier, his breath caught in his throat.
The next second, Asher smirked. Then he vanished.
He reappeared instantly inside the chain barrier, standing directly before Finch. Finch’s eyes widened in pure shock, his mind unable to process what had just occurred. Before he could react, Asher’s rapier blurred once more. This ti, over a hundred sword marks appeared across Finch’s body in an instant. Blood flowed freely, dripping from nearly every part of him as pain crashed over his senses.
Finch’s chain reacted imdiately, desperately trying to pull him away and shield him further. But Asher was already gone. He reappeared back at his forr location as though he had never moved at all.
In the next instant, a sharp cracking and sizzling sound filled the air. Lightning tore through the atmosphere, its presence impossible to ignore. Asher’s eyes turned to the side, and there he saw it, a massive lightning wheel shaped like a spinning chakram, spinning violently as arcs of electricity lashed outward.
William poured more Astra into the attack, pushing himself past his limits as he increased its intensity. Without hesitation, he commanded it forward. With blinding speed, the lightning wheel shot toward Asher faster than anything anyone present had ever witnessed. The mont it closed the distance, Asher simply raised one hand. His own lightning crackled into existence as he caught the wheel barehanded, stopping it dead in place. The wheel spun with even greater intensity, glowing brighter and brighter, before it detonated outward in a devastating explosion of raw power and destruction.
Eyes snapped toward William as Caldor and Annabelle stared in disbelief, wondering if he had just killed the Tenth Sun by mistake. But only William knew the truth. He knew that holding back, that using anything less, would have been aningless. Lesser attacks simply wouldn’t have had any effect against Asher at all.
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