CLEAVER OF SIN

'So low on the ranking… well, it doesn't matter. There is still a lot of time,' Asher thought, his expression calm and unconcerned. With that, he began walking forward at a casual pace.

He did not bother to run, for conserving stamina was essential. His steps were unhurried, measured, as though he had all the time in the world. With a graceful motion, he made a gentle jump, leaping over the lake where the Emovira had once been lurking.

His landing was effortless, not so much as a sound escaping him as he entered into a forest thick with towering trees whose shadows pressed in on all sides.

Asher knew there was no need to actively seek out enemies. Since there were Emovirae in this area, they would eventually surge toward him on their own. He merely needed to keep moving, and they would come.

Suddenly, the sharp tearing of the air reached his ears. His Omni Perception flared to life, instantly detecting the danger. An arrow sliced toward him, but before it could even graze his form, Virelass flashed instantly reducing the arrow into nothing but splinters raining uselessly to the ground.

Slowly, Asher turned his head to the side. His eyes settled upon a man perched on the branch of a tree. The stranger wore a wide, almost deranged smile on his face. Twin short swords rested in his hands, and in a grotesque display, his tongue slid along the cold steel, as if savoring the idea of licking Asher's blood from the blades.

But he was not alone. Above him, slightly higher on the same tree, two other men stood balanced on a branch. Their positions were unnerving, for they were upside down, bodies hanging with their heads facing the earth below, but their stances steady and predatory.

'Assassins again?' Asher wondered, narrowing his eyes.

'No… not assassins. They're different.' His thoughts churned for a moment before clarity dawned.

His answer was simple, criminals.

He could feel it in the air around them, their bloodlust was unrestrained, primal, and heavy. These were savages, men who reveled in the thrill of slaughter.

They were killers who delighted in the screams of their victims and in the sight of flesh being torn apart. The way they carried themselves, those wide, unnerving grins, and the manner in which they brandished their weapons made it clear.

They were the opposite of assassins.

Assassins were discreet, precise, killers who cloaked their intent and erased their presence. But these men? They radiated malice so openly that it was irritating.

"Alright, boys," the man with the twin short swords spoke, his tone filled with eager malice. He seemed to be their leader. "It seems we've stumbled upon our first prey for today. It's been far too long since we last tasted blood… too long since we heard the beautiful music of people screaming."

"Indeed," one of the inverted lackeys intoned, his voice low and guttural. "We finally get to hear flesh tearing again after such a dull stretch. I've grown tired of only hearing my own flesh ripping… it's not fun anymore."

The other lackey opened his mouth to speak, but before a single word escaped, his inverted body suddenly dropped from the branch. He crashed to the earth below, lifeless.

Crimson blood splattered across the bark of the tree, spraying onto the boss and the remaining subordinate. Both men froze, their eyes wide with shock.

They hadn't seen Asher move. They hadn't even sensed him close the distance. Yet in the blink of an eye, he had appeared right beside them.

Asher's rapier thrust forward again, his movement so graceful it was like the continuation of a single breath. He aimed to decapitate the remaining two in one clean sweep. But the boss moved with surprising swiftness, his short swords snapping forward toward Asher's eyes with a wild, manic grin that revealed sharpened teeth.

Asher's body shifted effortlessly. He changed his attack mid-motion, the thrust flowing into a parry as though it had always been intended. But he did not stop there. His knee rose sharply, a devastating strike that crashed into the boss's ribs with explosive force.

The impact resounded with a brutal crack, sending the boss flying sideways, his body slamming into the trunk of a tree. Bark shattered from the collision, and the man's breath escaped in a strangled gasp.

But he did not fall. With sheer desperation, he invoked Astra control, forcing his body to cling against the bark like an insect refusing to drop.

Before Asher could press forward, his senses warned tingled of another threat. Behind him, lackey 2 was already there, dagger slicing down toward his nape with merciless intent.

But Asher did not even need to turn his head. His Omni Perception granted him perfect awareness, an all-encompassing 360-degree vision. His shoulder shifted slightly to the side, evading the fatal strike, and his right hand snapped back with flawless timing, seizing the attacker's wrist in an iron grip.

With a single motion, Asher lifted the man as though he weighed nothing more than a feather. He threw him forward over his shoulder, flipping him through the air. The man crashed down hard against the branch they had all been standing on, the impact thundering through the wood.

But the branch didn't shatter to splinters. Asher's strength was immense, but it was also calculated with terrifying control. He had already gauged exactly how much force the branch could endure.

The man groaned in agony, stunned and disoriented, but Asher did not allow him the chance to recover. His foot rose and hovered above lackey 2's head for the briefest instant before dropping like a guillotine.

The sickening sound of tearing flesh and shattering bone followed. Lackey 2's skull was obliterated, his head exploding into nothing but fragments of bone, crimson blood, and pulped brain matter.

Asher's head snapped toward the boss again, but the man was already fleeing. His form blurred as he leapt desperately from tree to tree, moving with the agility of a wild beast driven purely by survival instinct.

Asher did not chase with urgency. Instead, he calmly bent toward the fallen corpse, plucking an arrow from the dead man's quiver. Holding the arrow delicately by the nock and fletchings, he aimed casually and threw it forward.

The arrow sliced through the air with a tearing sound, embedding itself deep into the boss's right shoulder. The force of the throw pinned him face-first against the trunk of a tree. A scream tore from his throat, raw and filled with anguish, the pain drowning his senses.

But before his voice could fade, Asher was already there, standing before him as though the distance between them had never existed.

"I will ask you simple questions," Asher said, his tone flat, devoid of emotion. "Answer them truthfully, and I will let you live. I do not care what you do with your life afterward. But if you refuse, I will kill you without hesitation and find someone else to answer. I am certain there are many out there who would gladly trade information for their lives. Do we understand each other?"

The man nodded frantically, sweat mixing with the blood running down his shoulder. His wild grin from before had vanished, replaced with pure desperation.

He knew he had no choice. Though he was a killer, one who had slaughtered countless innocents with delight, he understood the shift in power when he was no longer the predator but the prey. And predators… predators never cared for the cries of prey.

At this moment, he was no different from a helpless chicken on a chopping block. Answering truthfully was the only fragile hope he had of walking away from this encounter alive.