CLEAVER OF SIN

Asher felt as though the darkness had swallowed him whole. His Omni Perception barely managed to keep his senses heightened, but he did not rely solely on that gift.

Beyond his sharpened senses, he spread his Astra outward, letting it flow like rippling currents through the pit. With his perfect control, he felt every subtle shift, every flicker, every ripple of the unseen world.

The wind whipped fiercely against his face as he continued to plummet downward, the weightless fall stretching on endlessly.

In his mind, he began counting, silently measuring how many meters they had descended from above.

'This is even higher than when I fell from the sky, Asher mused grimly. It's as though the Star Academy wants people to fail. I can't imagine what would happen if someone jumped in blindly, thinking this pit was shallow… they would be crushed without ever realizing their mistake.'

"Five meters," Darissa's calm, melodic voice echoed gently in his ears, her tone laced with certainty.

Asher allowed himself a faint smile but offered no reply. He listen to her, but he did not need to, his spatial sense had already confirmed her words. His calculation had determined that just five meters below was where space itself ended, which meant Darissa was not exaggerating. She was correct.

The moment Darissa spoke, she unsheathed the blade strapped to her waist and, without hesitation, drove it into the walls of the pit. No screech of friction rang out, the expected shrill sound of metal against stone never came.

She had deliberately erased all sound, her silence ensuring that nothing lurking within the pit would be alerted prematurely.

Her sharp gaze sliced down into the pit, searching. Below, Asher continued plummeting without pause. Though Darissa could not rely on sight, her echolocation painted the world for her.

To her perception, Asher's descent was vividly clear; she could sense his body cutting through the currents of air as he plunged. But she did not move to save him. She understood that his confidence was not misplaced.

At the final moment, when Asher's body was about to collide against the earth with bone-shattering force, Astra bent under his perfect control. Space itself obeyed his command and answered, locking him firmly in place just a meter above the ground.

He hovered there like a man who had conquered gravity itself. Then, with a mere thought, his feet touched down on the cavern floor with graceful ease. Above, Darissa's eyes widened faintly, she still found it difficult to believe even after witnessing it herself.

Pulling her sword free from the stone wall, she allowed her body to fall freely. She landed soundlessly, her movements honed with flawless balance, disturbing not even the dust beneath her feet.

At once, both Asher and Darissa activated skills to pierce the oppressive darkness. Darissa relied on her Echolocation, but she layered it with another ability for security.

Seismic Hearing, a skill that enabled her to perceive vibrations through both air and ground, allowing her to sense the movement of hidden enemies with terrifying accuracy.

Asher, on the other hand, called upon something unique to him, a skill he had forged through his own ingenuity just a month prior.

Star Sight

After gaining affinity with the stars, he had experimented with channeling Star Energy into his eyes. The result was an ability that pierced illusions, veils of darkness, disguises, invisibility, and even flows of energy.

His perfect Astral Control had made training irrelevant, he had mastered it in a single attempt.

Under the influence of Star Sight, the veil of darkness retreated.

The cavern revealed itself, yawning wide, stretching like the hollowed mouth of an ancient beast. Colossal pillars supported the ceiling, their massive forms straining beneath the weight of ages. Across the ground and walls, shadowy figures rested in silence.

Emovirae.

Dozens, no, hundreds, slept within the cavern. Each one breathed heavily, their bodies radiating a chorus of twisted emotion: hatred, envy, malice, despair. Some quivered with rage even in slumber, others shuddered with an eerie stillness.

Their ranks spanned from Grade 1 to Grade 3, but their sheer numbers were staggering. They were not confined to the ground. Many hung from the ceiling like grotesque bats, their bodies twisted and wrong.

Their forms were monstrous and formless. Some possessed elongated limbs that bent at impossible angles. Others lacked mouths entirely, but pulsed with hunger. Some were insectoid, their shells bristling with jagged ridges. Others stood on two skeletal legs, resembling animated corpses of bone and shadow.

Darissa swallowed hard. The oppressive atmosphere pressed heavily on her chest, suffusing every breath she took. Astra energy itself lingered thick in the air.

And then she erred.

Her swallow made a faint sound. Subtle, but in this suffocating silence, it was enough.

An Emovira clinging to the ceiling snapped open its pitch-black eyes, locking them directly on Darissa's bright green ones. The creature's maw widened, and with a sudden, violent motion, it unleashed a piercing screech.

SCREEEEEEEECH!

Or at least, it tried. Nothing came out. Confusion rippled across its twisted features, it did not know that Darissa had nullified the sound before it could ever be born.

Asher moved instantly. His rapier gleamed, slicing through the Emovira's neck in a single elegant motion. The severed head fell silently. But though the sound had been erased, the stench of blood spread, metallic and sharp.

It was enough.

Like a hive disturbed, the cavern awoke. Eyes, where they existed, snapped open, glowing with hatred. In unison, dozens upon dozens of Emovirae turned toward the two intruders.

Then, as though driven by a single command, the horde surged forward. Throats opened, maws stretched, limbs clawed. Screeches erupted, their mouths wide as they hurled themselves forward like a tidal wave of malice.

Asher's lips curved into a calm smile. He did not flinch, even as the creatures descended from all directions, above, below, left, right. The darkness itself seemed to quake under their hunger.

He readied himself to move, but Darissa's voice rang out before he could act.

Sonic Shockwave

Astra surged through her Astra veins, erupting outward in waves of raw resonance. Instantly, all sound in the cavern vanished. The stampede of feet, the screeches of the horde, the whisper of air, every vibration ceased.

Silence collapsed inward, condensing into a circular, white ring of compressed sound energy.

The cavern seemed to freeze as Darissa unleashed her attack.

In the next instant, the silence exploded outward. A devastating shockwave tore through the cavern with unstoppable force. The blast ripped apart the earth, collapsed pillars, and split the walls as if the cavern itself were rebelling against existence.

The Emovirae never stood a chance. Shredded by the wave, their bodies burst into streams of blood and ichor, staining the darkness with vivid streaks of crimson, green, and black. In mere seconds, dozens were annihilated, their death-cries devoured before they could escape.

Asher, unwilling to be overshadowed, raised his hand. Astra pulsed, summoning forth radiant light. The element of brilliance bloomed in his palm, swelling brighter and brighter until it fractured into motes.

The motes shaped themselves into cross-like beams, multiplying rapidly until they numbered in the hundreds.

The cavern was illuminated as if by the rising of a hundred suns. The Emovirae froze, caught in the blinding radiance they had never known.

Then the beams moved.

They shot forward at impossible speed as though approaching the very limit of light itself. They pierced flesh, shattered armor, severed limbs, and obliterated organs as though they were fragile illusions.

Screams filled the air as the horde was torn apart by the sheer radiance of Astra's wrath.

But Asher did not linger to admire his work. His rapier, Virelass, shimmered into his grasp, its edge crackling faintly with purple lightning. In a flash, he vanished into motion.

Like lightning cutting across the night sky, he surged into the swarm, a blazing streak tearing through every non-human form that dared to stand before him.

Like a sun rising in the eternal night, Asher's presence burned away the darkness.