CLEAVER OF SIN

Silence lingered between Asher and Ryaen, heavy and unbroken, as Asher remained doubled over, Ryaen's bone claws buried deep within his gut. For a moment, neither moved.

Ryaen's black gaze fixed on him, her expression unreadable, while Asher stood frozen, as though stunned by the reality of his wound.

"It was enjoyable while it lasted, Tenth Sun… but it seems this is my victory." Her voice reverberated across the desolate lakebed, sharp and final.

But, before the echo faded, the air itself seemed to rupture. Ryaen felt it, an earth-shattering force detonating against her own gut as Asher's fist drove mercilessly into her frame.

In an instant, her body was wrenched backward, inertia dragging her like a torn, weightless kite flung into a storm. She was hurled from the lakebed, her body smashing into the shoreline, ricocheting violently through the forest beyond.

Trees splintered, the ground fractured, and ravines cracked open in her wake until her momentum finally waned. Her once-pristine white hair was now matted with dirt and disarray, her body grinding to a halt only when it collided brutally against the slope of a distant hill.

Disbelief carved itself across her face, raw and unrestrained. She could neither comprehend nor accept what had just transpired.

Her mind did not need to replay the moment, she knew. She had been struck, cleanly and decisively, because she had lowered her guard, convinced that victory was already hers.

Her obsidian eyes snapped back toward the lake, to the very spot where she had stood only seconds ago. There, unshaken and utterly unscathed, stood the Tenth Sun.

Her gaze narrowed, a flicker of unease betraying her surprise. There was no trace of the grievous wound she had inflicted, no blood staining his clothes, no crimson trail dripping to the ground.

Even if he possessed some formidable regenerative ability, at least a remnant of her strike should have remained. A single stain. A scar. Something.

But there was nothing. It was as though her attack had never landed at all, as though the Tenth Sun had never been touched.

'How…?'

The thought rang through her mind like a tolling bell. Her thoughts raced at a blistering pace, scrambling to make sense of this anomaly, desperate to unravel the truth before she could decide her next move.

Pain throbbed faintly within her frame, a reminder of the brutal punishment she had endured. Several bones had splintered from the collision with the forest floor, the trees, and the distant hill.

But, almost immediately, the fractures mended, snapping back into perfect alignment. Within moments, every trace of skeletal damage was gone.

The shallow cuts across her flesh still bled freely, her skin marred by scratches and lacerations she could not will away. She had no skill to mend them... yet.

Ahead, Asher stood with unshaken composure. Ryaen's suspicion had been correct, he had never been injured to begin with.

To an onlooker, it might have seemed as though Asher had surrendered himself to the ecstasy of combat, recklessly casting caution aside. But the truth was the opposite. He remained vigilant, ever observant, and he would not abandon that discipline, not while he was still weaker than others in this unforgiving world.

When Ryaen's bone claws lunged for his gut, Asher had twisted reality itself. With a precise manipulation of space, he phased through the attack at the final instant, leaving her utterly blind to the deception.

This stratagem had succeeded only because his opponent was an inexperienced child. A seasoned veteran would have felt the truth immediately, the resistance of flesh giving way, the crunch of bone, the warm spray of blood filling the air.

Such instincts could never be fooled.

But Ryaen Silvershade knew nothing of this. And that ignorance was why she lowered her guard completely.

Asher stepped forward, his strides calm yet inexorable. Within moments, he emerged from the lakebed. Behind him, the parted waters, held apart only by his Perfect Astra Control, finally gave way, collapsing into themselves in jubilant waves, as though the lake itself rejoiced at the departure of the two child titans who had defiled its stillness and destroyed its bed.

His gaze locked onto Ryaen, now risen to her feet. Their eyes met, and in that instant, both understood: this was no longer the realm of fists and raw endurance. The nature of their battle had shifted.

In a shimmer of light, Virelass materialized in Asher's hand. Then, with a blur, he surged forward, the soil beneath his feet shredding apart, forced backward by the sheer propulsion of his advance.

In the span of a heartbeat, he was upon her. His rapier whistled through the air, a razor arc aimed at her waist. But Ryaen was ready. With a violent snap of her wrist, a bone tore free, elongating into the form of a blade. She swung up in defiance, intercepting the strike.

Steel met bone with a thunderous boom. The air itself ruptured outward in a violent shockwave. Ryaen's frame trembled as the force rammed into her body, driving her back. Her legs gouged deep trenches into the forest floor, earth screaming beneath her heels as she struggled to hold her ground.

Her frown deepened, confusion knitting her features. Just moments ago, she and the Tenth Sun had been equals in sheer physical force, but now, she was being easily overpowered.

There was no time to dwell on the thought. Asher closed in once more, his rapier slicing toward her shoulder with chilling precision. In response, her bone sword retracted back into her frame as she activated a skill.

Bone Armor

Astra roared through her Astra veins, surging violently as bones erupted from beneath her skin, weaving outward until they encased her entire form in a seamless suit of white pale, jagged bone armor.

Asher's rapier crashed against the armor with staggering force. The impact chipped fragments of bone from the surface, but little more. His follow-up strike was already in motion when Ryaen shifted, unwilling to remain purely defensive.

The armor itself became her weapon. From its surface, countless spikes erupted, lunging outward with lethal intent, all aimed at Asher at point-blank range.

Asher's brow furrowed. He knew he could not phase through this, his spatial manipulation allowed him to evade a single attack, not a storm of simultaneous strikes. Nor could he parry them, for each spike was merely an extension of her armor, multiplying too quickly for a clean deflection.

So, he bent space instead. Reality warped under his will, folding and twisting in an instant. In the blink of an eye, his figure vanished, displaced beyond her reach.

A heartbeat later, the forest floor and space where he had stood was annihilated, torn through by a storm of bone spikes that stabbed downward and forward with merciless ferocity.