CLEAVER OF SIN

Marrow Regeneration

As the word rolled off Ryaen's tongue, a transformation began. Astra pulsed from her Astra veins in a small and gentle rhythm, smooth, soothing, and embracing, like the soft cadence of a heartbeat resonating with her very soul.

Then a change stirred from deep within Ryaen's body, specifically, from the hidden sanctum of her bone marrow.

Within the marrow, Astra seeped with subtle but irresistible force, igniting a unique process. Red blood cells and white blood cells began multiplying at an unfathomable pace, expanding beyond natural limits. In an instant, this tidal surge of life surged outward, pulsing out of her marrow and coursing vigorously through every vein and vessel in her body.

They moved like an army of light, latching onto each injury with an efficiency and precision that bordered on divinity. Wounds closed in moments, not by mere healing, but as though time itself were being rewound in front of watching eyes.

Flesh knitted together seamlessly. Torn ligaments were restored. Shredded muscles reconnected. Severed blood vessels stitched back as though guided by unseen hands of creation.

And within seconds, Ryaen Silvershade's body was completely healed. She now brimmed with strength, stamina, and an steel resolve that radiated from her very being.

Marrow Regeneration was one of the most fearsome skills passed down through the Silvershade bloodline, born of their legendary bone manipulation ability. It enabled its wielder to mend every injury, no matter how severe, and restore their body to peak condition.

Stamina replenished. Astra refilled. Strength returned, as though depletion had never existed in the first place.

But it was not a skill they could recklessly use.

This skill was deeply bound to the marrow of their bones, the sacred furnace of life itself. Without that core, Marrow Regeneration was nothing more than a hollow name.

At Ryaen's current Life Rank, the Blazestar Life Rank, she could only wield this ability once. A single use, no more, for an entire month.

And that was why, even if she lost to Asher earlier, she had confidence she could still claw her way back into the top ten rankings later.

With this skill in hand, she could always rise again. But having used it now, if she were to be injured once more, she would be finished. The next time she could use Marrow Regeneration would be a full month from today.

Her obsidian-black eyes never left Asher, who stood calmly before her. Within their depths burned not despair, but a blazing certainty, the gaze of someone prepared to overcome all odds.

Asher, on the other hand, simply observed with a composed air. But beneath his composure was the faintest flicker of surprise. That Ryaen could recover from such grievous wounds, and with such terrifying speed, surprising him for a brief moment.

He had already assumed her bloodline granted her a passive healing gift, perhaps only for skeletal injuries. He had thought her body could mend broken bones without effort, without cost, without draining even a mote of Astra.

But he had guessed wrong.

The fact that she could stand again after the injury he had inflicted, an injury he was certain would keep her down, spoke volumes. He had held back, yes, because the exam forbade killing, but he had still struck with enough force to incapacitate.

Yet here she was, rising unbroken.

The answers Asher sought did not need words. They blazed from within Ryaen's eyes, bright and unbending as the morning sun.

'It seems some nobles are not all talk,' Asher mused silently.

He had read about many of her kind, pampered nobles who would have fainted, screamed, or cursed in indignation at such injuries. They would have brandished their family name like a shield, threatened with arrogance, and wallowed in disgrace.

But Ryaen Silvershade was different.

She rose not with entitlement, but with her own hands, her own will, her own strength. And those, were the kinds of people worthy of respect, the ones who could stand against anything, even when faced with impossible odds.

But alas, it was a cruel pity. For Ryaen's odds now stood against a monster, Asher Wargrave, the Tenth Sun of the Wargrave Ducal Household.

With cold resolve that could freeze even fire, Ryaen's lips parted, and her next words slipped into the world.

Dance Of The Spine

Her newly restored Astra reserves pulsed, surging from her Astra veins in roaring waves that bled into the air itself. The atmosphere trembled, and bones began to manifest. They erupted into existence not as crude fragments, but as living extensions of her will.

These were no ordinary bones. They elongated, stretching meters at a time with each heartbeat. They writhed, bending and twisting until they took the form of whips. But they were not yet finished.

One whip became two. Two became four. Four became a hundred. Their growth halted only when the space was flooded with them, and from each elongated surface sprouted jagged protrusions, spikes of bone like the teeth of some colossal predator.

With the flick of Ryaen's wrist, the massacre began.

Hundreds of jagged bone whips lashed out, shrieking as they tore through the air, each one like a starving beast sinking fangs into prey. They struck with the speed of lightning, the merciless precision of vipers, and the hunger of predators that knew no restraint.

Asher, seeing this, did not hesitate. His Astra pulsed through his veins, flowing into Virelass, his rapier, encasing it in a radiant sheen of golden light.

The earth beneath his feet buckled and cracked, spiderweb fractures racing across the ground as he bent his knees ever so slightly. He prepared to move, the air trembling with the weight of what was to come.

The instant the bone whips reached him, Asher transformed. He became a phantom of the blade, a deadly specter weaving through the violent dance of destruction. He dove into the chaos as though untouchable, his presence elusive and terrifying.

Virelass flashed with lethal elegance. Every swing, every thrust was delivered with such precision that dozens of whips shattered to fragments with each movement. His momentum never slowed; his hands blurred, the rapier's tip rupturing through the storm of carnage like a needle through silk.

The bone whips tore through the forest like an army of ravaging beasts. Trees were split apart as though they were paper before a rhinoceros' charge. Mighty trunks collapsed, their barks shredded into splinters, their bodies reduced to broken husks. The forest floor itself was mutilated, gouged and torn as if the skies above themselves bore hatred for the earth below.

But for all their vicious might, not a single whip so much as grazed Asher. His rapier danced in an endless storm, his body moving with the grace and inevitability of a sword god given flesh.

And with an almost maddening delight, his eyes glimmered as he tore through the frenzy, each strike driven by an ecstatic glee, a storm of focus and rapture, like a man who found purpose and peace in the chaos of the blade.