Only one hour remained on the clock, and Asher was fully aware, he had asked the system to notify him with each passing hour.
A wide grin stretched across his blood-smeared face as he stood, knees slightly bent, body coiled with tension like a predator ready to pounce.
He hadn’t spoken a single word since the beginning of this True Awakening, yet he relished every moment of it. Virelass reveled in it. The Absolute Physique thrived on it.
With that, Astra coiled beneath his feet like a living serpent, then surged across Virelass in a gleaming arc. Smiling, Asher launched himself forward like a cannonball, his body ripping through the air with a sharp, whistling shriek.
The assassins did not flinch. They were dancers on the edge of death, professionals who had long accepted that one day it would claim them.
But not today.
Not by the hand of a seventeen year old boy. With cold resolve, they channeled their Astra, which roared to life across their bodies as they hurtled forward to meet him.
The forest erupted into a storm of motion, blades flashing, shadows twisting, and Astra manipulation so dense it blurred the very air.
With a heavy clang, weapons collided in a burst of sparks, then again, and again, and again. The relentless thunder of steel echoed through the forest as countless blurs converged upon a single figure. Yet Asher faced them all with the grin of a madman carved into his bloodstained face.
His hand never faltered. Not once.
A streak of silver cut through the darkness like moonlight on water, and in its wake, a head soared silently into the air.
His rapier moved as though fate itself guided its path, fluid, inevitable. He struck without hesitation, his precision measured to the beat of a heart. Each motion was flawless, each attack turned upon its origin, as if he danced with death and led the rhythm. He never aimed for where they stood, only for where they were doomed to be.
His Battle Instinct ability allowed him to read their attacks as if they were laid bare before his eyes, movements, intentions, and weaknesses exposed in the split second before action.
At the same time, Instinctive Adaptation surged within him, enabling his body to twist and weave through strikes at impossible angles, as though he perceived the moment just before it unfolded.
Together, the two abilities moved in flawless harmony, turning Asher from the prey of the True Awakening into its most merciless predator.
Asher’s smile never once faded, it had taken root the moment it appeared. His heart thundered like war drums in his chest, pumping blood with wild urgency.
Through his veins flowed not just blood, but Astra, both surging in tandem as he tore through enemy ranks like an gigantic axe cleaving through a sandcastle.
Sheer exhilaration bloomed in every fiber of his being. He streaked forward, a trail of purple light trailing behind him, while Virelass hummed in utter, primal satisfaction.
She had tasted blood before, had drunk deeply from beasts slain over the past six months. But those were creatures captured by Lyra. All Asher had done then was raise his rapier and thrust once.
But here... here, she could move freely. She could dance. She could rend flesh, shatter bones, tear through sinew, and split skulls. Every vibration through her blade was ecstasy. The thrill of the kill surged through her like wildfire.
If Virelass had a face in that moment, she would wear the same maddened, euphoric grin that lit up Asher’s.
In a single, fluid motion, both partners, human and weapon, boy and rapier, descended into the brutal embrace of death’s waltz. They moved as one, their wills seamlessly entwined. In that moment, their efficiency reached its peak, flawless, instinctive, deadly.
Asher made a decision.
His stamina would not burn out. Even if he ran at full speed for the entire remaining hour of the True Awakening, he would not falter. And with that resolve, he chose to run wild.
No more restraint.
No more calculated movements to conserve strength.
No more holding back.
No more anything.
No more nothing.
They would all fall before him.
They would all fall before Virelass.
Bodies piled in grotesque heaps as Asher pressed forward without a moment’s pause. He moved with the grace of a panther unleashed in a pigsty, predatory, merciless, and far too fast for anything to stop him.
Blood arced into the air like crimson rain. The once brown earth beneath him changed color, turned into a gruesome canvas, blood its only paint. Even the silver moon above seemed to blush red under the ceremony of slaughter... this unholy bloodbath.
Trees fell like tofu before a blade, no matter the thickness of their bark or the strength of their trunks. Asher moved like a phantom born for the night, leaving nothing but flickering afterimages in his wake.
His purple eyes gleamed under the moonlight, bright and cold. Purple hair, scattered and wild, swayed with his motion, untamed as the boy himself.
And in the final moments of the assassins’ lives, all they ever saw were those glowing eyes and the flash of white... before their world spun, and hell laid claim to their souls.
Abilities flared to life one after another, but to Asher, they were meaningless. His mind moved in perfect synchrony with his body, neither outpacing the other, neither falling behind.
His gaze tore through the intricacies and limitations of their abilities as if he were the one who had granted them those abilities to begin with.
Panic began to creep into the assassins’ hearts.
And Asher welcomed it.
He seized the moment, harvesting every flaw, every misplaced step, every gap in formation, every tremor of fear his mind and eyes detected.
His purple eyes flickered with calculated intensity, dancing in their sockets as he processed dozens of attacks simultaneously, his brain functioning like a living supercomputer.
Every movement he made was a prelude to execution, a silent promise of death. The glint of his rapier wasn’t just light; it was a beacon of finality, a quiet herald of doom.
His swordplay was poetry in motion, fluid, effortless, breathtaking. It flowed like ink across parchment, each stroke deliberate, each motion graceful. He moved like a moon-cast shadow, untouchable, ever-present, and impossible to predict.
His rapier didn’t merely cut; it sculpted. Each strike was a deliberate act of artistry, a creation born of violence. The very air shimmered in his wake as his blade carved arcs of deadly beauty. It wove through the battlefield like silk between the fingers of a master tailor.
Thrusts, cleaves, and slashes bloomed like dark flowers beneath the forest canopy, each one blooming only to devour all in its path.
The darkness thickened, oppressive and alive, as though hell itself had opened its gates, welcoming its new Grim Reaper with open arms.