Chapter 240: Circular Platform
Asher’s head instantly snapped upward the moment he heard the ceiling crack. The sound was sharp, like bones breaking, and it carried with it the dreadful weight of inevitability. The entire building was collapsing in on itself, stone, metal, and concrete all giving way as if the very foundation of its existence had been torn apart.
But Asher did not move to flee. He simply stood where he was, calm, almost defiant, as though daring the ruins to fall upon him.
With a thunderous heap, huge slabs of concrete, twisted metal beams, and jagged stone plummeted from above. The air itself seemed to groan under the weight of the collapse.
But Asher was unshaken. With a single thought, Astra pulsed from his Astra veins, responding like a loyal servant to its master’s call. In an instant, it formed a translucent dome around him, shimmering faintly with an ethereal glow. The dome expanded, deflecting and absorbing the full weight of the falling debris. Blocks of concrete shattered harmlessly against its surface, steel beams clanged and bounced away, and fragments of stone scattered to dust, unable to reach him.
Then, another sound pierced through the cacophony, a deeper crack, one that came not from above but from below. The earth beneath him split apart, fissures spreading in jagged lines that threatened to consume him into the abyss.
Without hesitation, Astra pulsed once more at his command, this time beneath his very feet. A circular platform formed, radiating light as it lifted him gently into the air. Suspended in midair, supported by his Astra’s construct, he remained untouched as the ground gave way and the ten-story building finally collapsed in its entirety. It crumbled with the immensity of the attack it had suffered earlier, falling in on itself with an echoing roar that could be felt in the bones of everyone nearby.
But Asher’s attention was not on his own survival. His sharp eyes scanned the ruin. He knew others had been inside. The students, the top one hundred of the first-year class. If such individuals could not escape a mere collapsing building, then their titles and the power they had boasted since their awakening would mean little more than hollow pride. To die here would be nothing but an insult to their names and their strength.
The air resounded with chaos.
Boom. Crash. Crack. Shatter. Whoosh.
Dust rose in suffocating clouds, a choking storm that blinded vision and clogged lungs. All around, students dashed and scrambled, their silhouettes darting like shadows in a wasteland.
Amidst the chaos, Asher stood with composed stillness, watching. To his side, another building, the dormitory of the lower top two hundred students, had also begun to collapse. Screams and desperate cries erupted, but strangely enough, not all of them ended in tragedy.
A few students emerged from the falling rubble without harm, appearing suddenly in places they could not have reached on their own. It was as though someone had plucked them from danger and placed them in safety, teleporting them away from the jaws of death.
Asher’s long purple hair fluttered with the wind, the strands dancing in rhythm with the storm of dust and chaos. His purple eyes, sharp and calm, swept across the battlefield, taking in every detail. He muttered under his breath, a whisper only he could hear.
’Did Big Brother cause this?’
The thought weighed heavily on him. He knew both his father and his brother had been here earlier. The last strike from Malrik, the violent, destructive sword attack, seemed the most likely culprit behind the ongoing apocalypse.
Across the battlefield, various students were already engaged in combat. They clashed with Emovirae, vile monsters, and hardened criminals who had broken free from their prisons amidst the destruction. Screams of battle and the clash of abilities painted the air with chaos.
Then, Asher’s head snapped sharply to the side. His Omni Perception had caught something, something tearing through the air toward him. The presence was almost silent, yet its lethality was undeniable.
A shadow fell over him.
It was a monstrous bird, enormous in size. Its wings stretched wide, blotting out the sun as though the sky itself bowed before its flight. Talons glistened with murderous intent, curved and sharp enough to slice through flesh as though it were nothing more than butter. Red feathers, hard and gleaming like sharpened steel, shimmered in the light, and its massive beak looked strong enough to puncture through the hide of any prey unfortunate enough to cross its path.
With a piercing cry, the beast dove. It streaked downward in a blur of crimson, its talons extended and already aimed for Asher’s head.
But Asher remained still. The dome of Astra was already there, glowing faintly, awaiting the bird’s strike.
The impact was catastrophic. Talons met barrier with a force that resounded like a bell tolling for war. A thunderous blast erupted, the air bursting outward in violent concussive rings, scattering dust and rubble like a cannon’s discharge.
Asher’s eyes narrowed as he observed fine cracks spiderwebbing across his barrier. He had expected it to hold easily, but the sheer momentum of the monster’s dive had been greater than he anticipated.
"A Fang-ranked bird type monster," he murmured under his breath, noting the power of his foe.
Before the cracks could widen, Asher vanished. His form blurred, slipping free of the Astra dome and the circular platform below. Space bent at his command, and in the blink of an eye he reappeared behind the bird.
The beast’s crimson eyes flickered in mild surprise. It sensed the disturbance of wind currents behind and twisted its head backward at an impossible angle, rotating its neck in a perfect 180 degrees. Its sharp gaze caught Asher descending from above, rapier poised and tearing downward toward its back.
The sound that followed was deafening.
Clang!
Asher’s rapier, Virelass, struck the bird’s metallic feathers with all his might. Sparks flew, but the blade failed to pierce through. For the first time, Virelass had been denied.
’What sort of defense is this?’ Asher thought grimly, his body already dragged downward by gravity’s merciless pull.
The monster, however, was not surprised. Its body moved with brutal confidence, as if assured of its invincibility. Feathers spread wide, metallic red and glittering under the sunlight. Then, with terrifying swiftness, it swung its massive wing at Asher, the strike aimed directly at his neck.
The wing cleaved the air in a devastating arc. The very wind split apart under its passage, shrieking in protest.
Asher, however, did not panic. He vanished once again, space bending obediently to his will. In an instant, he reappeared above the bird’s head, the wing slicing through the air where his neck had been only a heartbeat ago.
Another Astra platform formed beneath his feet, holding him steady in the sky. But Asher knew the truth. This was not a battle where he could rely on his other abilities. His mastery of gravity, light, and space was still shallow, the fruits of only a month of training. They were useful against weaker foes, but against a monster of this caliber, they were unreliable.
That was the reason, he recalled bitterly, why the mad bloodthirsty woman he had encountered earlier had walked through his gravity field as though it were nothing but a mild inconvenience. Against beings of greater strength, his control simply wasn’t enough.
Not yet.
The bird screeched in rage, its failed strike only feeding its fury. Its massive wings beat the air, propelling it upward with incredible speed until it was level with Asher once more. The battlefield grew silent in that moment, their gazes locking, purple against crimson, two wills clashing in unspoken defiance. Both understood instinctively: this fight would not end with retreat. Only one of them would leave alive.
Then, the beast opened its beak and loosed a screech of pure hatred. The sound tore at the air itself, vibrating through the battlefield with ear-splitting intensity. Its metallic feathers began to clatter, shifting and realigning as though preparing for something far more dangerous.
A moment later, the storm was unleashed.
Hundreds of razor-sharp feathers shot forth, bursting from the beast’s body in a lethal barrage. Each feather spun through the air with deadly precision, their edges gleaming like blades, each one capable of ending Asher’s life in a single strike should it connect.