CLEAVER OF SIN Chapter 784: Wannabe Avatar [GT Ranking Bonus - ]

Asher landed on a tree branch, but the moment he landed, he felt the basilisk’s gaze settle upon him once more, however, he didn’t look directly into its eyes. Both of them seemed to be locked in a silent standoff at the moment as a few seconds passed in silence. Asher finally decided to look into its eyes to test out a theory he had.

The moment he looked into the basilisk’s eyes, he immediately felt the same sensation, without missing a beat, Asher shot to the side, as he was prepared this time, the moment he dodged, the trees behind him became petrified yet again.

’I see,’ Asher thought to himself.

He had guessed how the basilisk’s petrification ability worked after just experiencing it once and confirming his suspicion after experiencing it a second time.

Just like all basilisks with a petrification ability, this particular Mark-class specimen also required eye contact. But unlike other petrification abilities, like those he had read about back on Earth where immediate eye contact meant death, here, he could dodge at the last moment if someone could somehow sense the petrification being projected towards them.

But of course, one had to possess ridiculously sharp senses for this to happen. The average person would never even realize what had happened before it was already too late.

Meaning, one, the basilisk couldn’t simply spam petrification, and secondly, it could petrify both living beings and non-living things, reminding Asher that while fantasy stories had some degree of truth to them, this wasn’t a fantasy novel, and every world had its own set of rules.

And as for how to bypass this, it was easy; don’t make eye contact.

But Asher couldn’t be bothered with constantly trying to avoid eye contact, as such a cunning basilisk would naturally try to force eye contact, making its enemies commit mistakes. As such, Asher employed the simplest method; he closed his eyes.

With his eyes closed, Asher crossed the distance without any problems. He appeared before the basilisk in a blur, stunning the creature where it stood, Asher’s hand blurred as he moved to decapitate it. But the next moment, Asher’s blade met nothing but air, Asher’s head immediately snapped backwards, and all his senses met were tens of spikes shooting towards him with breakneck speed.

Asher’s hand blurred as he deflected the poisonous spikes the basilisk had launched towards him with ease. They plunged into the trees behind him, shattering bark and branches into splinters with booming force. Several trunks cracked from the impact alone, emphasizing just how much power was hidden within those seemingly small projectiles.

’It teleported,’ Asher concluded as he ’stared’ at the basilisk, which now hissed at him with clear wariness within its eyes, as it no longer viewed Asher as easy prey after he displayed that ridiculous speed.

’It seems it can teleport to whatever it petrifies,’ Asher concluded. ’It can also shoot out spikes from the holes lining its head and running down its back,’ he analyzed.

As Asher was about to take another step forward, the basilisk opened its mouth and spat out a huge stream of poison, but Asher wasn’t surprised, he had already expected the basilisk to possess a similar ability.

He vanished from where he stood, his body blurring into existence atop the basilisk’s head, but Asher didn’t allow it to teleport away this time, as he hadn’t been able to one-shot it earlier because he hadn’t expected a snake to possess some form of space-type ability.

The basilisk’s eyes snapped upwards, and all it could see was a silver blur tearing through its flat head. The green scales immediately tore open like paper, doing nothing to stop Asher’s rapier as he decapitated it in one clean motion.

The next moment, the basilisk went limp, then plummeted from the tree as it died. Asher landed gently upon a tree branch. He opened his eyes, as there was no need to keep them closed anymore, his gaze immediately snapping towards his bracelet to see his point balance.

Point Balance: 1,000

He had gained one thousand points by killing a Mark-class monster that could fight above its class, reaching the level of a Grave-class creature.

Although Asher had dealt with it with a single successful attack and with extreme ease, one had to remember that a Grave-class monster ranked sixth within the Monster Classifications, and not many students could deal with monsters on that level alone.

Not even most third-year students possessed such capability. In fact, for many participants, encountering such a creature this early into the qualifiers would have been considered outright disastrous.

Yet all Asher needed was two attacks. The first had failed purely because the monster possessed a special ability, one that became effectively useless the moment its perception couldn’t match Asher’s speed.

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Qualifiers Round Ranking

1/ Finch Whale / 3000 Points / Zarethorne

2/ Acker Holloway / 1700 Points / Vandross

3/ Asher Wargrave / 1000 Points / Zarethorne

4/ Teo Swig / 900 Points / Zarethorne

5/ Arianna Haellight / 900 Points / Velkarin

6/ Zis Zaitsu / 800 Points / Velkarin

7/ Thalric Wargrave / 700 Points / Zarethorne

8/ Isaac Wrath Chillstorm / 700 Points / Thalvorn

9/ Theodore Elox / 500 Points / Vandross

10/ Catherine Shatterdust / 400 Points / Thalvorn

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Asher stared at the rankings for a moment, then nodded without a word. Although the points looked low, it was understandable. One had to find monsters to battle; it wasn’t as though the Inter-Empire Competition would simply place monsters in front of you and tell you to fight them. Everyone was scattered across an enormous battlefield and had to rely on their own abilities, luck, and judgment to accumulate points.

’It seems the Acker guy is really blessed by Buddha,’ Asher joked, as the avatar wannabe guy and Finch held the top two spots as though their lives depended on it.

Asher’s eyes fell upon Rank 9, Theodore Elox. Asher couldn’t help but guess that it was Kimberley’s brother, yet she had never made any mention of him.

’Aren’t they a merchant family?’ Asher thought to himself before choosing to forget about the matter.

As he was about to continue his journey, his eyes suddenly shot downward as he saw smaller snakes pouring out from the basilisk’s stomach as they tore their way outward.

Asher stared at them for a moment, there were about ten of them, all at the Veil-class. Judging from their size and appearance, they were most likely offspring that had been carried within the basilisk, unfortunately for them, they had chosen the worst possible moment to emerge.

His right hand flickered for a moment, and the next instant, wind screamed and warped through the air as crescent-shaped sword attacks immediately ripped all of them into ribbons.

The earth below immediately exploded upwards and outwards, sword marks painting the land beneath in destruction as Asher reduced the basilisk’s corpse and the smaller snakes to shreds, ensuring that no unknown threat remained behind, he wasn’t taking any chances with monsters that possessed unusual abilities or strange methods of survival.

His bracelet beeped again, his points climbing by one thousand five hundred (1500) as he now possessed a total of two thousand five hundred (2500) points, placing him just five hundred (500) points away from Rank 1.

In a single leap, he rose above Acker Holloway and settled into second place. The change happened so quickly that many spectators watching the rankings would probably have noticed his name abruptly shooting upwards.

With that, Asher resumed his journey once more, leaving behind a grim painting of shattered earth, ruined trees, and mangled snake carcasses in his wake. The poisonous forest swallowed his departing figure once more as he continued deeper into the battlefield in search of his next target.