CLEAVER OF SIN Chapter 985: Come To Collect

Asher’s Star Energy froze within his heart. He recognized the voice. His head immediately snapped to the side, and there Azaron lay, half of his body torn apart. Not from the waist down, no, but the entire left half of his body had been blown apart.

Asher immediately turned and rushed towards him, his legs moving across the battlefield as he reached Azaron in an instant.

"Father..." Asher spoke, his Light Affinity coming to life as he used Star Energy as its source. He instantly poured it into Azaron’s body, as the man seemed to be the only person alive at the moment.

"It’s use...less, youn...gest... lea...ve... wh...ile... you can..." his voice was heavy as each word dragged painfully from his lips.

Asher knew it was useless. He knew he could never heal a Crownstar Life Rank. The bodies of such beings were beyond anything he could currently affect. But still, he tried... he had to... he couldn’t just give up.

"Don’t say that, Father," Asher rejected his words. "You must live on, you can’t..." He held back his last words as his tears dripped onto Azaron’s armor while he continued his healing process, pouring more and more Astra Energy into him.

But alas, it was futile, as Azaron’s body showed no sign of healing, not even a single cell in his body budging, as though the energy required to heal even one cell within his body wasn’t something Asher possessed. Maybe it was his control over Light that was lacking, but regardless of the reason...

Azaron... the holder of the Nebula Affinity, the man who had taken on the Imperial Palace, the man at whom many didn’t even dare blink in his direction. The man who had lost his wife, father, and mother, breathed his last as he spent his dying breath and final words telling his youngest son to escape.

Asher simply remained motionless as he stared at the half of Azaron’s body resting in his hands. Blood no longer flowed from the missing half of the man’s body, as the flame attack seemed to have completely cauterized and burned it away.

Asher heard the sound of a book flipping, his head snapping in that direction, and there, against a tree, was Great Elder Morthern Wargrave. He was barely alive, his vitality vanishing in real time as his soul-bound book appeared before him.

[Fictional Reality: Space Type: Sp—]

Just as he was about to complete the ability, his vitality gave out. His head immediately lowered as he died. He had heard the conversation between Asher and Azaron, and as a Great Elder, and the First among them, he had wanted to complete his final duty. But he had failed, dying just as he was about to teleport Asher away from this place.

Asher carried Azaron’s corpse with delicate care as he moved towards Morthern’s position and gently placed Azaron beside the man. On the other side was Malrik’s body, he who was supposed to be invincible beneath the sun, as he possessed infinite Astra Energy, infinite stamina, and constant regenerative abilities. Yet, even with all those advantages, he too had fallen.

Asher’s heart twisted, his entire existence thrown into turmoil as he stared at the corpses of the remaining Great Elders and Elders. For Asher, this was his first experience of losing those he considered family. After all, in his past life as Ethan, he had no family, only Jennifer.

Now, he was here. Malrik had looked over him, fought Cindralis for him, and had been ready to take on the world for him and his siblings. Azaron had been a loving father who had gone from barely showing his emotions to openly expressing them. They had shared a drink, laughed together, and discussed his life at the Star Academy.

He simply knelt there, consumed by guilt. If he hadn’t shown too much talent, and revealed Star Energy too, maybe everyone would still be alive. Maybe... just maybe they all would... his thoughts broke apart before they could continue.

He had known them for only two years. He hadn’t even spent the entirety of those two years with them, only seeing them occasionally as everyone had their own lives to live. And now... they were all gone.

’Why?’ Asher asked himself.

What was the fucking point of giving him a family, letting him experience what it meant to truly have one, only to snatch it away from him? Fucking why!!?

’Why?’ Asher asked himself once again in anguish as he knelt upon the ground, consumed by his thoughts while the crushing weight of loss bore down upon him.

This time, the question was directed at his own survival. Why had he survived? Because he was a transmigrator? Because he had a system? Because some higher entity had some grand design for him?

Asher’s thoughts spiraled as he remained kneeling, tears falling endlessly from his face like a broken dam.

Even back on Earth, as a novel reader, he had always hated those pointless plots where authors killed off the protagonist’s parents and loved ones simply to give him enough determination to train. Why couldn’t the main character possess that determination naturally? Even if they needed a driving force, why must the author always choose the deaths of the people they loved most?

Asher couldn’t help but feel that he had somehow ended up in that very same situation. Was the higher entity responsible for his transmigration angry that he had been perfectly balancing training and rest? Did it want him to abandon rest entirely and dedicate himself solely to training?

His purple and red eyes, which had been focused upon the sky, slowly shifted towards the corpses before him. The questions burning within his gaze gradually disappeared. They didn’t disappear to make way for clarity. No, Asher was long past clarity. Right now, only pure, unadulterated, cold revenge remained within his eyes.

Whoever, or whatever, was responsible... he would find them. The Sinvairas? The Maddened? He would hunt every last one of them down, even if he had to sell his soul to the devil to achieve it.

Thankfully, Asher didn’t need to search every corner of the planet to find his enemies, because the very next moment, a voice echoed across the battlefield.

"Hoo!!! They all died in one shot," a voice boomed across the devastated landscape that seemed older than any of them, yet had still been reduced to ruin.

The instant he heard the voice, Asher’s thoughts froze. His head snapped upward as his eyes traced the direction from which it came. There, standing upon a tree with a bright expression and a smile, was a man wearing black trousers and a white shirt, while a spear rested across his back.

The man had the Roman numeral VII etched upon the bridge of his nose.

The Convergence.

Threshold VII was the man who always said, "I see," to explanations he never understood, and who simply loved watching living things burn.

The moment Asher saw the source of his hatred, his eyes ignited with fury. Virelass appeared within his grasp as he silently prepared to begin. No words were needed. No questions would be asked. The man had taken everything that mattered to him, and he, Asher, had come to collect.

But before Asher could even take a single step, more presences descended upon him.