Published at 7th of July 2026 8:57 am

Chapter 876: Next

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’How?’ Isaac asked himself. ’Isn’t the rapier his specialty? How can he possess such ridiculous hand-to-hand combat mastery while also training with the sword?’ he thought to himself as he rose to his feet, his injuries already completely healed.

To Isaac, this wasn’t supposed to be possible. Yet, the impossible was unfolding in real time before his very eyes.

He immediately entered a martial stance as he seamlessly shifted into one of his martial techniques, Astra energy flowing and booming with even greater intensity.

[Perfect Martial Art: Fist Type: Cascading Fist]

With that, he punched outward once, twice, thrice, ten times, a hundred times, a thousand times in rapid succession, the number climbing in real time. He didn’t merely throw punches; the air around each fist collapsed with the aid of Astra energy before being unleashed as deadly air cannons capable of tearing any living being apart. They cascaded into one another, continuously amplifying each other’s speed, force, and destructive power.

In less than a second, the entire underground train station was filled with an endless surge of air cannon blasts.

Asher took a slow breath, his legs parting as his muscles tightened. He didn’t even bother tapping into his Astra energy. Against an attack of this level, he simply didn’t need to.

[Formless Body Technique: Fist Series: Silent Wave]

There was no elemental affinity enhancing it; it was nothing but pure physical prowess that stood unmatched. With that, his fists shot outward like bullets from a machine gun, fist-shaped wind blasts surging forward to intercept every incoming air cannon unleashed by Isaac.

The collision was titanic. Explosions erupted in rapid succession as endless concentric shockwaves thundered outward like a relentless lightning storm, turning the air unbearably heavy. At the very centre of their clash, the cage created to contain them, the underground chamber itself, collapsed completely beneath the might of these two madmen.

Stone, metallic beams, concrete slabs, glass, reinforced alloys, everything shattered as the ground caved inward, as though a black hole were being born in real time. Dust consumed everything as a towering mushroom-shaped cloud of debris, smoke, and pulverized concrete billowed violently into the sky.

The Formless Body Technique was a martial art Asher had personally created solely for hand-to-hand combat, hence the word "Body." He had also chosen the word "Formless" because he could create entirely new martial techniques on the fly to counter whatever his opponent brought before him.

For example, the "Silent Wave" had been created only at this moment as a direct counter to Isaac’s own technique.

Through the swirling dust and smoke, Asher and Isaac stepped forward, their figures gradually coming into view. Asher walked calmly, his body in pristine condition, with not even a trace of soot or dust daring to cling to him.

Isaac’s body, on the other hand, visibly underwent constant regeneration as numerous burns and various other injuries inflicted by Asher’s Fist Series rapidly healed.

Isaac immediately tore off his fingers and flung them into the air, creating five clones of himself. The very next moment, all five tapped into their Biomancy ability, creating an entirely new poison gland within their own bodies. With that, each Isaac exhaled simultaneously, and in the next instant the air became saturated with a deadly gaseous poison.

The Biomancy ability truly was a broken power, allowing its user to grow entirely new organs that the human race had never naturally possessed.

Asher’s body blurred backwards. This wasn’t the type of poison that dealt damage when inhaled. Instead, it caused skin to blister almost instantly, dissolving the outer layers of flesh until it appeared to melt away.

Seeing the poison spread throughout the battlefield, Asher merely shook his head. The next instant, his Light affinity came alive as he effortlessly began purifying the poison without missing a beat. Initially, after leaving the Poisonous Swamp Forest, Asher had intended to return to Star Academy before creating a light-based skill capable of nullifying poisons and toxins. However, after witnessing Theodore Elox use poison once again, Asher had simply decided to stop being lazy and created the skill immediately after his battle with Elox.

Seeing this, Isaac could only click his tongue in frustration. However, while he did so, Asher had already closed the distance between himself and the clones.

Arriving before the first clone, Asher extended his hand like a blade before driving it straight through the clone’s chest. His hand burst out through its back, emerging while tightly gripping the clone’s still-beating heart.

The remaining four reacted immediately. They transformed their bones into razor-sharp spikes before firing them from their bodies. Asher simply used the dead first clone as a shield, allowing it to absorb the entire barrage.

Asher casually tossed the hole-riddled corpse aside before appearing before another clone with a single step. Before the clone could even blink, Asher’s hand swept horizontally through the air, followed by the sickening sound of flesh being severed as the second clone’s head separated cleanly from its body. Blood sprayed across the ground as the headless corpse collapsed with a heavy thud.

The third clone closed the distance from behind, its hand transforming into a vicious claw as it slashed towards Asher’s neck while he dealt with the second clone. Yet the attack met nothing but empty air. In the next instant, the clone sensed Asher standing directly behind it. Before it could react, Asher seized it, his right hand gripping its head while his left rested firmly upon its shoulder.

Then, with horrifying ease and maddening brutality, Asher ripped the clone’s head from its shoulders with a single pull, dragging the entire spinal cord out alongside it. He casually flung the gruesome remains aside as though discarding worthless trash.

The fourth and fifth clones blurred backwards in retreat, but Asher had already closed the gap. His hands clamped around their faces, and in the very next moment he clenched both hands into fists. Like overripe melons struck by sledgehammers, their heads exploded into a grotesque shower of blood, bone fragments, and brain matter.

Asher stood silently, encircled by the five dead Isaacs, his purple eyes shifting towards the real body.

Before Isaac’s lips could even part, Asher was already before him, his fist crashing into Isaac’s chest with the force of an exploding war drum. Isaac shot backwards, his body slamming violently into the green barrier. The moment he ricocheted forward, Asher was already there with blinding speed, his fist smashing into Isaac’s forehead. His head snapped backwards before colliding against the barrier once more.

The shockwaves from each impact slammed into the spectators in real time.

Asher didn’t stop. He transformed into a boxer on the spot, his hands moving with machine-like precision.

A jab to the solar plexus. A cross to the nose. A hook to the liver. An uppercut to the jaw.

He rotated seamlessly between attacks as though he had invented boxing itself. Isaac’s exoskeleton crumbled apart in real time as he continued bouncing helplessly off the barrier after every strike. Asher then grabbed him by the face, and with Isaac’s face pinned firmly against the barrier, he sprinted across the battlefield, leaving behind a long crimson smear of blood across the barrier’s surface.

Isaac finally seemed to regain a fragment of awareness as his Biomancy activated once more. Astra energy erupted as a pair of wings covered in golden feathers burst from his back. He launched himself into the sky, desperately attempting to escape Asher. At this point, he was barely conscious.

But as he ascended, his half-dead eyes widened as Asher suddenly appeared directly before him, having simply teleported into his path. Asher wasted no time. His leg shot forward like a divine arrow, crashing into Isaac’s temple like a battering ram.

Isaac plummeted from the sky, his body crashing into the earth with a deafening boom as a massive ravine formed upon impact. At that moment, his two lower arms began to disappear. His exoskeleton dissolved as every enhancement he had granted himself vanished, leaving him lying unconscious and riddled with injuries.

Asher’s feet touched the earth with calm ease. His purple eyes rose towards the students seated high above, shining with the same calm composure as he spoke the single familiar word he had uttered earlier,

"Next."

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