Chapter 48 - Graves of Heaven and Earth
The ocean howled beneath Levi’s feet, the surface breaking like glass under a hammer.
He stood above it, motionless—a god watching the ants scramble. Contempt etched into every line of his face.
The martial artists came first. Hundreds. Each step a desperate scream for survival, every leap a testament to human determination—or stupidity. They sprinted across the frozen water platforms, each footfall shattering the ice into sharp, deadly needles.
Some soared into the sky, others used spears to boost their momentum, while a few glided, nearly weightless.
Levi raised his hand.
The ocean cracked.
Black water erupted, spiraling like spears, not falling back but spinning—grinding against itself. A dozen fighters impaled mid-air, their bodies crushed by the pressure alone, shattering into spray and ribbons of flesh.
He flicked two fingers.
The assassins came next—a thousand of them, regenerating like termites after every strike. But this wasn’t enough. Their healing couldn’t outrun Levi’s power. Not today.
Levi exhaled.
A pulse of invisible force exploded from his body.
The assassins didn’t scream. They didn’t get the chance. They were erased in an instant—bone, skin, willpower—gone. Nothing but dust and memory.
A super soldier made it close.
Big mistake.
Levi tilted his chin, and the soldier’s body contorted in midair—bones snapping, joints twisting at angles meant for another life. He was flung through the air, his scream cut short, a comet of blood and bone. He crashed—hard—into a new battlefield, the impact leaving a crater beneath his mangled form.
Lazaro’s eyes flicked upward.
The flying corpse came at him like a bullet. His lips curled into a sneer.
“Tch.”
Gravity pulsed.
Instead of crashing into him, the body slowed—stuck in the air, suspended by some invisible force. Lazaro shifted his fingers, twisting the weight of the dead soldier in midair, and hurled him away.
The corpse collided with the archer, sending her sprawling backwards, narrowly avoiding a crushing impact to her chest.
Lazaro didn’t give her time to recover.
Ash was next.
The ancient weapon gleamed in her hands, whispering promises that only she could hear. Its scarlet light bled into her veins. She moved with predator grace, a ghost of violence.
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Two martial artists flanked her.
One, a tall figure wielding venom-laced chained sickles—kusarigama, each one dripping black poison.
The other, a brutalist, fists wrapped in iron wire, muscles rippling with raw power.
The archer’s shots split the air—snapping like the beat of a drum.
Lazaro ducked. An arrow cracked the ground where his head had been a moment before. He rolled left, narrowly dodging a follow-up shot.
He summoned a gravity burst that yanked the kusarigama off its trajectory. The sickles buried themselves uselessly in the ice, twisting like broken limbs.
Ash descended.
Her blade came down in a clean arc.
Lazaro barely caught it. His palms split open, the skin immediately torn by the sheer force of the strike.
“You’re serious today,” he muttered, twisting his body to dodge another arrow that grazed his temple.
The brutalist lunged.
Fist like a cannonball.
Lazaro snapped gravity upward. His body flew into the air, narrowly avoiding the punch that obliterated the ground beneath him—a crater swallowing the earth.
Another arrow chased him. Another. Another.
He bent the world around him, twisting gravity until the arrows veered off—missed by millimeters—tearing through the sky behind him, leaving rips in the clouds.
Ash wasn’t done.
She leapt.
Their weapons collided mid-air.
The shockwave threw them both downward like meteors, crashing into the ice below.
Lazaro barely stabilized. He landed in a crouch, ice splintering beneath him for hundreds of meters.
He didn’t look up.
He didn’t need to.
Because the martial artists were already diving—swooping in from every angle.
Lazaro expanded gravity under his feet, sending out a pulse—a trap.
The brutalist landed first.
The snow around him turned pink. Then red. Then steam.
His entire body compressed like a tin can under the foot of a titan. Bones shattered, skin splitting open as the pressure of gravity destroyed him from the inside out. He didn’t even scream.
The kusarigama wielder swung a sickle.
Lazaro caught it midair—gravity folding the weapon into a useless, writhing ball of metal.
Ash didn’t pause.
She danced through the chaos, leaping off debris, spinning the ancient weapon with a speed and precision no human could match.
Strike after strike.
Faster. Sharper.
Each blow landed with a sickening crack, cutting through Lazaro’s defenses. His clothes shredded. His skin bled. His barriers thinned.
His teeth clenched. His eyes flashed with irritation.
And then, in an instant, gravity twisted around them.
Ash staggered, losing her balance—just for a second.
That was enough.
Lazaro seized the opening, grabbing her wrist in a vice-like grip. He crushed the air around them, hurling her away—not to kill, but to stall.
The archer was already firing again.
Her shots blurred in the air, so fast they left afterimages.
Lazaro slid across the ice, bending gravity sideways beneath him, making his footing irrelevant. The arrows missed by inches, cutting through the air where he had just been.
Blood dripped from his side—Ash’s work.
“Ugh,” Lazaro muttered, half to himself. “I’m getting old.”
The archer shifted tactics—now it was explosive arrows, forcing Lazaro to launch into the air.
Ash came from above, her weapon a streak of death.
The kusarigama wielder—still alive—crawled toward him, his dislocated limbs twitching as he dragged himself with inhuman strength.
The brutalist, a broken mess, wasn’t done yet.
Lazaro smiled.
“Fine.”
He collapsed gravity.
The battlefield dropped.
For a split second, every opponent fell as if the world had been yanked out from beneath them.
Lazaro slammed his palm into the ice, redirecting the field.
Ash’s attack missed. The weapon carved a mile-long scar into the ocean beneath them.
The kusarigama wielder lost control. The sickles flew away, useless, spinning off into the void.
The brutalist’s body—still crawling—was turned to pulp under the shift, the bones splintering into dust.
Only the archer adapted.
She twisted midair, her body moving like liquid—two shots planted instinctively.
One grazed Lazaro’s leg.
The second—he caught. Barehanded.
It pierced his palm.
“Seriously,” he muttered, yanking the arrow out, blood dripping from his fingers.
Ash roared, the weapon’s hunger consuming her. The blade thrummed with an ancient madness.
And then she charged again.
Lazaro wiped blood from his mouth.
“Let’s end this.”
The ground inverted.
The real fight began.
End of Chapter.
