The platform of Floor 1461 looked like a grey desert—lifeless, cracked, and silent. The air was heavy, and the ground was littered with the broken remains of ancient monsters. Scattered among them were strange black pods floating just above the ground, pulsing faintly with dark energy.
There were four of them.
Each one contained the core remains of Asher's Reapers.
The Hollow Knight.The Dread Dragon King.The Six-Eternal Empress.Maedra, the Triad Reaper.
They had fallen during the previous floor's battle—not destroyed, but forced into temporary death. Their souls were intact, undergoing resurrection through Asher's Soul Monarch Law. However, they couldn't be summoned again until a full day had passed.
For now, Asher stood alone.
Or rather—he stood with one.
Before him, towering across the battlefield, was the boss of Floor 1461: a massive dragon whose body looked like it was made of stars, gas, and collapsing galaxies. Its wings spread wide like torn nebulae, and its eyes burned with celestial light.
This was the Star Devourer Dragon, a mid-tier Star Forger Realm beast—two minor Realms above Asher's current rank of Peak World Rank.
And yet… Asher was holding his ground.
More than that—he was winning.
The battle between them shook the entire floor. The Star Devourer Dragon launched attacks that tore holes in the fabric of the arena—beams of starlight that could burn a continent, claws that carried the weight of solar gravity, and tail swipes that warped space.
But Asher danced through it all.
His coat fluttered around him like a cloak of shadows. His movements were calm, efficient, and precise. He weaved around the dragon's strikes, occasionally deflecting them with his bare hands—his soul aura alone strong enough to resist the shockwaves.
He hadn't summoned a replacement.
He hadn't called for backup.
He faced the Star Devourer Dragon alone.
The ground trembled beneath them. The sky above cracked with waves of cosmic pressure. But Asher stood still, surrounded by silence and light.
His Reapers were not with him.
But that didn't matter.
They were never his main strength.
They were his blades—but he was the hand that held them.
Now, it was time to remind the Tower what his true power looked like.
From thin air, Asher reached behind him—and something answered. A swirl of crimson mist formed in his grip, and from it emerged a weapon both deadly and beautiful:
The Blood Rose Scythe.
It was long and curved, its blade shaped like a blooming rose petal, forged of deep red crystal with veins of black steel. It shimmered—not with polish, but with life. It wasn't just a weapon—it was art. A masterpiece of soul-forged design.
This scythe wasn't built for war.
It had been gifted to him long ago—by his elders, back when he first awakened his core. At the time, it was an simple Legendary weapon. A powerful weapon with hidden feature, that allowed it to grow stronger if it fed high quality blood.
Over time, he'd fed it with his own blood—the blood of the Sanguine Supreme. Quietly, patiently, allowing the scythe to grow. It absorbed his aura. It learned his soul.
And now, it had awakened.
When he stepped into this floor and sensed that his Reapers would not be available, the Blood Rose Scythe answered his call.
It was no longer dormant.
A Bonded Weapon—a rare and powerful class of armament that doesn't possess a fixed rank. Instead, it grows alongside its wielder. It feeds on blood, will, and battle, evolving without limit.
And now, Asher had reached Peak World Rank.
So the scythe had grown with him.
It now radiated that same rank, and maybe even more—because it was fed by his Law, his will, his soul.
He gave it a name—simple, elegant, and final:
Asher held it in one hand. The blade hummed like a living heart. The air bent around it with anticipation.
The Star Devourer Dragon roared and launched forward, a meteor of starlight and nebula flame.
Asher's eyes narrowed.
The Blood Rose Scythe bloomed.
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The Star Devourer Dragon launched itself forward like a comet cloaked in nebula fire, its vast form coiling across the sky. Its wings spanned miles, black scales flecked with glowing stardust. Each flap tore gravitational seams across the battlefield. The ground shattered beneath its pressure. Galaxies burned in its breath.
Asher didn't step back.
He twirled the Blood Rose Scythe once at his side, its crimson arc trailing a whisper of blood and law.
The dragon roared—soundless at first, then crashing into reality like a thousand suns screaming. Its maw opened wide, and from its throat poured a stream of stellar annihilation: a beam formed of collapsed stars and devouring hunger. The blast engulfed half the field in a tide of burning void.
He vanished into a blur—an elegant, floating slash that cut across the beam's edge. His scythe sliced upward in a sweeping crescent, and the beam split in two, cleaving the sky instead of him. Light rained like meteors around his silhouette.
The dragon's eyes narrowed. It lunged, claws like moons, jaws snapping closed around where Asher stood.
But he was already above.
Blood Rose spun in his hands like a reaper's wheel. His body twisted mid-air, and he came down in a spiraling descent, the scythe's blade glowing red-hot. He carved across the dragon's spine, opening a gash that sprayed nebular ichor and severed one of its Law sigils.
The beast shrieked, reeling from the strike, its body arcing into a spin. It retaliated with a wing swipe that collapsed space in its wake.
Asher hit the ground, skidding back. Dust and cracked stone exploded around him.
The dragon came again, faster this time—its body shimmering with Starforged Law, trying to compress Asher with pure gravity and starlight.
He stepped forward once.
With a single sweep, the Blood Rose Scythe bloomed.
The blade expanded, not in size—but in depth. Dozens of rose petals formed along its curve, each glowing with Blood Law runes. With a slash that appeared lazy—but was anything but—Asher unleashed a wave of bloodlight.
The moment it touched the dragon, everything changed.
The nebular fire dimmed.
Blood Reversal Field. A power sealed in the scythe, awakened only by its bond to a Peak World Rank wielder.