MIGHT AS WELL BE OP - Chapter 427

Chapter 427: Heartbeat

A sickening, flesh-tearing sound echoed through the air, sharp and jarring, like thunder ripping through the silence.

Drip.

Drip.

Drip.

The second sound followed, the unmistakable patter of liquid falling to the floor.

Each drop rang in their ears like another thunderclap, but this time, there was a strange rhythm to it, steady, deliberate.

Shock swept across the faces of those watching, freezing them in place as if the world itself had come to a halt.

Then, the third sound emerged.

It wasn’t like the others.

It was a beat.

A heartbeat.

Thump.

Thump.

It was Anthony’s heart.

The Executioner stood before Anthony, his hand effortlessly passing through Anthony’s chest, emerging from the other side to grasp his heart in a cruel, steady motion.

Blood seeped from his arm as Anthony’s life force drained away, crimson rivulets flowing down his limb.

Anthony’s gaze faltered, his once-vibrant eyes dulling as the last remnants of light faded from them.

His body slackened, and in that fleeting moment, the life was extinguished.

Anthony was dead.

Without a moment’s hesitation, the Executioner sent Anthony’s lifeless body, along with the heart, into his space ring.

“You are all nothing but naive children”

The Executioner muttered calmly, his words dripping with amusement.

He flicked his wrist, and the blood on his hand splattered to the ground, as though it were nothing more than a minor inconvenience.

“CAPTAIN!”

“CAPTAIN!”

“ANTHONY!”

“BROTHER!”

Dale, Reynold, Seraphim, and Kingsley cried out simultaneously, their voices echoing with shock and disbelief.

In an instant, their auras erupted, unleashing a torrent of mana and spiritual energy that saturated the air, crackling with raw, unbridled power.

The ground seemed to tremble beneath the sheer force of their reactions, their emotions fueling the surge of energy that enveloped them.

With the momentum he had carefully built up, Reynold shot forward in an instant, his movement a blur of precision and power.

His aura erupted violently around his rapier, crackling with the force of lightning that coiled and surged along the blade, merging seamlessly with its steel.

In the blink of an eye, he was upon the Executioner.

“DIE!”

He roared, his voice a primal cry as he thrust his weapon forward, the speed and strength of the strike capable of shattering the earth itself.

“Pitiful”

The Executioner’s voice was a cold, dismissive whisper as he casually extended a single finger.

With chilling precision, the tip of his finger met the very tip of Reynold’s rapier.

For a brief moment, time seemed to freeze, as if the world itself held its breath.

Then, in an instant, everything erupted in blinding white light, a cataclysmic explosion tearing through the air.

The room trembled violently, the ground shaking beneath them as the shockwave reverberated through the walls.

Yet, none of them moved an inch from their positions.

The Executioner stood unscathed, having effortlessly withstood the full force of the attack with nothing more than a single finger.

Before Reynold could even follow up with another attack, a finger entered his line of sight.

His mind registered it, but his body failed to respond.

Helplessly, he could only stand and watch as the finger loomed closer, growing larger with every passing moment.

Then, in an almost casual motion, the finger flicked forward, aiming directly for his forehead.

But just before it made contact, a barrier of Spiritual Energy materialized around Reynold in that fleeting instant.

It was Seraphim.

Yet, it made no difference.

The moment the finger struck the barrier, it shattered with the sharp, unnerving sound of glass breaking.

With a resounding bam, the finger collided with Reynold’s forehead, and the force sent him hurtling backward.

His body slammed into the distant wall, crashing through it like a ragdoll tossed aside with brutal ease.

Kingsley appeared behind the Executioner in the blink of an eye, his leg shooting upward with deadly precision, aimed directly at the Executioner’s skull.

But the Executioner was unfazed.

With a casual flick of his wrist, he intercepted the attack, his hand coming up to meet Kingsley’s leg with effortless ease.

The collision released a shockwave that sent the air rushing outward, the sheer force of the impact reverberating through the room.

Before Kingsley could capitalize on the moment, the Executioner’s hand shifted, his grip tightening around Kingsley’s foot.

In a smooth, almost playful motion, he lifted and tossed him slightly into the air, as if the strike had been nothing more than a light diversion.

But Kingsley didn’t even have time to begin his ascent before a fist descended upon him.

It struck his gut with the force of an unrelenting storm, driving the breath from his lungs as though the very air had been torn from his chest.

Kingsley’s body shot upward with violent force, crashing into the ceiling as if he were little more than another ragdoll, his impact echoing through the room.

Another attack followed, this time, from Dale.

A swarm of blood weapons, numbering in the thousands, floated ominously around him, pulsating with an eerie energy.

With a subtle command, they shot forward, a relentless barrage aimed at the Executioner.

But the Executioner only smiled, a cold, mocking expression that spoke of inevitable victory.

He moved then, as though the very air parted before him. Slipping between the incoming attacks like smoke, he was untouchable, unstoppable.

Each movement was a blur, so swift it seemed as though time itself bent to his will, each motion a fraction of a second, a stolen instant.

Wherever he passed, he left behind nothing but fleeting echoes, ghostly images of himself that dissipated into nothingness, swallowed by the very fabric of reality.

He did not flee; he flickered, a phantom that appeared exactly where he needed to be, his form a cruel reflection of inevitability.

In the blink of an eye, the Executioner was beside Dale, a blood spear now clenched in his hand, its edge glinting darkly.

Dale’s mind moved, attempting to regain control of the spear.

But to his shock, the blood seemed to defy him, slipping beyond his reach, no longer answering his command.

Before he could react, the Executioner struck.

A hundred thrusts, each faster than a heartbeat, each landing with brutal precision before the mind could even register the motion.

Searing pain exploded in Dale’s brain as the Executioner targeted the most sensitive, agonizing points of his body, each strike amplifying the torment.

With a fluid spin, the Executioner whirled the spear, then drove the shaft into Dale’s ribcage with devastating force.

The sound of a sickening crack reverberated through the room, like a bone being splintered under immense pressure.

Dale’s body was thrown sideways, crashing into a glass pane with bone-jarring force.

The glass shattered upon impact, the fragments scattering in all directions.

Yet, impossibly, the glass began to repair itself, reforming with eerie precision as if it had never been broken.

In a matter of seconds, the Executioner had dispatched each of them with effortless precision.

“While this has been… amusing, I’m afraid I have more pressing matters to attend to”

The Executioner said, a chilling smile curving across his lips as he began to turn on his heel.

But before he could take another step, a crushing weight descended from above.

It was Kingsley.

Though he possessed no energy, his presence alone seemed to suffocate the very air around him.

The oppressive aura radiating from him was like a storm cloud, dark and foreboding, casting an unnatural stillness over everything in its wake.

Kingsley’s lips parted, his voice cutting through the tense air.

“Muscle Memory Of The World”

In that moment, his body seemed to shift, the very structure of his muscles realigning and rearranging in real time, as if the fabric of his being was being rewritten.

This was one of the abilities granted by his Divine Kata Talent.

With this skill, Kingsley could instantly replicate any martial movement or style after observing it just once.

His body mimicked, adapted, and perfected it on the fly, seamlessly integrating it into his own combat style.

But Kingsley wasn’t finished.

His lips parted once more as he activated another technique.

“Pulse Step”

This footwork technique bent perception and defied the laws of physical positioning.

With each step, he seemed to vanish from sight, only to reappear in another location.

It was not teleportation, but an astonishing display of speed and spatial manipulation, his movements so swift and unpredictable that they seemed to warp reality itself.

Even techniques designed to track and sense were rendered useless, struggling to lock onto his ever-shifting presence.

In an instant, Kingsley seemed to vanish, as if he had been erased from existence itself.

Then, as if the crushing force of reality had collapsed upon itself, Kingsley reappeared.

But this time, he was standing beside the Executioner, his presence calm, his eyes cold.

Without warning, his fist shot forward with meteoritic force.

As his fist moved, space itself seemed to fracture, the air shattering like fragile glass in the wake of his strike.

The Executioner, ever unshaken, adjusted his footwork with deadly precision.

His hand clenched into a fist, and with a fluid motion, he struck in return.

The two fists met at a singular point in space, and the collision that followed could only be described with one word: