To his credit, the senior assassin reacted quickly. Whipping up his hands, he aimed literal finger pistols at Asher and fired two of the small, burning orbs directly at his head. Asher flickered through the astral effortlessly, letting the two projectiles shoot straight through him. Seeing this, the man's face paled slightly, and he slowly lowered his hands.

"The Reaper," he said, his voice gruff from having spent the last few minutes shouting at his subordinates. "I take it that means Fin failed to take you out?"

"Ohh, you mean this guy?" Asher asked, pulling the shark-man's corpse out of thin air and dumping it on the ground at his feet. "Yeah no, not quite. I have to ask, is that one of your cool nicknames you give people, like the fin of a shark, or was his name actually Fin?"

The senior assassin's face paled even further at Asher's horrifying magic act, and he took a hesitant step back. Ignoring his question, he grit his teeth. "I suppose I finally understand why Fox put a kill order on you."

"Fox? There's a name I haven't heard yet," Asher admitted, scratching his chin with the tip of one of his daggers. "Is he like your version of Owl? Guy clad in shadows, utterly terrifying to look at?"

To his surprise, the senior assassin blinked and nodded, seemingly without even realizing it. "Yes… Yes, he is."

Huh… Maybe it's an artifact each of the Knuckles carry that gives them that strange shadowy look.

"That's good to know, but that's not why I'm here," Asher admitted. "See, I'm in need of two things. Shards, and getting you idiots to stop attacking me. Your shark-boy was one thing, but the guy with the tree powers made two hits in two days. It's beginning to get annoying."

"You killed Limb?" the assassin asked, his eyes widening.

"Probably. You guys really need to start wearing name-tags or something." Asher sighed, waving a dagger lazily toward him. "Take you for example. Should I just assume you're called 'hot-ball,' or do you have an actual name you use?"

"Slag," the man said, a bit of color returning to his face as he spoke his name out loud. "And if you think I'm just going to stand here and let you insult me to my face, you're mistaken."

"Go on then, let's see what you've got!" Asher grinned, motioning for him to make a move. "The only reason I didn't silently kill you is because I want you to make this interesting. I can see how much death and pain you've brought onto the innocent people of this world, which makes you the perfect training aid!"

"I'll make you regret that decision!" Slag shouted, bringing up his finger guns again and unloading at him far faster than he had against the two younger assassins.

Asher frowned, flickering in and out of the astral as he walked forward, effortlessly dodging the flaming spheres and hoping this wasn't the extent of the man's abilities. While obviously deadly, his projectiles were far easier to dodge than Moxy's air blasts, which meant this battle was off to a rather disappointing start. He wanted to feel the rush that came with battling to the death, to strain his skills and push them to the next level. While killing the man with a single dagger thrust to the heart was possible, that wouldn't satisfy his hunger for battle or help him improve any of his skills.

Thankfully, once he'd covered half the distance between them, Slag changed tactics. Dropping into a crouch, he placed a hand against the ground, and the entire floor of the warehouse flashed as it was transformed into a solid sheet of iron. Asher blinked at the wide-scale transformation, impressed that a skill was capable of such a feat. Even so, he didn't really see how this helped the man.

Right up until his feet began burning.

"Oh, you son of a-" Asher hissed, all but dancing about as the warehouse floor was transformed into a roasting hot griddle in an instant. He could feel the intense heat radiating off the floor, and even with his Complete Resilience helping with the heat and pain, he couldn't stand there and take it. He was pretty certain his shoes would melt within seconds if he even tried, followed quickly by his skin and flesh.

A quick trip into the astral revealed that the magical heat carried on over there as well, which was a startling discovery. Instead, he returned to the material realm and used Distortion to reach up and grab one of the rafters. Yanking himself off the roasting floor, he glared down at the laughing assassin.

"Not so scary now, are you Reaper!" Slag grinned, raising his hands and unloading another barrage of flaming spheres up into the rafters.

Trusting in his assassin class, Asher nimbly danced from rafter to rafter as he evaded the attack, timing his flickers just right to dodge the balls that got too close. Unfortunately, while he didn't want to kill the man so soon, he couldn't really fight on the floor as it was, and the flaming spheres were making quick work of his perches. Realizing he could level one of his skills and buy himself some time to think at the same time, he stopped on one of the final rafters, summoning a bubble around himself with Spatial Lock. As he finally stopped dodging, rather than turning him into swiss-cheese, the flaming spheres burst against his invisible wall of force upon impact. Using his Spatial Lock like this was remarkably inefficient, as every time a fireball connected he lost another chunk of energy, but he had more than enough to keep this up for at least a short while.

Alright, that's one skill getting trained… he thought as Slag began shouting curses up at him, demanding he stopped whatever it was he was doing. What else can I do?

Incorporate and Eternal Mark were his closest skills to the level 20 cap, but he didn't really see a way to train them in this battle. He could try and get a mark on the man, but he already had all six of his marks filled up, and he didn't really feel like heading back to Helpha's place to place a new mark in it if he didn't have to.

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Unfortunately, while he was busy thinking, a deep, groaning sound from all around him alerted him to something rather critical he'd forgotten.

Ceiling rafters weren't just for show.

Asher's eyes shot open as the ledge he was standing on snapped under all the strain, and the entire warehouse roof collapsed all at once. Slag had destroyed all the other rafters, and the weight of the roof proved to be too much for the final one to hold. As he fell, he reflexively triggered Comprehend's second tier ability.

Well… that's a pretty silly mistake to make, he admitted to himself, staring up at the falling roof. He wished he could turn to look at his opponent, but his body was frozen facing upwards. He wasn't in any actual danger, as he could simply slip into the astral and dodge the metal sheets that were coming down at them, but the same couldn't be said about Slag.

Eh. No real loss. This guy wasn't much of a fun battle anyway.

At Asher's command, time snapped back to normal, and he continued plummeting to the ground. Nimbly landing on his feet in no small part thanks to the assassin class, Asher slipped into the astral just in time to dodge a large metal shingle spearing straight through him into the ground, followed immediately after by a loud, smash of metal as the rest of the roof hit the ground.

Curiously, Asher found he was actually able to climb up and out of the wreckage from within the astral. It seemed a loose pile of objects didn't stop him from phasing through them, even if the pile was wider than his usual six-foot-limit. If he willed it, he could even phase his body through some of the pieces while keeping the one under his foot solid. Once he was on top of the wreckage, he returned to the material realm, coughing as he sucked in a lungful of dust.

Great thinking, genius, he coughed, trying to wave the dust out of his face. The collapsing warehouse had kicked up an insane amount of dust and smoke and he couldn't see more than two feet in front of him. Finding that guy's shards is going to be a pain and a ha-

Pain lanced through his chest and he gasped, staring down at the twin holes in his torso. One had pierced straight through his abdomen, and the other had narrowly missed his heart, instead spearing through his upper shoulder. The white fire had all but disintegrated his flesh and bone as it shot through him, barely even slowing down as it traveled.

The moment the balls shot through him, Asher reflexively slipped into the astral, narrowly dodging the next few dozen attacks that shot through the space he'd just been occupying.

Damn it, he hissed, carefully examining his injuries as the attacks kept coming. I guess that guy was a senior assassin for a reason.

Despite his lackluster performance, Asher had to admit the man certainly had firepower. Literally. The twin balls of flame had done far more damage than any bullet ever could, all but erasing the flesh and bone they passed through. The only good news was that the heat was so insanely powerful, both wounds had been cauterized by the attack as well. The hole going through his abdomen, while painful, wasn't much of an issue in the short term. But the one that narrowly missed his heart felt as though it had burned through a hefty chunk of muscle. He could tell just by flexing that his left arm would be a bit weakened until Eternal Regeneration could do its thing.

At least that's another skill getting a workout, he chuckled to himself, shaking his head. While annoying, leveling his skills was exactly what he'd set out to do, so he couldn't be too upset. If anything, he was just embarrassed at how badly he'd been wounded by someone he viewed as a joke.

Moving a bit to the side, Asher took a deep breath before returning to the material realm. He was pretty certain Slag was just as blind in the dust cloud as he was, and he figured it was only his coughing that had given away his location. Moving toward the source of the fireballs, Asher lashed out with Distortion, stabbing a blade in the assassin's general direction.

A yelp of surprise was all the confirmation he needed that he'd found his target, and Asher smiled as he went to rush in.

Only to nearly get his eyebrows singed off by the sudden, familiar wall of flame that erupted outward.

Having been half expecting this skill ever since the start of their fight, solely due to his brief battle with Inferno back in Whikoga, Asher slipped into the astral just in time to save himself, the intense flames giving him little more than an impromptu tan. While he'd known there was no guarantee two different Fire element holders would end up with the same skill, burst-type skills were fairly common. The massive amount of fire did a fantastic job of clearing the dust, and Asher got a clear look as to just how Slag had managed to survive the collapsing ceiling.

As if imitating Helpha, Slag stood there, his flesh having been transformed into solid iron. Unlike Helpha however, the man's body didn't look nearly so perfect, and his skill was clearly far from invulnerable based on the dents and scratches he'd suffered from the collapsing ceiling. It seemed Asher's own strike with his steel dagger had done little more than draw a thin line across the man's shiny new form, but no blood was coming out.

"Iron and Fire, huh?" Asher said, appearing out of thin air directly before the man and causing him to flinch back. "I guess that explains the moniker 'Slag,' doesn't it?"

"You said you wanted shards? Here! Take them!" the man shouted, summoning a large violet orb and hurling it at him. The sight of Asher standing there, perched upon the collapsed roof and looking unimpressed despite the two holes burned through his torso must have resonated with the assassin, as he began pleading. "I can help you find the other senior assassins! I can give you information! There are only four cells in the city, and each one has three senior assassins manning it. I can't help you with the Finger, but I can tell you where to find the others, or what elements they have!"

"That doesn't sound like it would be a very fun fight, now does it?" Asher asked, tutting at the man even as he absorbed the offered shards. If he'd actually had information on the Finger, Asher might have been interested, but he wasn't nearly as worried about the senior assassins as he was whoever was in charge of Dormaul. Knowing their elements would be useful, of course, but he needed to get more practice fighting against unknown enemies now while he still could. "Though I do appreciate the heads up about the different cells. That's good to know."

With a roar, Slag lashed out, his iron hand turning white hot as he went to grab Asher's face and burn his way straight through into his brain.

In response, Asher flickered through the astral, appearing next to the man and slashing out with his new dagger, separating Slag's head from his body in a single strike. His eyes widened as the mithral dagger seemed to almost leave a blue streak in the air behind its attack, forming a natural crescent for the faintest of moments before it faded from view.

"I guess that explains the name," he muttered, examining the beautiful blade. Despite its near-ethereal quality making it look more fragile than ever, the mithral had sliced through Slag's iron form as though it were cutting through paper. As Slag's body crumpled to the ground and his aura winked out of existence, Asher wiped his newest blade off on the man's body before turning to take in the destroyed warehouse. The dust cloud was finally starting to settle, which meant it was time for him to take his leave.

"Three down," he muttered, focusing on Recall and teleporting back to Helpha's shop before he was spotted. "Plenty more to go."

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