The Reincarnated Assassin is a Genius Swordsman 1300

 Chapter 1300

 

Rumbleeeee!

The pressure they carried was on an entirely different level from the nobles who had come seeking Sage Doraen until now.

Faced with the overwhelming presence created by the King of Winten and the royal guards who followed him, the crowd unconsciously swallowed dryly and stepped back.

“I have heard that a cultist who is deceiving the people of Winten resides here!”

A white-haired middle-aged man who appeared to be the captain of the royal guards stamped his foot and raised his voice. The heavy shockwave he unleashed made the ground beneath the countless people gathered there tremble.

“To save the people who have fallen under the sway of evil, the Sky of Winten has personally descended! Cultists, kneel!”

As if he had no intention of talking in the first place, the captain of the royal guards drew the sword at his waist. Its blade reflected the midday sun, shining brilliantly.

“Ugh…”

“Th-The royal guards!”

“I can’t breathe…”

Both those who had come to meet Sage Doraen and those who had already received his help and followed him fell to their knees and bowed their heads.

Whooooooom!

As countless people knelt and bent forward, a middle-aged man wearing a golden crown and a crimson cloak stepped out from behind the captain of the royal guards. He was not particularly fat, but his frame was so massive that he looked like a giant in motion.

"Bring that cult leader before me."

The King of Winten jerked his chin and ordered them to drag that cult leader before him at once.

“Yes, Your Majesty!”

The captain of the royal guards bowed and turned around. Cloaking his body in vivid mana as if determined to carry out the royal command to the letter, he started down the path lined with kneeling subjects.

“Ghk!”

“N-No!”

“Stop them! Stop them no matter what!”

“Don’t let them harm him!”

The people, who normally would not even dare raise their heads before the king, forced themselves to their feet while resisting the knights' energy waves.

“S-Sage Doraen is not a cultist!”

“He is the one who erased our pain and suffering!”

“Please do not speak of him so carelessly!”

“He is my god!”

The people who had received Sage Doraen’s help bit their lips and stood in front of the royal guards, making it clear they would never step aside.

“Y-You lunatics!”

“What are you doing?! Move aside!”

“We are carrying out the king’s command!”

The royal guards widened their eyes in shock. The very people they had always regarded as little more than insects had risen up against them. In response, they unleashed even greater pressure.

“W-We cannot move aside!”

“He is absolutely not evil! He stayed awake day and night caring for us!”

“Please, we beg you to understand!”

Even as they coughed up blood under the pressure of the royal guards, the people refused to retreat and stood their ground.

“Wh-What…”

“Hm?”

The royal guards let out low groans of confusion. The people's eyes were not vacant or bewitched. If anything, they shone more clearly and intelligently than ever before.

“What are you all doing?!”

The king, who had been idly cleaning his ear with a finger, stomped his foot in irritation.

“They've already fallen under that cultist's spell! Kill every last one of them and bring him before me!”

He waved the hand still stained with earwax impatiently, urging the knights forward.

“Y-Yes!”

The captain of the royal guards bit his lip and raised his sword.

“From this moment on, anyone who defends that cultist will be cut down alongside him!”

His meaning was clear, anyone who stood in their way would die.

“Ugh!”

“We must not retreat!”

“Protect Sage Doraen!”

“We have to protect him!”

Yet even before the knights' gleaming blades, the people did not back down. With their hands clasped together, they continued to stand firm.

“Kill them!”

Feeling the king's gaze on his back, the captain of the royal guards raised his sword high. Just as he and the other royal guards gritted their teeth and swung their blades down—

A burst of blue light erupted from among the crowd.

Kyaaaaaang!

It wasn't Burren or Martha.

The nobles and warriors who had received Sage Doraen’s help moved of their own accord and blocked the royal guards’ swords.

“Count Asak?”

The captain’s mouth fell open as he stared at the man who had stopped his sword.

“Why you?!”

His chin trembled as he failed to understand why Count Asak had stepped forward.

“That man is not a cultist.”

Count Asak nodded while holding back the captain’s sword.

“He is the one who swept away the distress I carried for my entire life in a single instant.”

He shook his head firmly, insisting that Sage Doraen was no fraud.

“Asak! Have you lost your mind?!”

The King of Winten recognized Count Asak's face as well and ground his teeth.

“This is treason! Every last one of you here is a traitor! Behead them all!”

He roared for the knights to stop showing mercy and slaughter everyone present.

“Ghh…”

The captain bit his lip deeply as he looked at Asak.

“Asak. You should never have stepped forward.”

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment before opening them again and pouring more power into his sword.

“Kill them all!”

Just as the captain of the royal guards gave the order for a massacre and moved to cut down even Count Asak—

“Stop.”

A low voice drifted through the screams of the people and the deafening clash of weapons. It was quiet and subdued, yet it pierced through every other sound and settled clearly in everyone's ears.

Swoooooosh.

Sage Doraen, who had been resolving the people's concerns while wearing nothing but a robe, without even a tent overhead. 

No.

Raon Zieghart rose to his feet.

As the man who had not made his presence felt until now began to walk forward, the dark clouds parted, the sandstorm subsided, and the people dropped to their knees and bowed their heads as though they were beholding their true king. It was a mysterious yet uncanny sight, as if a god had truly descended into the mortal world.

Raon accepted it all without the slightest change in expression and walked toward the King of Winten.

Step.

With every footstep Raon took, the people lowered their heads even further, while the knights' swords and breathing gradually settled on their own.

Everyone was overwhelmed by the majestic presence of a man who could bring a battle to a halt with nothing more than the sound of his footsteps.

“Th-That…”

The captain of the royal guards swallowed dryly, shaken by the existence of a man unlike anything he had ever seen before. “He is neither a god nor a sage. He is merely...”

Still struggling to hold back the captain’s sword, Count Asak spoke.

“...a man who embraces those who are suffering, as he did for me!”

He nodded, saying that meeting Sage Doraen had allowed him to grow as a person.

“Even so, the moment His Majesty decreed punishment, that man became evil!”

The captain knocked Asak aside.

“As a noble of this kingdom, I cannot defy the king’s command!”

“I will kill him myself!”

He charged straight toward Raon and brought down his sword, which blazed with a blue radiance.

But the captain's sword never reached Raon.

Whoooosh!

The captain of the royal guards stood frozen with his sword halted above Raon's head, his hand trembling uncontrollably.

“Wh-What are you doing?! Split his skull open immediately!”

The King of Winten screamed at him.

“Th-This...”

The captain bit his lip until it bled.

It was not his own will that had stopped the sword.

Yet no matter how hard he tried, he could not move his hand.

“Your sword energy is quite impressive.”

Raon gave the captain a slight nod and calmly walked past him.

“Ah...”

Despite never being attacked, the captain of the royal guards collapsed to the ground, gasping for breath.

"Your sword is sharp. Rest for a while."

Raon smiled faintly as he continued forward.

As Raon walked forward with a faint smile, the royal guards who had intended to slaughter the people collapsed one after another.

Judging by their breathing, they were neither dead nor injured.

They had merely lost consciousness.

“So you are the Sky of Winten.”

After putting all of the royal guards to sleep, Raon approached the King of Winten, who stood behind them all.

“N-No! Stay back, you devil!”

The king was terrified of Raon, but his legs had gone weak. Unable to flee, he stumbled backward and fell onto the ground.

He looked nothing like the man who had arrived earlier, radiating authority and crushing the people beneath his pressure.

“Demon, you say...”

Raon curled his lips into a faint smile as he stood before the King of Winten.

“And yet you're the one possessed by a demon.”Top of Form

The King of Winten was not acting of his own free will.

It was obvious that he was following someone else's instructions, someone else's commands.

‘So this is how his soul was being controlled.’

Perhaps it was because I had been focused on training my Heart Sword while reading the souls of others. Within the King of Winten's soul, I sensed a foreign presence that should never have existed there in the first place.

‘Sariel's divine power, no doubt.’

As expected, it seemed that the King of Winten had fallen under Sariel's control and had come here intending to kill me.

That is incorrect.

Wrath shook his head.

The trace of divine power is too faint for him to have fallen under Sariel's sway directly.

He shook his head again.

He has not fallen under Sariel's control. It seems he has fallen under the control of one of Sariel's slaves!

He snorted, insisting that the King of Winten had not been controlled by Sariel himself, but by a slave under Sariel's command.

‘A slave's slave, then.’

Raon let out a quiet chuckle.

'Just as you said, he's a cautious one.'

The fact that Sariel had sent not one of his own slaves, but a slave beneath them, proved that Wrath was right.

Sariel was exceptionally cautious.

'Then I should attack his pride instead.'

It would be a waste of time to capture one of Sariel's slaves first and then go after Sariel afterward.

Sariel was undoubtedly watching this entire situation.

I needed to provoke him so thoroughly that next time he would have no choice but to reveal himself.

Provoke his pride? How?

Wrath's eyes widened with curiosity.

‘Sariel probably sees humans as nothing more than slaves or livestock. If one of those humans...’

Raon curled his lips into a faint smile as he looked at the fear-stricken King of Winten.

‘...were to take one of his slaves away from him, his pride would inevitably take a hit.’

You can do that?

Wrath let out a disbelieving breath.

‘All I have to do is sever the divine power Sariel planted within the king's soul.’

Raon shook his head as if it were nothing.

You insane bastard...

Wrath's jaw dropped.

Sariel's divine power is minuscule and constantly moving! Cutting it out from within that human's soul is no different from finding a needle on a wave-swept shore!

He shook his head vigorously, insisting that it was impossible.

‘Ordinarily, it would be impossible.’

Activating the Ring of Fire, Raon took another step toward the King of Winten.

'But right now, I can do it.'

The Ring of Fire, the Ten Thousand Flames Cultivation, Glacier, and even his mental world were all operating at full capacity.

With his Heart Sword honed through constant training, he could now cut even Sariel's divine power, drifting through the king's soul like a lone tadpole swimming through a vast ocean.

Wooooooong!

Raon formed a tiny dagger by shaving off a fragment of his soul and guided it into the King of Winten's soul.

Swoooooosh!

The moment he pinpointed Sariel's divine power leisurely drifting through the king's soul, he thrust forward the blade he had sharpened to the utmost limit.

Paaaaang!

*   *   *

"Gah!"

Sariel shot up from his golden throne.

"What is this...?"

He had been observing the human known as the Sage through the eyes of the King of Winten when his connection to the slave was abruptly severed.

He had no idea what had happened.

He tried to enter the King of Winten's soul once more, but there was no response whatsoever.

It could only mean that the slave had broken free of the leash he had placed upon him.

'How did he do it...?'

The man called the Sage had done nothing more than extend his hand, yet Sariel could not understand how the connection between himself and his slave had been cut.

More importantly, it made no sense for a mere human to sever his divine power.

“So he has a few tricks after all?”

Sariel let out a cold sneer and kicked the King of Sarion, who was kneeling so low he was practically crawling.

"Very well. Then I'll deal with this personally."

He raised his chin arrogantly as he looked down at the royals and nobles panting with their tongues hanging out like obedient dogs.

"Just like these insects..."

His eyes gleamed with contempt.

“I'll make them crawl at my feet for the rest of their lives.”

 

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