The Reincarnated Assassin is a Genius Swordsman 1390

 Chapter 1390

 

“Master of the Magic Tower, Larian.”

The Secluded Hermit erased the surprise from his face and curled his lips into a smile.

“What brings you here?”

He nodded in a gentle manner, as though he knew nothing.

“Speaking politely again?”

Larian, the master of the Magic Tower, looked down at the Secluded Hermit and gave a faint laugh.

“You can speak as rudely as you did when Raon was beating you up.”

She waved her hand, telling him not to force himself to speak politely and to just talk normally.

“How could I possibly speak casually to the renowned master of the Magic Tower?”

The Secluded Hermit politely bowed his head, saying that he would never do such a thing.

“But….”

He straightened his back and narrowed his eyes.

“What brings you here? No, before that, how did you know I was here?”

The Secluded Hermit let out a murky breath like smoke.

‘I haven’t stirred even the slightest bit of energy from this position. How in the world did she…?’

He had reduced his soul to the bare minimum and hidden behind the monsters to avoid Raon’s Heart Sword, so he could not understand how Larian had found him.

“He told me.”

Larian raised a finger and pointed toward the sky, where golden and crimson flames were colliding.

“He said you’d probably try some dirty trick here, so he asked me to stop you.”

She smiled, saying that she had come here at Raon’s request.

“I-I see….”

The Secluded Hermit looked up at the sky and bit his lip hard.

‘Damn you, Raon Zieghart!’

He is currently fighting Uriel in a battle with his life on the line. One wrong strike from a blade could melt his entire body away, yet he still hasn’t lost track of my presence. I can’t understand what kind of monster he is.

“You’re quite different from….”

The Secluded Hermit slightly twisted his lips as he looked into Larian’s blue eyes, which rippled with an aloofness as lofty as the sky.

“…what I’d heard about your personality.”

He narrowed his eyes, as though asking what had happened to the blanket she had been wrapped in when the war began.

“I’m fired up right now because of a new spell.”

Larian licked her red lips.

“Normally, I’m buried under my blanket, so don’t worry.”

She gave him an eerie smile, saying that he was the reason she was excited.

“Now that your questions are answered, let’s begin.”

Larian tilted her chin toward the Secluded Hermit, telling him to fight with his soul on the line.

“I’d like to, but….”

The Secluded Hermit smiled and lowered his hand.

“I have something urgent to take care of right now, so I’m afraid I’ll have to postpone my battle with you until later.”

After telling her that they would meet again, he vanished from Larian’s sight.

Whoooosh!

The Secluded used a movement spell powered by his soul to move to the opposite side of the battlefield from Larian.

‘That was dangerous.’

It’s not that I fear the master of the Magic Tower, but if she interferes with me, I could lose my chance to change the course of the battle. Now is not the time to deal with her. I have to turn around this collapsing situation.

‘Even Raon Zieghart won’t be able to keep relaying information to her.’

Raon is currently locked in a frantic battle with Uriel, so it will be difficult for him to keep locating me and relaying my position to the master of the Magic Tower. I can use my power now without worrying.

‘First, I need to rearrange our forces.’

Raon Zieghart has played such a shockingly large role in this battle, and I’ve also suffered at his hands, leaving me unable to use even a single one of the tactics and strategies I prepared beforehand.

‘So much has fallen apart because of that damned Raon Zieghart, but….’

The Secluded Hermit bit his lip as he cursed Raon inwardly.

‘I have to act now.’

It’s late, but if I send the monsters to the front as meat shields and have Eden’s executives and the celestials launch a combined attack from behind them, we’ll be able to push back the Five Kings Alliance without much difficulty.

‘And once Hydra is revived, we can turn this battle around.’

Hydra was an existence that embodied violence itself. Once it awakened and began to move, this frustratingly deadlocked situation would be broken open all at once.

‘Of course, I can’t just kill the Black Form Snake outright….’

The Secluded Hermit completed a new plan in his mind and was about to activate a communication spell to set it in motion.

“You went pretty far.”

A clear voice rang out from the air.

“Huh?”

The Secluded Hermit’s eyes trembled as he raised his head. Larian, the master of the Magic Tower, was tilting her chin in exactly the same posture as when he had seen her moments ago.

“How…?”

Raon Zieghart is completely focused on his battle with Uriel. He has no opportunity to relay any information to Larian.

No, even putting that aside, Larian followed me immediately after I moved. There’s no way she could have caught up this quickly unless she tracked me herself rather than relying on Raon’s help.

“I told you.”

Larian calmly waved her hand.

“My research is finished.”

She smiled as though she had already seen through the Secluded Hermit’s soul-based movement technique.

“Th-That’s impossible!”

The Secluded Hermit bit his lip hard.

“You haven’t even learned the Heart Sword! How is that possible!”

He shook his head violently, unable to believe it.

“It’s thanks to Raon.”

Larian looked up at Raon and smiled.

“Don’t lie! Raon Zieghart doesn’t have time for that right now!”

The Secluded Hermit shook his head in disbelief.

“That’s not what I mean.”

Larian calmly shook her head.

“I mean I studied the way Raon targeted your soul and used it to develop a new spell.”

She smiled, saying that thanks to Raon, she had finished her research on a spell that could track souls.

“Of course, there’s still plenty of room for improvement, but I designed it around you, so I can track your soul to the very end.”

Larian brought her hands together, telling him he had something to look forward to. Blue light spun between her long, slender fingers, taking the shape of a lighthouse illuminating the darkness of the sea.

“Stop spouting nonsense!”

The Secluded Hermit shouted and stamped his foot. Sharp tree roots surged from beneath him and shot toward Larian.

“Sloppy.”

Larian sneered, not at the tree roots the Secluded Hermit had launched, but at the sinister spell hidden behind them.

“You’re strong, but it’s obvious you haven’t fought much.”

Telling him to stop using such clumsy tricks, she thrust forward the blue light rising from her hand.

Booooom!

A powerful beam of light descended from the lighthouse orb Larian had created, pierced through the condensed spell, and smashed the Secluded Hermit’s chest behind it.

“Guhhh….”

The Secluded Hermit vomited blood and collapsed on the spot.

“I-It’s useless.”

A dark smile spread across his face despite the pain.

“I-I inherited the power of the World Tree. Something like this won’t kill me.”

The Secluded Hermit twisted his lips as he watched Larian quietly close and reopen her eyes.

“Raon Zieghart is one thing, but you can’t cut souls. You can never kill me….”

Leaving those words behind, he used a soul he had hidden in the opposite direction to regenerate his body.

“Damn it!”

The moment the Secluded Hermit revived, he slammed his fist into the ground.

“Damn you, Raon Zieghart! Even chewing through your flesh and bones wouldn’t satisfy me!”

He screamed from behind the monsters where he had hidden himself.

‘If it weren’t for that bastard, I would never have ended up like this!’

Because of Raon, countless souls had been erased, causing the might of his main body to drop by more than half, and Larian had even developed a spell capable of tracking him.

The thought that all of this was because of Raon only deepened his hatred for him. If he could, he wanted to break every bone in Raon’s body before killing him.

‘Haa….’

The Secluded Hermit steadied his breathing and suppressed the rage boiling inside him.

‘For now, I need to get out of here.’

Larian had developed a spell that could track him, and with his might now reduced by half, he could not defeat her. His best option was to withdraw from the battlefield and issue orders remotely.

‘As far away as possible….’

Just as he was about to activate a movement spell to escape from Larian—

Booooom!

The Secluded Hermit’s head was blown apart by blue light, abruptly cutting off his thoughts.

“Gasp!”

The Secluded revived again from another fragment of his soul and drew a ragged breath.

“Wh-What was that…?”

He blinked, unable to understand what had happened.

“That just now was Larian’s….”

Before the Secluded Hermit could finish his thought, another beam of blue light descended.

Booooom!

Once again, the intense blue light struck its target without fail and smashed the Secluded Hermit’s head apart.

“Ghk….”

This time as well, the Secluded Hermit died without even managing to scream.

“Blue light!”

The Secluded, now revived for the third time, cried out almost like a scream.

“That woman! She’s using light magic to….”

The moment he spat out those words in fury, another blue light descended.

“Guhhh!”

The Secluded Hermit had only just revived, so he failed to evade the light. His chest was shattered once again as he died.

“Th-That’s….”

As he was dying, he looked up at the sky and let out a groan of disbelief.

Wooooong!

A blue lighthouse stood high above the battlefield, and from within it, arrows of blue light were raining down toward him.

“The one who’s truly insane is….”

The Secluded Hermit’s jaw trembled as he stared at the brilliantly flashing arrow of blue light that filled his vision.

"….That bitch."

Feeling fear toward Larian, he died as his head burst apart.

“Is that it?”

Larian watched the Secluded Hermit lie dead with his head and chest destroyed, and the fervor burning in her eyes faded. She lay down atop the magical lighthouse she had created, pulled a blanket over herself, and opened a book.

“Boring.”

Larian yawned as though bored, even after subduing the Secluded Hermit, someone who could easily be considered Eden’s second-in-command, with a single spell.

Even as Larian read her book, complaining that it was no fun, the arrows of light fired by the lighthouse were already ensuring the Secluded Hermit’s fifth death.

Boooooom!

*   *   *

“Ughhhh….”

The Secluded Hermit dragged his tattered body into a nameless forest far from Cameloon. Only after reaching deep into the darkened forest did he finally manage to let out a breath.

“K-Killing me without even looking at me….”

The Secluded Hermit breathed heavily, still unable to believe it even after thinking back on what had happened.

“She’s completely fucking insane….”

Larian had set the spell she created to operate automatically, allowing it to keep slaughtering him over and over again. Even though the spell had no ability to kill his soul, dying repeatedly like that inevitably took a heavy toll on both his mind and soul.

‘I barely survived.’

He had barely managed to escape Larian’s spell by reviving with a powerful burst of energy in one direction, then secretly reviving again in another direction and fleeing. Unlike a lizard that escaped by leaving its tail behind, he had survived by leaving his body behind instead. If her spell had been improved, he would eventually have died without ever escaping that battlefield.

“I’ve lost too much strength….”

Raon had severed his soul, and Larian’s automatic spell had killed him dozens of times. His might had now fallen to only a quarter of what it had been. Even in a head-on fight, he would not be able to defeat Larian.

‘The battlefield isn’t the problem anymore. I need to survive first.’

The situation was different now. He had to survive somehow and recover his strength.

‘First, I need to reclaim the energy and souls I spread throughout the continent….’

Just as the Secluded Hermit was about to devote everything he had to surviving—

Sssssss!

The entire forest where he was hiding swayed as though it were alive, opening a path for someone.

Whooooosh!

Vitality surged through the forest that had been shrouded in the darkness of war, and a brilliant yet elegant light began to bloom.

Fwoooooosh!

The Secluded Hermit’s bloodshot eyes trembled as he looked at the being who guided the light and life of the forest.

“Y-You are….”

 

 

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