The Reincarnated Assassin Is a Genius Swordsman

Chapter 1498 "Analyzed…?" The Fallen's brow furrowed deeply at Evelyn's blatant mockery. "The Black and White Sacred Lotus is a spell I newly created after my resurrection." He drew a breath as a flower mingling black and white bloomed above his palm. "Even if I made it merely as a plaything, do you really think it's possible to analyze a spell you're seeing for the first time right on the spot?" The Fallen raised his deeply sunken eyes, as if telling her to speak sense. "Whether it makes sense or not…." Evelyn raised her right hand, blazing with blue light. "Can't you see it with your own eyes?" She shrugged, pointing at the flame of Mana burning away the Black and White Sacred Lotus. "Hm…." The Fallen's eyes narrowed as he watched the mark of the Black and White Sacred Lotus turn to ash in Evelyn's grip. 'How did she do that?' The Black and White Sacred Lotus wasn't a real flower — it was a spell, a Curse, carved into the enemy's skin. He couldn't understand how she could physically pluck it off and burn it with a flame of Mana, rather than dispelling it or covering it with another spell. "Looks like you're quite surprised?" Evelyn smirked as she watched The Fallen's eyes tremble faintly. "The world's changed a lot while you were rotting away in your grave." She curled her lips, as if teasing The Fallen even further. "For someone who came back to life, if you keep hiding behind that mask…." Evelyn clenched her fist after completely burning away The Fallen's spell. "You'll end up buried in cold ground again." She tilted her chin, saying that she herself was now on an entirely different level than when The Fallen had been alive. "It certainly seems that way." The Fallen let out a hoarse breath as he looked at Evelyn. "It seems the pure girl I once knew is gone." He nodded, calmly acknowledging that Evelyn had changed. "Pure, my ass!" Evelyn glared at The Fallen, grinding her teeth. "You tampered with my memories with your own hands, and now you dare run your mouth like that?" She snorted, saying she knew full well that The Fallen had manipulated her memories. "It was necessary at the time. I won't be offering an apology." The Fallen smiled calmly, as if unbothered even though his memory manipulation had been exposed. "Quite shameless, aren't you? Well, that's better anyway." Evelyn twisted her lips as she drew up her Mana. "Because it'd piss me off even more if you did it and then pretended you didn't!" She smacked her lips, saying she liked that he at least admitted his crime. "A crime? I've never committed a crime." The Fallen chuckled, as if memory manipulation wasn't even a crime. "It's hard enough just facing that face of yours. Let's end this quickly." When Evelyn brought her hands together, ten Magic Circles rose up behind her back. The number of Magic Circles had decreased, but the Mana held within them had grown incomparably stronger and denser than before. "I need to deal with you and then go watch our Raon's fight." Evelyn curled her lips, as if she meant to end The Fallen right away without wasting any time. A storm of Mana rose beneath her feet and began sweeping away everything around her. "Black Mass." As The Fallen moved his left hand, darkness fell from the air and pressed down on Evelyn's Mana. "Your Mana's grown immense, but your control is still crude… hm?" He frowned as he was about to point out Evelyn's shortcomings. Kwaaaaang! The Black Mass pressing down on Evelyn couldn't withstand her immense Mana and burst apart on the spot. "This is…." The Fallen swallowed hard as he watched the darkness split apart, revealing Evelyn smiling behind it. "It's true I'm still crude at it." Evelyn nodded with a grin. "But it's fine as long as my Mana is strong enough to overcome that crudeness, isn't it?" She flicked her hand arrogantly as she crushed The Fallen's darkness through sheer force. "White Thunder." As The Fallen lowered his right hand, the pure white sky was dragged down like a chain and turned into a bolt of lightning that fell upon Evelyn's head. The speed of the White Thunder was faster than light, so much so that it made his earlier attack on the Light Wind Palace Swordsmen seem like child's play. Kwaboom! But The Fallen's White Thunder likewise failed to pierce the wall of Mana Evelyn had raised, and it fizzled out above her head. "Hmm." The Fallen narrowed his eyes as he looked at Evelyn. 'She really is strong enough in Mana to say something like that.' He had known from observing Evelyn that her Mana far exceeded the normal range. But he hadn't expected it to be enough to make his White Thunder simply melt away on its own. 'Still, it's within my expected range.' Evelyn had achieved a level that wouldn't be strange to call an Archmage. But even so, her Martial Prowess wasn't beyond what he had anticipated. "White Slash, Black Fall." As The Fallen raised both hands, the space where Evelyn stood split in half and began to melt away. It was a spell that dissolved the enemy with light and dropped them into darkness. Kwaaang! Evelyn too, seeming to judge that Mana alone wouldn't be enough to withstand this spell, poured Mana into her first Magic Circle. A transparent light rose above the Magic Circle and split The Fallen's spell in two. As the light and darkness were torn apart, the spell itself lost its power and vanished into thin air. "That, could it be…." The Fallen tilted his chin sideways as he watched Evelyn's magic. "Dawn's Purification?" He let out a hollow laugh as he spoke the name of the magic Evelyn had used. "That's right." Evelyn nodded calmly. "I sharpened and refined the dispelling spell Dawn's Purification before casting it." She smiled brightly, saying she'd learned it from watching Raon. "Haha." The Fallen let out a hoarse laugh, as if utterly dumbfounded. 'Does this make any sense?' Dawn's Purification was the lowest-tier spell among all dispelling magic. Seeing that she had erased his White Slash, Black Fall with something so basic, all he could do was laugh. "It's my turn now, isn't it?" Evelyn nodded, as if she'd indulged him enough already, and spread her hand — a blue light burst forth from the Magic Circle behind her back. Kwaaaaaang! The Mana condensed in the Magic Circle surged forward in a massive wave, rushing straight toward The Fallen's head. 'Fast.' The Fallen flinched at the sight of Evelyn's Mana bullet closing in within an instant, stepping back and ducking his head. But Evelyn's Mana bullet, as if it had anticipated The Fallen's movement, sharply changed direction in midair like a peerless Martial Artist and continued tracking its target. Kwaboooom! The Fallen changed direction once more, but Evelyn's magic predicted even that movement and stayed on him, ultimately falling toward his back. "Ngh!" Just before Evelyn's magic touched his back, The Fallen threw up a barrier made of darkness. Kwaboom! But Evelyn's magic crushed through the Mana-absorbing barrier of darkness by sheer force, and set off a violent explosion on The Fallen's back. "Kuhak!" The Fallen let out a harsh groan from the impact of the Mana bullet and doubled over. He barely managed to keep himself from falling to his knees, but his eyes trembled as if the pain were severe. "You're not too shabby yourself." Evelyn smirked as she looked at The Fallen. "To think you'd withstand a Thousand-Layer Mana Bullet with your own body." She nodded, amused that The Fallen had managed to endure her magic. "Setting aside the fact that you've ascended to Transcendence…." The Fallen licked his red lips as he watched Evelyn, clad in immense Mana like a warrior's armor. "What's the story behind that massive Mana of yours?" He narrowed his eyes, saying that even having reached Transcendence, the sheer amount of her Mana was too much. "This?" Evelyn pointed a finger behind her, at Raon fighting Derus Robert. "Our lovebird gave me an elixir." Her cheeks flushed as she said she'd received an Elixir from Raon. "It felt like a waste to just eat it, so I developed a spell to convert the Elixir into Mana and absorbed it that way." Evelyn nodded, saying that thanks to Raon, she'd gained Mana surpassing even Transcendence. "Raon Zieghart, a lovebird..." The Fallen let out a hollow laugh as he looked at Raon. "The world's really become interesting enough that it's a shame I ever died." As The Fallen nodded, seemingly amused, and spread both hands, a massive surge of light and darkness began to rise behind his back. "…." Meanwhile, Raon narrowed his eyes as he blocked Derus Robert's Sword of Beloved Death. 'So she made a spell to absorb the Elixirs I gave her….' He smiled faintly without turning back, as if trusting Evelyn completely. 'Then the outcome is already decided.' * * * Kwaaaaang! The Fallen coughed up black blood and was flung backward. "Whew." He gasped for breath as if he'd barely survived, wiping the blood trickling from his mouth. "Certainly…." The Fallen nodded with a calm expression despite having taken a heavy blow from Evelyn. "You've changed. It seems you're even stronger now than before I died at Raon Zieghart's hands." Evelyn's current Martial Prowess was stronger than his own back when he had led Eden. With her incomprehensible ability to analyze magic and her overwhelming Mana on top of that, she was an opponent he'd struggle to even hold his ground against, let alone defeat. "That's right. And of course, I'm stronger than you are now, too." Evelyn tilted her chin, saying she was stronger than the current Fallen. "Is that so?" The Fallen smiled brightly and straightened his back. "If I'd simply come back to life as I was, that would be one thing, but…." He curled his lips as he looked at Derus Robert. "The one who saved me gave me a very special gift." It was the moment The Fallen's smile deepened. Two more wings sprouted from behind his back. Fwooooosh! The two wings that rose from The Fallen's back resembled his wings of darkness, but their texture was different. Death was creeping forth from them, chilling and skin-crawling, like watching muddy water crawling with maggots. "The very alluring power called death!" As The Fallen spread his four wings, the tier of the Mana enveloping him surged rapidly. Gugugugugu! As The Fallen's Mana grew stronger, Evelyn's presence, which had been dominating the space, began to be crushed as if warping under the pressure. "The only thing I lacked compared to you was the tier of my Mana — that alone." As The Fallen raised his hand, a vortex of light, darkness, and death rose into the sky. The overwhelming light erased the sky over the Holy Sword Alliance, the gloomy darkness swallowed the sun, and the death seemed to devour the hopes of every human below. "Now that the tier of my Mana has surpassed yours, all that remains is your death." The Fallen condensed the three enormous vortices, as if intending to kill Evelyn here and now. "Heh heh." He let out a light, carefree laugh, as if it were nothing to gather the massive vortex that shook heaven and earth into a single hand. "Torrent of All Creation." As The Fallen lowered his hand, the air where Evelyn stood warped, and a massive rotating sphere blending light, darkness, and death enveloped her. Gugugugugugu! Even as Evelyn poured the magic of her Magic Circles into it, the sphere The Fallen had created neither cracked nor wavered, and it slowly shrank, erasing even the slightest chance for her to escape. "Farewell." The Fallen waved his hand at Evelyn, trapped within the Torrent of All Creation. "Death isn't particularly a bad thing, after all." He smiled, saying it was something he could say because he'd experienced death himself. "Ha!" Evelyn sighed as she looked at the sphere of the Torrent of All Creation, which had already shrunk small enough to touch her skin. "I didn't want to pull this out here, but…." She shook her head, her eyes showing not the slightest trace of fear. "Since the Torrent of All Creation has already been activated…." The Fallen scoffed at Evelyn. "Whatever you do, it's useless." It was the moment he was about to clench the hand controlling the Torrent of All Creation to kill Evelyn. Kwabooooom! The spinning of the Torrent of All Creation, which had been about to erase Evelyn without a trace, slowly came to a halt, then burst apart, torn to shreds like a balloon. "Tch." Evelyn clicked her tongue and brushed off her shoulders, seemingly unharmed despite the Torrent of All Creation exploding. "Ha…?" The Fallen's mouth fell open for the first time since the fight began, as he watched Evelyn's calm expression. "H-How…?" His lips trembled as he stared at Evelyn with an expression of utter incomprehension. "Now that I think about it, I never finished what I was saying, did I?" Evelyn smiled brightly and stomped her foot, her Mana surging even further and crushing down in an instant on The Fallen's presence, which had grown stronger from the death aura. "T-This is…." The Fallen clutched his throat, down on one knee, as if he could barely breathe under the weight of Evelyn's overwhelming Mana. "What our lovebird gave me wasn't an elixir, but elixirs." Evelyn spread both hands, saying that Raon hadn't given her just one Elixir, but a massive quantity of them. "This is my true Mana." As she raised her hand, dozens of Magic Circles, each individually powerful enough to shatter The Fallen's spells, rose up all at once. "Aah…." The Fallen's face turned deathly pale as he watched Evelyn's magic rising from every direction, filling the heavens and the earth. "You said death isn't particularly a bad thing, right? Then…." As Evelyn snapped her fingers, the magic aimed at The Fallen fell like a bolt of lightning. "You can just go back there again. Alone, this time." Along with her taunt, The Fallen's wings snapped once more. Kwaaaaaang!