The Reincarnated Assassin Is a Genius Swordsman

Chapter 1531 "To cut down the Monarch of Pride with a single strike!" Evelyn ran straight to Raon, not even sparing a glance at Pride right in front of her. "That's Raon for you!" She cheered, saying she had believed Raon would come back. "D-did he really get cut?" Envy, the Monarch of Envy, swallowed dryly as he glanced back and forth between Raon and Pride. "He looks way too fine." He narrowed his eyes, saying there wasn't a single wound on Pride. "The body is fine. But...." Lust, the Monarch of Lust, let out a hollow laugh and shook her head. "His Authority has collapsed." She twisted her mouth upward, telling them to look at how the Authority of Pride he once held had completely vanished. "The vessel of Pride is empty...." Gluttony, the Monarch of Gluttony, gave a short smack of her lips. "Without leaving even a drop of sauce... he ate it all up...." She bowed her head as if saying Raon had devoured every bit of Pride's aura. "For us demon kings... Authority is the soul itself...." Sloth, the Monarch of Sloth, blinked as he looked at Pride. "For his Authority to be entirely cut down... is no different from his soul being cut...." In an extremely rare moment, he offered an explanation of the situation instead of saying he was sleepy. It meant that was how astonishing Raon's Martial Prowess was. "Now that's a jackpot." Greed, the Monarch of Greed, sent a thunderous round of applause toward Raon. "This is why you have to choose your investments wisely." He drew a smile wide enough to split his mouth, seemingly thinking about the returns he could get later in proportion to the help he'd given Raon. -T-this is insane.... Wrath's eyes trembled as though he found it absurd. -How can such insane swordsmanship even.... Even though he had watched it happen right in front of him, he couldn't believe it and kept repeating that it was insane. "How admirable." Pride, the Monarch of Pride, let out a sigh with eyes that had lost all the confidence he had shown just moments ago. "The Authority of Pride that I raised to its full power has completely vanished." True to being the Monarch of Pride, he quickly calmed his excitement and grasped his current state. "Just how did you do it." Pride clenched his trembling hand into a fist. "The Authority of Pride is a power that can never be cut unless this king's spirit is broken." The Authority of Pride hadn't even wavered when he took the full force of Archangel Michael's power. He couldn't understand how his own aura, which had once shattered a strike that had reached the absolute peak, had now been cut away without a trace. "It's not that great a feat." Raon raised the Heavenly Drive, the sword that had cut down the Authority of Pride. "I merely cut the aura I felt and saw." He said he had only cut what he himself had felt and realized, slowly closing and opening his eyes. "You cut what you could see?" Pride's brow furrowed deeply. "Does that mean you saw all of this king's aura?" He raised his voice, demanding a clear answer. "Ah, enough!" Evelyn stepped in front of Pride, who was leaning in with excitement. "If you want to ask questions like that, admit your defeat first." She tilted her chin, saying wasn't the outcome already decided. "Admit?" Pride tilted his chin to the side as if asking what she meant. "If Raon Zieghart had put in just a little more force, it wouldn't have just been the Authority of Pride—this king's body would have split in half." He raised his head, running a hand over his chest where the Heavenly Drive had grazed past. "It's already certain that this king has lost, so what is there to admit." Pride frowned, saying he had suffered such a complete defeat that admitting it wasn't even necessary, so what more was there to admit. "….." Raon drew a faint smile as he gazed into Pride's unwavering eyes. 'Impressive.' So that's what the Monarch of Pride is like. Most powerful figures cannot accept their own defeat. Some bluster that they'd win in a rematch, others declare the outcome void by claiming they were caught off guard, and many refuse to admit defeat, insisting the opponent used a cowardly trick. Simply admitting defeat alone was worthy of applause. But Pride was different. Without offering even a single excuse, he asked about the fight with calm eyes as though accepting his defeat outright. The way he acknowledged the outcome with unshakable confidence that he could still go further showed exactly why he was the Monarch of Pride. -Well.... Wrath smacked his lips as though he disliked praising Pride. -In that regard, at least, he's not a shabby fellow. He nodded, saying that although he didn't like it, credit had to be given where it was due. -Still, even this king didn't expect Pride to admit defeat so easily. Wrath smacked his lips again, as if Pride's reaction was unexpected to him too. -This is the first defeat that fellow has suffered since becoming the Monarch of Pride. He let out a hollow laugh, saying he hadn't expected him to take his first defeat so lightly. "Well, if you admit it!" Evelyn stepped back, saying that was all that was needed once he admitted defeat. "Raon Zieghart." Pride took another step toward Raon. "Tell me. Just what did you see that let you cut away this king's aura without a trace." His eyes blazed with burning enthusiasm, as if he believed Raon's words held a path to climbing even higher. "Flow." Raon opened his mouth calmly. "I could feel where the Authority of Pride you drew out flowed from and to, so I cut that path." It wasn't only Pride's Authority whose flow he could see. From the moment the twelfth ring had been forged and he had returned to reality, the flow of the world felt vividly detailed, as though this continent had become his own body. "Flow, is it...." Pride lowered his chin heavily, as though he understood Raon's words to some degree. "Then how did you go about cutting that flow." He lowered his eyebrows, saying that even if one could read the flow, cutting it wouldn't be easy. "That, too, is flow." Raon answered Pride's question while gazing at the Heavenly Drive. "Not your flow, but mine. I examined my own flow and used the moment and swordsmanship best suited to cutting your Authority." He nodded, saying that to cut the Authority of Pride, he had examined not only Pride but his own flow as well. "Ha...." Pride stepped back after hearing Raon's answer. "Kuhahahahaha!" He raked a hand through his hair and burst into a booming laugh that echoed through the sky. "So that was it! It was about seeing oneself!" Pride struck his own chest hard with his fist. "My thanks. Thanks to you, my mind feels clear." He drew a smile that made his defeat seem forgotten, as though he had gained a great realization from Raon's answer. "Hmm, if that's the method...." Greed, the Monarch of Greed, wiped away the smile he always wore and narrowed his brow, as though he too had felt something from Raon's words. -The flow of seeing oneself.... Wrath, too, sank into deep thought after hearing Raon's words, as if the title Monarch of Wrath hadn't been earned for nothing. "My thanks as well." Raon nodded toward Pride. "Thanks to you, I was able to reduce the casualties." If Pride hadn't held back Archangel Michael, more than half of the ground forces would have been lost. No, if he had joined forces with Derus Robert, it might have been Raon himself who fell. Thanks to Pride's timely appearance, many lives had been saved, and he wanted to make sure to say thanks for it. "Then I suppose we can consider the debts between us settled." Pride let out a short laugh and lowered his gaze. He looked briefly at the Death Sword Spirit, who was watching this way, then took a short breath. "Raon Zieghart." Pride looked at Raon again and raised his fist. "Wait for me. I'll challenge you again next time." He waved a hand as though his connection with Raon wouldn't end here, then opened a dimensional rift and vanished. "Haaam...." Only after Pride disappeared did Sloth pull his blanket back over himself and let out a long yawn. "I'll go too...." He waved his hand once, saying he needed to catch up on lost sleep, and immediately closed his eyes and fell asleep. "You've become quite the fine man." Lust lightly patted Raon's shoulder with a sultry smile on her lips. "W-what are you doing!" Evelyn shrieked, startled by the sight. "A bit of a shame, but I only have eyes for one man." Lust said the only one she wanted was Wrath, and glancing, by coincidence, at the empty air where Wrath floated, she stepped into a pink dimensional rift. "Damn it!" Envy stamped his foot and clicked his tongue. "In the end, I didn't get to do anything at all!" He gritted his teeth, saying not a single thing about this sat well with him. "Next time! Prepare a moment for me to shine next time! Hearing only the other fellows' names called out is worse than dying to me!" Envy spat out words befitting the Monarch of Envy, then flew off into the eastern sky riding a green serpent. "Seems I'll need to do a bit of research into this flow." Greed narrowed his eyes, as though he had gained something but it wasn't yet certain. "My thanks—I've come up with something interesting thanks to you." He raised his gaze, giving off a cool chill. "I'll come to collect the investment and the returns later." Greed curled his lips, as though he intended to call on Raon's strength not now, but later. "Suit yourself." Raon nodded calmly, as though it made no difference to him either way. "Bold of you. Seems I won't need to look far when a new demon king is born soon." Greed left behind the remark that Raon seemed to be the only one who could become the next demon king, then dropped a single gold coin and vanished. "Where's Gluttony...." Raon turned his gaze to look for Gluttony, but she was nowhere to be seen. It seemed she had already disappeared. 'Already gone, huh?' That's so like Gluttony. She appeared without a greeting and vanished without one too, yet somehow she wasn't unlikeable for it, and a laugh escaped him. -..... Wrath kept his eyes closed, only his tail swaying, as though he were still lost in thought about the flow. 'Now then, next....' It was just as Raon was about to survey the battlefield where the demon kings had vanished. "Brother!" Ifrit, the Fire Spirit King, let out a roar as he rose into the sky. "Brother! I believed in you! I knew you'd beat them all down!" He bowed like a street thug, saying he had come here believing Raon would end this war. "Haaa...." Elayim, the Water Spirit King, let out a deep sigh at the sight. "Honestly, where did a thug like that even come from...." She pressed a hand to her forehead, as though embarrassed to be a Spirit King alongside Ifrit. "Thank you both for your help." Raon bowed his head toward the smiling Ifrit and the frowning Elayim. Thanks to these two Spirit Kings buying time against the Demonic Dragon of Destruction, the balance of the battlefield had held. He naturally owed them his thanks as well. "Not at all. If this world falls, it would greatly affect us too." Elayim nodded, saying it had been something necessary for them as well. "No need to thank me! Your business is my business, and your hand is my hand! Call on me anytime you need me!" Ifrit thumped his chest, saying he could do anything as long as Raon commanded it. "Ah, enough already!" Unable to bear Ifrit's behavior ruining the dignity of a Spirit King, Elayim grabbed his ear. "Eughk!" Ifrit's eyes went wide, as though he never imagined his ear would suddenly be grabbed. "You seriously need some proper discipline!" Elayim, dropping formalities for the first time, dragged Ifrit away with a scowl and vanished into the spirit realm. It was the moment when, as the radiant light of Ifrit and Elayim vanished, darkness was about to settle over the world once more. "Uwaaaaaaaaaa!" "The Continental Alliance has won!" "We overcame destruction!" "Long live the Five Kings! Long live the Continental Alliance!" The Martial Artists of the Continental Alliance raised their swords to the sky, roaring and cheering. As the last remaining Revenant's head flew off, every trace of wicked energy lingering in the sacred ground vanished. It was a complete victory. "Waaaaaaaa!" "We won!" "Zieghart!" "Raon! Raon! Raon! Raon!" Even the residents of Zieghart, who had been hiding from the war, came out to sound the trumpets of victory, and the battlefield that had once flowed with endless blood had, before anyone knew it, become a festival ground. "Raon!" "Raoooooon!" Sylvia and Sia, who had been hiding themselves to protect the residents, also waved both arms and shouted Raon's name. Hwaaaaaaaaa! As the rising sun blazed forth with radiant light as if heralding the war's end, the pitch-black darkness that had stained the entire world with wickedness split apart, revealing the blue sky beyond.