The Reincarnated Assassin Is a Genius Swordsman

Chapter 1535 "A god? You're saying you're a god...?" Derus Robert glared at Raon and gritted his teeth. "Don't you dare put the word 'god' in that worthless mouth of yours!" He spat out fierce fury, as if he believed he had surpassed the standing of a human. "Is being a god such a big deal?" Raon twisted his lips into a smirk as he looked at Derus Robert's distorted eyes. "If an ass-wipe like you can become a god, I guess I could too, right?" He tilted his chin, bringing up the word Derus Robert hated most. "What kind of god should I be? My friend called me the demon king of mockery, so maybe the god of mockery would be good." Raon smacked his lips, saying becoming the god of mockery didn't sound bad at all. "Nonsense, from a human crawling on the ground!" Derus Robert let out a roar, unleashing a terrifying death aura powerful enough to crush and burst Raon apart. "Crawling on the ground? Can't you see I'm flying right now?" Raon calmly absorbed Derus Robert's bone-chilling energy wave while pointing at his feet floating in midair. "So you became a god, and now your eyes have gone dim too?" He shrugged, openly mocking Derus Robert. -Kfft! Wrath burst into laughter listening to Raon's words. 'Why are you laughing?' Raon only shifted his eyes slightly, glancing at Wrath, who was laughing with a hand over his mouth. -Watching that childish mockery of yours…. Wrath lifted his head, the corners of his mouth curling up. -It reminded me of the old days, and this king burst into laughter without even realizing it. He chuckled, saying that hearing, after so long, the same childish taunts Raon had always carried since childhood brought back a fond nostalgia that made him laugh. -Truthfully, this king cannot understand it. Wrath smacked his lips briefly and looked at Derus Robert. -Derus Robert's Martial Prowess is honestly astonishing even to this king. A power that both could not, and should not, exist in this world. A presence that would not be strange to call a god in the literal sense. And yet…. He slowly turned his eyes, looking at Raon with an even more astonished gaze. -How can you, with far less energy than him, block it? No, more than that, why are you so at ease about it! Wrath tilted his head, seemingly unable to understand how Raon was calmly blocking Derus Robert's overwhelming death aura. 'The answer is simple.' Raon slowly nodded his chin as he watched Derus Robert amplify his death aura even further. 'It's because I'm stronger than that bastard.' He was calm, neither bluffing nor being falsely modest, simply stating a fact. "Haah…." Derus Robert, seemingly thinking he had gotten too excited, exhaled a low breath and forcibly suppressed the anger rising to his throat. "Do you truly believe you've stopped me?" He tilted his chin toward Raon as if pitying him. "My army is merely catching its breath." Derus Robert reached out his hand toward the army of the dead, still crushed beneath Raon's Willpower. "Rise!" As he amplified his death aura and gave the command, the army of death that had knelt under Raon's Willpower slowly began to rise. "Between me, now a god, and you, a mere human, there lies an insurmountable difference in species…." It was just as Derus Robert curled his lips upward, watching the dead begin their advance once more. "Kneel." Raon resonated his twelve Rings of Fire, releasing an even stronger Willpower. The instant his Willpower met the pure mana of nature and spread across the world, the dead who had been about to devour the humans knelt once more, driving their heads into the cracked earth. Kuuuuuung! The shock of tens of thousands of the dead kneeling and bowing at once sent tremors shaking through the entirety of the Holy Sword Alliance's sacred ground. A power that alone crushed tens of thousands of troops. Martial Prowess that would not be strange to call the Sword God's own. "Ha...?" Derus Robert's eyes rolled back, twisted. He gnashed his teeth, unable to comprehend the dead kneeling before Raon. "Don't listen to the commands of such vermin!" Derus Robert made a flippant gesture unbefitting a god, shouting at the dead crushed beneath Raon's energy wave to rise. "Your master is me!" He summoned an even denser death aura to push back against Raon's energy wave, raising the dead. Geugeugeugeugeugeu! The dead wanted to rise at Derus Robert's command, but seemingly unable to overcome Raon's pressure entirely, they trembled all over, staring up at the sky. "If you wanted to enforce discipline, you should've done it before the war." Raon smirked as he watched the dead forcibly rising at Derus Robert's shout. "Since both sides look like they're having a hard time…." He spread his hand wide, covering the dead rising from the ground. "This god of mockery will take care of it." Raon called himself a god and drew out the death aura imbued in his Crimson Peak. He resonated the reddened death aura with his twelve Rings of Fire and scattered it towards the dead. Hwaaaaaaaa! The moment Raon's death aura fell like faint snowflakes. Saaaaaa! The dead, who had been straightening their knees at Derus Robert's command, crumbled apart. Like a dry sandcastle that had never once been touched by a drop of water. The corpses that had overcome death and risen scattered away as a handful of ash. "T-they're gone!" "The dead have disappeared!" "W-what just happened?" "It, it's the Sword Sage! The Sword Sage cut down the dead!" The martial artists of the Continental Alliance blinked their terror-filled eyes as they watched the tens of thousands of dead, who had snarled right up to their faces, burn away into ash. Realizing that Raon had erased the dead, they cried out, calling him the god of the sword, the Sword God. "No…." Derus Robert's eyes darted rapidly as he chewed on his lips. "What is this…." He watched the tens of thousands of dead melting away, his jaw trembling with an expression as if he had just had a nightmare. "I'm asking what this is!" Derus Robert screamed at Raon, demanding he answer for what he had done. "You saw it with your own eyes." Raon twisted his lips as he gathered back into his hand the death aura scattering through the air. "I returned the dead to the place they were originally meant to be." He shrugged, saying he had simply sent the dead back to where they belonged. "Surely the god of death isn't asking because he doesn't know that?" Raon raised an eyebrow, asking why he'd bother asking when he already knew. "Raon Zieghart…." Derus Robert muttered Raon's name as if wishing him dead and raised his hand. "How dare a mere human defy the workings of a god!" He raised his hand, still calling himself a god. "Rise!" Derus Robert raised his hand, death aura exploding from it, as if to summon an even greater army of death. But this time, nothing happened. There was not even the slightest tremor in the ground, as if not a single dead body remained in this land anymore. "W-what!" Derus Robert's eyes trembled as he watched. "How is this…." "Not listening to me, are you?" Raon tilted his chin sideways as he watched the flustered Derus Robert. "I already told you. I returned the dead to where they were originally meant to be." He waved his hand, saying he hadn't simply killed the dead, but had sent them up to heaven. "Bullshit!" Derus Robert screamed at Raon. "Do you think that makes any sense! The master of death is standing right here!" He gnashed his teeth, saying it was impossible for the dead to attain buddhahood without his permission. "Why not?" Raon shot back bluntly. "I've mastered death aura too, you know?" He said he had raised his death aura beyond even Derus Robert's, moving his fingertips. Gooooooo! Following the motion of Raon's fingertips, the death aura Derus Robert had gathered began drifting toward him. Sssssss! Raon curled his lips as he absorbed the death aura Derus Robert had been emitting without the slightest resistance. "T-that's impossible…." Derus Robert's eyes went wide as he watched the death aura he himself had drawn out being absorbed into Raon. "It can't be! I even gathered the Demonic Dragon's Authority of Destruction to evolve my death aura!" He let out what sounded like a scream, insisting that the death aura he had created was completely different from the ordinary kind. "This is absolutely…." Derus Robert bit his lip until it bled. "This is absolutely impossible!" He had deliberately become the Demonic Dragon's slave, a Revenant, in order to obtain its Authority of Destruction. Like water slowly wearing through stone, over the thousand years the Demonic Dragon lay sealed, he had patiently brainwashed and conditioned it into a puppet obeying only his commands, then killed it, drank its essence, and offered the blood of ten thousand people as sacrifice to become the true god of death — he could not understand how something like this was possible. "It's not absolutely impossible at all." Raon calmly nodded his chin as though mocking Derus Robert. "Because I evolved my death aura too." After experiencing true death himself, he had mastered death aura and fused it with his Crimson Peak. Since he had even amplified that transcendent power through his twelve Rings of Fire, he would never lose in a contest of strength against Derus Robert. The quantity itself might fall short, but he was confident that its quality would overwhelm his opponent instead. "Hey, god of death." Raon beckoned with his hand, mockingly calling Derus Robert the god of death. "Quit looking for subordinates who won't come even when called…." When Raon raised his hand, Heavenly Drive floated up on its own and settled into his grip. "Why don't you show me the power of a god?" He tilted his chin, saying they should drop the petty tricks and fight with their true strength instead. "Very well…." Derus Robert exhaled a murky breath as he looked at Raon. "In the end, it makes no difference — I'll just kill everything with my own power." Muttering that he would erase every last life on this land himself in place of the dead, he unleashed a killing intent fierce enough to tear apart heaven and earth. "Hheup!" "I-I can't breathe…." "Is this really a human's aura…." "T-that's not human. A demon. Death itself…." "Heavens! To think such a demon exists!" The people who had been hoping for Raon's victory bent at the waist in despair before Derus Robert's aura, which had transcended the bounds of the mortal realm. The stronger among them, seemingly struck by an even greater shock, vomited blackened, dead blood and pressed their heads to the ground. "Once I kill just you, there won't be a single being left to defy me." Derus Robert looked down at the humans who couldn't even breathe properly, then slowly raised his gaze. "I'll kill you now. Raon Zieghart." He extended his hand, declaring he would bestow upon Raon a death from which there was no return. Kuwaaaaaang! Above Derus Robert's grip, a sword condensed from black light rose into being. As his blade flickered pitch black, the trees of the mountain range wilted and collapsed, and the once-green earth cracked and turned bone dry as though struck by drought. The sword Derus Robert had summoned seemed to hold the Void and death itself, erasing the life around it by its mere existence. "The name of this sword is Thanatos." Derus Robert raised the sword, which seemed to bestow death upon all existence itself, before his chest and exhaled a cold breath. "It is a divine mace that brings death to all things by its mere existence." He twisted his lips, saying not even a blade could clash against Thanatos. "For you, it will be a death too extravagant." Derus Robert's eyes flashed with a cold, murderous light as he declared he would erase Raon's life with Thanatos. "Go ahead, then." Raon shrugged, as if telling him to do as he pleased. "Insolent brat!" Unable to endure Raon's mockery any longer, Derus Robert brought Thanatos down upon him, thick veins bulging on his forehead. No, he tried to bring it down. Only for as long as his hand was still attached to his body. Jjeoooeoeok! Derus Robert's hand, still gripping Thanatos, was severed clean off along with his shoulder. "Ah…." Derus Robert stared blankly at his arm falling to the ground, as if only now realizing his shoulder had been cut off. "If even touching the blade is dangerous…." Raon lightly shook off the blood dripping from Heavenly Drive, Derus Robert's blood coating it. "Then all I have to do is cut it down before it touches me." He let out a cold sneer, saying it was easier than lying down and eating rice cake. "Go on, do whatever you want." Raon let slip an arrogant, smiling glance, as though he had no intention of simply killing Derus Robert outright. "Self-proclaimed god of death."