Chapter 68: You're the Only One Left
"Shadows? How interesting."
A calm, lazy smile remained on Ren's face, even after seeing his feet bound by Kageyama's magic. He looked down at the dark tendrils as if they were nothing more than a minor inconvenience, like cobwebs.
"Good job, Kageyama! He's trapped!" Rayule, the man with the ribbons, shouted. "Watch my Black Belt Magic!"
The black, cloth-like ribbons around Rayule's hands rapidly extended, shooting through the air and wrapping tightly around Ren's arms, binding them to his torso.
"Haha! You bastard!" Rayule roared in triumph. "With your hands and feet bound, you can't move now, can you!! You're not so fast now!"
"He's trapped! The Tyrant is trapped!"
"Kill him!!!"
"Kill him, and his bounty is ours! His legend will be ours!"
The other members of the Dark Guild, seeing that their target was finally immobilized, felt a surge of greed and desperate courage. They quickly surrounded Ren, holding their magical weapons aloft, and charged forward as a single, bloodthirsty mob.
"Die!!!"
They believed that if they, Eisenwald, killed the legendary 'Tyrant', their names would shake the entire continent of Ishgar. Everyone was consumed by this sudden, intoxicating desire.
Ren, at the center of the charge, merely let his lips curl into a slight, cold smile. "Can't move?"
He didn't bother with the ribbons. He flexed.
His muscles, enhanced by the Heavenly Restriction, swelled with a power that had nothing to do with magic.
Snap!
The shadow magic binding his ankles, which Kageyama was struggling to maintain, was torn apart as easily as tofu, shattered by pure, unadulterated physical force.
"What?!" Kageyama yelped from the back.
Before Rayule could even react to that, Ren grabbed the black ribbons that were binding him and yanked them hard. Rayule immediately felt an irresistible, monstrous force transmit from his own magic. His feet left the ground, and his body flew uncontrollably, like a fish on a line, straight towards Ren.
"Uwaaaahhh!!!"
Rayule felt the world begin to spin as Ren, with one arm, began to rapidly spin him around like he was wielding a nine-section whip made of a human body.
The charging mages didn't even have time to stop.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
"Waaahhh!"
"My ribs!"
"Uwaahhh!"
Ren, with a lazy, brutal efficiency, slammed Rayule's body into the charging mages. The sound of cracking bones and pained screams filled the air as the entire group was sent flying like bowling pins, knocked out cold by the impact of their own comrade.
After clearing the immediate area, Ren stepped towards Kageyama, who was frozen in terror.
"How is this possible?! My magic..."
Kageyama hadn't expected his magic to be utterly incapable of binding the opponent. Seeing the monster walking calmly towards him, he quickly, desperately, activated his strongest magic.
"Eight Shadows!"
Kageyama pressed his hands on the ground. All the shadows in the wreckage-strewn valley materialized, forming eight giant shadow pythons that lunged at Ren from every direction.
Ren stood still. After the eight shadow pythons bit onto Ren's body, they quickly coiled tightly around him, their collective, crushing force intending to strangle him to death, to pulverize his bones.
Bang—!!!!
A sound like a thunderclap. The shadow pythons coiled around Ren's body all exploded into nothingness, dispersed by another simple, contemptuous flex of his muscles. Ren appeared before Kageyama, completely unharmed, his T-shirt not even torn.
"What?! He destroyed them all?!"
Kageyama was incredulous. His strongest magic had no effect on the opponent whatsoever. This wasn't a Mage. This was something else.
Whoosh!
Ren's figure instantly vanished. In the next moment, a shadow fell over Kageyama. Ren had reappeared in front of him.
Before Kageyama could even raise his hands to defend himself, he felt a sharp, non-magical pain in his abdomen. A single, powerful punch. His eyes rolled back, and his consciousness plunged into a coma.
"Kageyama... Kageyama too..."
The remaining members of Eisenwald around him, those who hadn't charged, also began to tremble with fear.
Ren glanced at these people, his face a mask of boredom.
He slightly raised his right foot, then stomped it hard on the ground.
Boom—!!!!
The entire ground beneath them exploded, and the earth trembled violently.
"Waaahhh!!!"
The members of Eisenwald all stumbled, struggling to stand as the valley floor shook. The shattered stones and metal debris from the train crash were all shaken up, thrown into the air by the force of his stomp.
Ren's arms moved. They moved so fast that it seemed countless arms appeared in an instant. His fingers, with precise, deadly accuracy, quickly tapped on these shaken-up, broken stones.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh, whoosh!
All the shattered stones, from pebbles to fist-sized chunks of rock, shot towards the members of Eisenwald like a spray of bullets, each one moving at extreme, sound-breaking speed.
Pfft, pfft, pfft!!
"Uwaaahhh!!!"
"My leg! My leg!"
"Waaahhh!!!"
The shattered stones, imbued with Toji's superhuman strength, didn't just bruise. They pierced. They punched through the bodies of these mages, shattering bones and tearing through flesh. Everyone screamed as they collapsed into pools of blood, their limbs pinned to the ground, crippled and broken.
"Uwaahhh!!!"
Karacka, who had been hiding, had learned that Ren was the legendary Tyrant. Even when Ren was "bound," he didn't dare to charge forward. It proved that his intuition was correct; how could the legendary 'Tyrant' who could fight ten thousand on his own be captured so easily?
In the blink of an eye, almost all the members of Eisenwald were knocked to the ground, screaming and writhing in agony.
In his extreme fear, Karacka immediately turned and fled on all fours, scrambling away through the wreckage. So many people had been knocked down... a monster. The opponent was simply an unconquerable, inhuman monster.
Seeing Karacka flee, Ren turned away and ignored him. He instead walked leisurely towards Erigor, who was still hovering in the air. As he walked, he gently nudged the hilt of a fallen sword on the ground with his heel.
Whoosh—!
The sword, kicked with pinpoint accuracy, shot backwards rapidly, tumbling through the air.
Pfft—!!
"Waaah!"
The longsword plunged straight through Karacka's back, pinning him to the ground. He screamed once and fell silent.
Ren looked up at Erigor, who had hidden in mid-air early, with a playful, mocking expression. "Now... only you are left."
Erigor's face was extremely grim. He was so close to achieving his goal, to getting his revenge. But he hadn't expected such a guy to appear out of nowhere.
"'Tyrant'... Don't think that just because you've taken care of them, you can take care of me. I, 'Shinigami' Erigor, am completely different from that trash!!" Erigor roared at Ren, his voice stern, trying to project a confidence he no longer felt.
Ren just smiled and shook his head. "In my eyes, there's not much difference between you and them. You're just a pile of small trash... and one piece of big trash. That's all."
"You bastard! How dare you look down on me!!" Erigor's rage flared. He was the famous 'Shinigami' Erigor! When he was making his name as an assassin, this guy didn't even know where he was!
Ren waved his hand dismissively. "Not at all. How could I look down on you? I simply haven't even looked at you properly. Would you 'look down' on an ant by the roadside?"
"Bastard!! Don't get carried away!! You stinking fly!!"
Erigor was about to explode with rage. He, Shinigami Erigor, had never suffered such a great insult since his debut.
"Storm Shred!!!"
He swung his scythe, and dozens of sharp, invisible wind blades tore through the air, converging on Ren's position.
Ren moved his feet casually, a slight, almost lazy sidestep. He looked like he was dancing, easily dodging all the wind blades Erigor fired, the high-velocity attacks impacting the ground where he'd been a fraction of a second before.
Ren said in a relaxed, bored tone: "Not enough yet. You can send more; I can still take it."
"Don't be too arrogant! Try this move of mine!!" Erigor roared, his magic power flaring.
"Storm Bringer!!!"
He raised his scythe high and unleashed a violent, massive tornado, which shot down from the sky, aimed straight at Ren.
"Oh, oh! What a big wind!" Ren said, his T-shirt and hair flapping wildly. "It's making it hard for me to open my eyes."
Unfazed, Ren casually bent down and grabbed a section of the bent railway track he'd ripped up earlier.
Bang, bang, bang!
The rivets on the track snapped as he pulled.
Ren gripped the massive, multi-ton steel track with both hands, his muscles bulging. Then, as the tornado was about to consume him, he swung it, like a baseball bat.
Bang—!!!!
The originally violent, roaring tornado, a massive funnel of destructive wind magic, actually vanished into thin air, completely dispersed and shattered by the sheer, overwhelming physical force and air pressure of Ren's swing.
"What?!"
Erigor's eyes widened in disbelief. His Storm Bringer... his ultimate offensive spell... had been dispersed? With a single swing? Of a train track?
At this moment, Ren raised the track, adopting a javelin-throwing posture. Erigor, seeing this, quickly dodged to the side in mid-air.
Whoosh—!
The track flew, not at him, but just grazed Erigor's cheek, leaving a thin, bloody streak. Erigor's pupils constricted violently; he had almost been headshotted by the track just now.
Before Erigor could recover from the shock...
"Hmm, did I miss?" Ren's voice drifted up. "Then how about this?"
Ren, his hands now free, walked over to the train engine that was still embedded upright in the ground. He grabbed the massive, multi-ton engine with both hands...
...and, under Erigor's terrified, disbelieving gaze... he easily lifted it over his head.
"Mon... Monster!"
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