Damn Reincarnation

smile.

Embers began to spread from the flames on his back.
With each flap of the wing, feathers flew into the sky.

“If you have the confidence to beat me…,” Eugene began saying as he unbuttoned his sleeves.

In fact, there wasn’t any point in unbuttoning even a single button on his clothes.
There was a good chance that, before long, all of his clothes would be turned into rags.

“…Then don’t dodge or block this blow of mine and let it hit you,” Eugene finished his challenge.

It was obviously a shameless statement.
But Molon’s reaction was unexpected.

“Fine,” Molon readily agreed.

Well…Molon was just that type of guy.
Molon spread his arms and left his chest wide open in a challenge of his own.
While glaring at Molon’s face, Eugene clenched his fist.
Purple flames engulfed Eugene’s body.

Now that things had finally reached this step, Eugene wouldn’t take this opportunity lightly.
Molon had agreed that he wouldn’t block or dodge the first blow.
If so, this blow would probably be the biggest and last chance for Eugene.

Even if Eugene managed to beat Molon and knock him down, he knew that wouldn’t solve the problem.
However, Eugene still wanted to defeat Molon if at all possible.

Was it because he wanted to prove that Hamel had been stronger than Molon? No, that wasn’t the problem.

It was just….

He just didn’t like the excuses given by his friend, who had gotten worn down and tired after living for hundreds of years.
No matter how much someone tried not to change, people still changed little by little.
If they had lived for hundreds of years, they were bound to have changed even more.

However, Molon hadn’t accepted that fact.
As the Brave Molon, he didn’t want to show the comrades that he had reunited with what he looked like after breaking down over these past hundreds of years.

Eugene really didn’t like that.
In fact, he hated it.
That was why he wanted to beat up Molon.
Because Molon had, of his own accord, taken on the request that the son-of-a-bitch Vermouth had given him and made it his mission in life, then proceeded to fight those mysterious monsters in this hellish place until he finally broke down and collapsed.

Eugene’s foot kicked off the ground.
He accelerated with all his might, and his fist was so packed full of strength that sparks of mana were overflowing from it.
This was far too strong a force to use against a human being who had promised not to dodge or block the blow.

However, Eugene didn’t hesitate.
His opponent wasn’t weak enough to be called a human.
This was Molon Ruhr.
There was no way that Eugene didn’t know just how tough and strong that idiot was.

‘Even so,’ Eugene thought to himself cautiously.

Just in case, he considered where exactly to hit so that he could finish this fight in a single blow.

The heart? Eugene didn’t have the confidence that he would be able to penetrate those thick chest muscles.

So it had to be the head.
Or should he aim for the shin? Or else, should Eugene honestly try to plant his fist in the center of Molon’s face.

No.

Eugene decided to just hit Molon where he wanted to hit him.
As he swung his fist through the air with all his might, he punched Molon in the cheek.

But it didn’t feel even remotely like he had just hit a person.
Eugene had pushed his fist forward with all his strength, but Molon’s head hadn’t turned even slightly.
Naturally, there wasn’t even the sound of his cheekbones being crushed.

Fizzzle!

The sound followed belatedly.
The flames around his fist that couldn’t break Molon’s body scattered into the air.

‘You absolute fucking monster,’ Eugene silently thought as he immediately blasted up his mana.

A series of explosions engulfed Molon’s body.
Using the recoil from the explosion, Eugene threw himself backward.

“Didn’t you say it would just be one hit, Hamel?” Molon asked, standing tall in the center of the flames.

His black hair fluttered in the wind, and a light shone from his wide-open eyes.

Whoosh!

With a single shake of his head, Molon was able to completely scatter all of the flames covering his body.

Booom!

Molon began walking forward.

His muscles still writhing, his right arm rose from his side.
His thick fingers curled up to form a fist.

That was all that he did, but in Eugene’s eyes, Molon became the center of his entire world.
Apart from Molon, he couldn’t see anything else.
That was just how immense Molon’s current presence was.

“You can dodge if you want,” Molon said.

If this was the usual Eugene, once he had heard such words, he would instead choose not to dodge it.
Because his pride wouldn’t allow him to obey.

However, currently, Eugene couldn’t even imagine entertaining such pride.
If he tried to block it, he would be crushed along with his defenses.
So he had no choice but to try and dodge it.
But how, where to, and at what moment?

All of Eugene’s thoughts were occupied with these concerns.

Molon threw his fist forward.

Like Eugene’s intuition had told him, the force behind that fist was unparalleled.
Eugene shuddered as he sensed the immense strength crushing its way toward him.

Boooooom!

The force of the blow swept over the ground.
It didn’t just end there.
Without weakening even slightly, the shockwave pierced through the air and completely annihilated the mountain peak that fell into its path.

[I-if he’s hit by that, he’ll die…!] Kristina screamed.

However, Anise just let out a snort and grumbled, “Still, it seems like Molon hasn’t completely lost his mind.”

Mer stammered, “Wh-wh-what do you mean by that? Sir Molon just tried to kill Sir Eugene!”

“If he wanted to kill Eugene, then he would have swung his fist even harder than that,” Anise corrected her.
“If he couldn’t even dodge a fist that’s being held back, then Hamel would just be an idiot.”

A mountain peak had been erased with just one punch, but that was just Molon holding back? Unable to comprehend it, Mer just stared up at where the mountain peak had vanished.

To her shock, after she blinked a few times, she found that the mountain peak that had unmistakably vanished moments before had now suddenly reappeared, looking perfectly intact.
This wasn’t reality, but instead, a separate space created by Vermouth’s magic.

Molon had yet to lower his outstretched fist.
He tilted his head to the side as if confused.
Eugene hadn’t been swept away by the force of his fist.
He had successfully managed to dodge.

However, Molon couldn’t tell just how Eugene had managed to dodge it.
Had he moved his body? But if that was the case, there was no way that Molon would have missed it.

Was it magic…? Eugene had said that he was going to use it.
Molon was also aware of what kind of spell Blink was.
So right before Eugene could have been swept away by the punch, had he managed to get away using Blink?

‘It’s strange,’ Molon thought as he retracted his outstretched fist.

Molon couldn’t see anything in front of him.
However, he could detect something.
Hamel’s presence was continuously on the move within this wide space.
Yet his speed was so fast and his movement so complex that Molon was completely incapable of grasping his position.

Each of the feathers generated by Prominence could be used as a spatial coordinate to reposition Eugene.

Thanks to that, Blink’s requirements for vision and spatial coordinates were no longer necessary.
Even the spatial distortion, which could be seen at the moment of Blinking, was hidden by the flames of mana that erupted from the feathers.

The wider the space, the more Prominence’s jump-off points increased in number — an exponential increase, to boot.
And that wasn’t all.
The fluttering feathers would continue to drift, so Eugene’s opponents couldn’t predict the jumping-off points used.

Prominence created an infinitely intricate path for attacking Eugene’s opponents.

But Eugene’s eyes were strained, and his head was throbbing.
This couldn’t be helped.
Currently, Eugene’s mind was linked to each of the countless feathers.

Thanks to that, Eugene was able to spy on Molon from any direction.
Even from behind Molon’s back, he could see Molon’s front.
Unlike seeing something with one’s own two eyes, the information was directly engraved into Eugene’s head.
It wasn’t simply seeing how Molon’s body was moving; he could see how the mana itself moved and reached.

Molon’s barbaric and immense strength suddenly went into motion.
He had given up on pursuing or predicting Eugene.
In the first place, that wasn’t Molon’s specialty, nor was it his preference.
He didn’t know where Eugene might reappear? He didn’t know when the attack might be coming?

So what if he didn’t? Molon could just sweep it all away.

Molon raised both of his fists into the air.
Realizing what he was about to do, Anise’s expression twisted into a grimace, and she pursed her lips.
Then, a barrier of dazzling light was summoned to protect Anise.

Molon’s raised fists fell to the ground.
At that moment, Eugene was in the sky a short distance away.
The feathers that had flown there were acting as stepping stones for Eugene.

As Molon’s fists smashed the ground, the sheer force created an explosion.
The shockwaves swept across the ground and surged into the air.
By doing this, Molon could cover a massive area, whatever was within reach of his strength.

In the middle of this gigantic storm, Prominence’s feathers floated about as if they would be swept away at any moment.
However, they never really disappeared.
Getting rid of all the feathers was an obvious strategy for dealing with Prominence, so Eugene had prepared for that right from the conception phase of his Signature’s design.
Yet, seeing how strong the shockwaves were, it would be difficult to keep this up for very long.

It would be enough if they could just hold on for a little longer.
The countless feathers were moving according to Eugene’s will.
Right before the shockwaves soaring into the sky could reach Eugene, the feathers made up of embers began burning intensely.
These purple flames then clumped together.

Through this, a sun that seemed to have been dyed black was born.

This was Eclipse.

Once again, Molon wasn’t able to understand what had happened to him.
He had slammed his fists down and set off an explosion… up until that point, Molon had been in control, but the sunspot that had appeared within this makeshift arena was out of his control.

It was small.
A very small, black spot.
So with that size, what the hell was up with its power?

Molon was flying through the air, having been caught up in the explosion set off by Eclipse.

“…Ha!” Molon burst into laughter as he looked up at the dingy sky.

Instead of trying to turn his body upright in midair, he spread his arms out wide and just kept laughing like an idiot.

“Ahahahaha!”

Within the feathers of flame that were left floating, lightning struck.
With each successive leap through space, the lightning bolt’s acceleration increased.
Purple embers and sparks lit up the sky.

Trailing all of this behind him, Eugene appeared right in front of Molon.

Cracracrackle!

Molon’s body plummeted to the ground.