When the door flew into the basement, Eugene grabbed Akasha from the Cloak.
Ziinng!
Eugene instantly cast Blink on Lavera and the old man.
It was tricky and there were so many things to consider when a wizard used Blink on somebody else. However, it wasn’t a big problem for Eugene. The most important thing while casting subspace magic was to accurately calculate very complicated magic formulas in accordance with coordinates and mana flows that differed every time when a wizard used it.
Since his past life, Eugene had been great at sensing mana, and his exceptional body only made his calculation speed faster. On top of that, Mer was assisting Eugene right now, so it was only natural for Eugene’s subspace magic to be fast and accurate.
There was also another reason why Eugene could successfully cast magic — Iris’ attention had shifted when the door had gotten blasted away. Rather than focusing her attention on stopping Eugene from casting magic, Iris now paid more attention to the person who had smashed the door to enter the basement. Thanks to this, there was a gap in Iris’ control over the basement.
The sound of someone walking down the stairs quietly echoed in the basement.
The one who entered the dark basement was Carmen Lionheart. Holding an unlit cigar in her mouth, she walked through the clouds of dust. Her gray hair and coat hanging on her shoulder flapped in the wind.
“…Hmm.” Carmen slowly looked around the basement — ten dark elves were standing up, Iris was sitting in front of those elves with her legs crossed, and Eugene was holding Akasha across from Iris.
It was Mer who had told Carmen about the location.
The Lionheart main estate and annex were very big. It didn’t matter to Eugene, because all he did was cultivate, but that was not true for Mer.
She was not only adored by Ancilla and Gerhard, but also by the servants, such as Laman and Nina, and the White Lion Knights.Therefore, she got called over a lot, but Eugene couldn’t accompany her on every occasion. To solve this problem, Eugene had installed a magic communication device in his room and connected it to Mer.
The communication device was often used by both of them. When Eugene couldn’t find Mer after he had finished his training, he used it to contact the familiar. She also used it to find Eugene in the wide Lionheart forest.
Mer could also reverse the direction of the communication — in other words, she was able to send a message to the device. That was how she had contacted Nina, who happened to be cleaning Eugene’s room at the time. Then, Nina had relayed the message to Carmen, who was in the main estate.
“…Hmm.” Iris deeply inhaled the cigarette smoke. Her face was covered with clouds of thick smoke. Just one deep breath was enough for Iris to burn her cigarette to its filter. After that, she chewed until the cigarette was broken in half. The cigarette fell to the floor, along with a cloud of smoke. Through the smoke cloud, a red ember dropped to the floor.
Being conscious of each other, the three did what they had to do right now—attack.
Everyone initiated their attacks at the same time.
A dark light shone in Iris’ Demoneye. Her revolver was still in Eugene’s hand, but that did not prevent her from firing it. 𝘪𝑎.𝘤𝑜𝑚
Then, Iris placed her hands on her sofa and pushed. Her hips moved upward as she swung her leg. Moving like a blade — no, like a whip, her leg approached Eugene at a tremendous speed.
When the bullet left the barrel of the revolver, Eugene’s head followed its movement. He had to keep an eye on the bullet’s trajectory, because this bullet was something created by the Demoneye of Darkness.
Iris was just using a revolver because she liked it; her darkness bullets did not need a gun to be fired, and they didn’t even move straight. The darkness generated by Iris’ Demoneye moved in accordance with Iris’ will.
As the bullet touched his hair, Eugene suddenly sparked with electricity. His mana blended with lightning enabled him to move so fast that no one would have believed that he was even human. In the end, the bullet failed to go through Eugene’s head and hit the wall behind him.
Iris’ kick was about to reach Eugene from above, so he swiftly kicked off the floor.
?Booom!
With a backflip, Eugene instantly opened up the distance between him and Iris. Instead of Eugene, Iris ended up destroying the sofa, making the floor collapse in the process.
Unable to withstand the air current, Carmen’s cigar crumbled — that was how fast she moved. The coat that hung on her shoulder also flew away. Keeping her left fist at her chest, she moved her right fist so far back that some would have worried about her shoulder getting dislocated.
When her left foot touched the ground, she turned her ankle and waist together. It looked as if she was throwing a cannonball using her body as the cannon, not just swinging her fist. Her straight fist attack penetrated Iris’ darkness.
Iris’ eye shone once again — she used the Demoneye of Darkness to create more darkness.
Wooosh!
The darkness became a tornado, swallowing Carmen’s fist attack whole.
Landing his backflip, Eugene made the Cloak of Darkness swallow him whole.
Creak…!
Eugene drew out the Thunderbolt Pernoa from the Cloak. Five bolts of lightning were now ready to be fired.
Pzzzz!
He let his lightning bolts fly in Iris’ direction one by one.
Thump!
With her insole, Iris kicked the liquor bottle that was rolling around the floor.
Crash!
Eugene’s lightning bolts hit the liquor bottle, vaporizing the liquor.
After her first fist attack, Carmen shortened the distance between her and Iris even more. Carmen spat out the cigar in her mouth. The room was now filled with the vaporized liquor smell and cigarette smoke; Carmen hated both smells.
She was displeased with the current situation as it was, and the development was giving her even more reasons to be discontent.
Rip.
Using her left hand, which she had been keeping on her chest, Carmen ripped off her shirt’s buttons, then she tightly clenched her fists.
Her leather gloves weren’t able to withstand her gripping power; they seemed like they would break apart at the seams. Her gray hair fluttered in the air as she accelerated and pounced at Iris.
“Tsk.” Carmen clicked her tongue.
Something had stopped Carmen’s cannonball-like fist attack. She felt as if the floor had given out under her feet. In fact, she felt as if she was about to fall.
Iris had spread her darkness to cover the floor; it almost looked as if she was inviting Carmen to visit the bottom of an abyss. Of course, rather than approaching any further, Carmen backflipped right out of the situation.
‘Can I kill her from here?’ Eugene clicked his tongue.
He let go of the Thunderbolt and spread the Cloak of Darkness wide, like wings.
Eugene was fighting against Rakshasa Princess Iris — the legendary dark elf who had been notorious for 300 years. There was zero chance for him to kill Iris as things stood.
He could try using Ignition, the Moonlight Sword, or the Holy Sword. However, none of these cards was worth anything in front of the ace that was Iris. Even Eward, who had borrowed the monstrous power of a Demon King’s remnant, was pathetic compared to Iris, the real monster. She had already been strong 300 years ago, but her current self left her past one in the dust.
Her most noticeable achievement was her seemingly perfect control of the Demoneye of Darkness. Iris hadn’t been able to use her Demoneye’s power quickly and proficiently 300 years ago. This was the reason why Eugene hadn’t thought of Iris as a suspect when Lavera and the old man had disappeared from the shop — he hadn’t expected Iris to get this proficient.
‘What about the Moonlight Sword?’
The thought came to his mind, but Eugene didn’t pull the sword out. He wasn’t certain whether or not he would be able to cut Iris deep enough to kill her with the incomplete, weakened Moonlight Sword. It was also the same for the Holy Sword. In fact, the Holy Sword couldn’t help Eugene much while fighting against Iris. The power of her Demoneye was so ridiculous that even with the Holy Sword’s divine power, purifying it was a tall order.
Iris reached out her hand. This battle had begun pretty abruptly, but she still kept her twisted smile. She bent her long fingers, and her eye shone with black light again.
At that moment, clusters of darkness appeared beside Eugene, one on his left and another on his right. The two clusters tried to squash Eugene to death from both sides.
Paah!
The Cloak of Darkness spun in the air. After swiftly pulling out Wynnyd from the Cloak, Eugene came out of the Cloak and slashed at Iris’ darkness, but he could feel nothing. He hadn’t felt this way for a long time — he knew that he had cut something, but he had felt no resistance from his blade.
Well, Eugene wasn’t wrong. Once his sword had passed through Iris’ darkness, the pieces of darkness instantly reattached themselves.
However, his attack had not been a vain attempt. Along with his strike, Eugene had used the magic formula. He infused his mana into the formula to cast space expansion spell.
Wooosh!
The darkness, which was a cohesive mass, inflated as if somebody had grabbed the top and bottom of the cluster and stretched it. It was impossible to use magic to break through Iris’ darkness itself, but he could physically slash the darkness apart and push his magic through the gap.
‘She’s tricky to deal with,’ Eugene thought.
She had also been like that 300 years ago. Noir Giabella was way stronger than Iris, but Iris was by far more troublesome. The reason was simple — Sienna and Anise had perfectly shielded the hero party from Noir Giabella’s attack. However, Hamel had dealt with Iris alone most of the time.
‘She wasn’t great at hand-to-hand combat at the time.’
Crash!
Iris’ front kick pushed Eugene backward.
Before her kick reached him, Eugene had already cast seventeen barrier layers, plus an aura shield. However, her one kick had been enough to shatter Eugene’s defensive bubble and make him fly back. Not only that, but she had done all this while still sitting on the sofa.
“…Ahahaha!” Iris brightly giggled as she crossed her legs once more after the kick.
Creak… Creak…
During the process of pushing Eugene backward, Iris’ sofa creaked. She placed her arms on the sofa’s headrest and raised her head.
“You are the Silver Lion of the Lionhearts, am I correct?” Iris asked with interest.
Instead of answering, Carmen pulled out her fingers from the ceiling. She wasn’t far from the ground, so it didn’t take long for her to drop to the floor.
As she fell to the ground, Carmen was already launching attacks on Iris with her leg, leaving hundreds of afterimages. It was unbelievable that she was able to strike so many times in what was nothing more than the blink of an eye.
However, Iris wasn’t flustered; her wide-open eyes followed Carmen’s every attack, then she summoned her darkness to block. Carmen’s kick made Iris’ darkness disperse. Yet, the darkness that was scattered away gathered once more; no matter how much it dispersed, it never disappeared.
Carmen’s feet were on the ground once more, while Iris did not move from her sofa. As for Eugene, the wall behind him had put an abrupt stop to his flight backward.
It had only been several minutes since Carmen had come to this place, but the Third Division of Black Lion Knights arrived. These knights, whose skills were recognized by all countries, ran down the stairs.
“Don’t come in,” Carmen spoke as she kept her eyes on Iris.
“Just watch. Don’t interfere.” Iris grinned, feeling the creaking sofa as she leaned against it. She was speaking to the dark elves who were standing behind her.
Eugene’s body slid down to the floor.
Squeak.
Carmen pulled the gloves back on with her teeth to make sure they stayed on.
Crack.
Iris’ finger made a cracking sound.
Badump.
Eugene’s heart beat hard.
Just like the first time, everyone began to move at the same time.
Iris generated more darkness to cover up the basement; her darkness spread like an ink drop staining a white paper. The floor of the basement now looked like a portal that led to God knew where — it was hard to distinguish if Iris had simply covered the floor or created a passage that led to some abyss of darkness.
This was why fighting against Iris was tricky. No one could identify the dark lump without touching it. It was a bizarre power that couldn’t be understood even through Akasha.
‘I know since I have experienced it several times.’ Eugene shrugged.
Would Carmen know? He wasn’t sure, but there was no time to let her know about Iris’ power. Carmen was already moving forward. The three were engaging in very close combat — he was familiar with this type of combat.
Clink.
With his left hand, Eugene drew out a karambit knife which he had hidden on the inside of his belt. Putting his index finger through the ring pommel, he tightly clenched his fist around the grip. Then, he condensed his sword-force into a thin layer that covered the blade. 𝘪𝘳.𝒸𝑜𝑚
Pzzz.
Lightning sparked around his body again as Eugene accelerated forward.
Carmen had already moved, a bit ahead of Eugene; she leaped across the floor to avoid getting swallowed by the darkness and swung her fist against the wall of darkness that Iris had created. When her fist touched the wall, however, Carmen simply pulled back. Her clairvoyance-like intuition, which she had developed during years of training, had warned her that something was wrong the very first instant that her fist had touched the wall.
If she had pushed through any further, Iris’ darkness would have swallowed Carmen’s fist. Her clusters of darkness communicated with each other through space, so if Iris had made her darkness disappear while Carmen’s fist was swallowed, her hand would have been mutilated. It didn’t matter how much Carmen had trained or how much of a treasure her gloves were.
Carmen changed the angle of her punches, flexibly turning her torso and attacking Iris’ darkness from the side. This time, just before her fist reached Iris’ darkness, her strike created an explosion, blasting apart and dissipating the darkness.
Eugene’s instantaneous velocity was faster than Carmen’s. When Carmen had burst Iris’ darkness, Eugene had already moved past her and entered Iris’ attack radius.
There was one thing that was much better than 300 years ago: there were many more kinds of weapons tha Eugene could use right now compared to when he was Hamel.
Wynnyd’s wind was one of them. Surrounding Eugene’s body, it moved ahead of Eugene, so it touched Iris’ darkness before Eugene did. The wind either got swallowed by the darkness or was blocked. It didn’t do much, but that was all Eugene needed to figure out the characteristics of Iris’ darkness.
‘She could only control two clusters of darkness 300 years ago.’
That had been the case before, but she had clearly developed her ability so much that she now had perfect control of her darkness. Maybe she had also gained other powers, but for now, Eugene could only be vigilant against powers that he knew about for sure.
?Ziiinng!
The karambit knife’s curved blade shone with Eugene’s sword force. As Carmen swung her fist from the side, Eugene used his knife to attack from above.
Iris was still sitting on her sofa, but her eye was covered with darkness again. Her darkness swallowed Eugene’s attack — or, rather, Eugene let his attack be swallowed. He had various weapons, but he had chosen a karambit for one reason: it was easier to move his own limbs than swing a weapon.
‘And I don’t care if this one breaks. My attack will be less powerful, though,’ Eugene quickly thought.
Iris’ darkness undulated, turning into waves. The waves of darkness rushed over Eugene and Carmen. In response, Eugene summoned more fierce winds to shield them against the waves as the sword force wrapping his knife let out sparks.
Carmen was now standing beside Eugene. They had shortened the distance between them and Iris in no time, and at this point, Iris could no longer stay still on her sofa.
The darkness summoned by her Demoneye pushed Iris forward. After she unsteadily stood up from the sofa, as if someone had pulled her up, she created a shield to protect the dark elves standing behind her. Then, she raised her hands.
Dozens of attacks struck at Iris in virtually a single moment. Carmen punched and kicked at Iris, in an attempt to push her back, then tried to grab her head and twist her neck. Timing his own attacks in tandem with Carmen, Eugene aimed slash after slash at Iris, assaulting her relentlessly. Actually, there was no point in discussing each attack separately — what happened was that, without interfering with each, Eugene and Carmen attacked Iris in every possible way.
Iris moved her arms with a twisted smile. Her darkness spread out, blocking every angle from which Carmen and Eugene could strike. Their options were already limited anyway, and even though they had launched hundreds of different attacks, hardly any of them had impacted Iris in any significant way. In the ten minutes elapsed since the start of the battle, their attacks had amounted to nothing more than vain attempts; no matter how formidable the duo was, they both failed to reach their target.
In spite of many powerful attacks being exchanged, never mind the basement collapsing, the building hadn’t even been shaken once. The only things that had been destroyed were the table, the sofa, and the door — the table and the sofa had been smashed by Iris, while Carmen had crushed the door as she entered. That was how precise their attacks were. Without wasting any power, each of the three focused solely on their target.
“Form Change.” Carmen took a lateral stance. “Heaven Genocide.”
With her ragged leather glove, she grabbed her pocket watch. “Alastor Form.”
The name didn’t give Eugene the slightest clue as to what Carmen’s technique was.
𝑖𝘦𝑎.𝗇t