I Can Copy And Evolve Talents

Chapter 1160: Resolve Of A Broke Man

Revant’s shirt hung in tatters, dark crimson blooming across the white fabric like twisted flowers. Blood traced lines down his face from a gash above his eyebrow, and his breathing came in ragged bursts that misted in the frigid air. His left arm dangled at an unnatural angle—dislocated, perhaps broken.

Yet his grin remained.

It was wrong, that grin. Manic. Like a man who’d discovered the punchline to a cosmic joke no one else could hear.

Koll stood twenty meters away, his pale skin marred by dozens of shallow cuts—paper-thin lines that wept droplets of blood like morning dew.

Superficial wounds, really. Nothing that would slow him down. Nothing that mattered.

He tilted his head, studying the broken man before him.

”Why are you still standing?”

Revant’s laugh came out wet, bubbling. He spat blood onto the ice.

”Rent’s due.”

Koll’s eyes narrowed.

”What?”

”I said—”

Revant lurched forward, his mangled arm swinging uselessly at his side.

”—rent’s due, and I’ll be damned if I let some reflection-spamming cockroach keep me from making quota!”

The speed was impossible. A man that wounded shouldn’t move like that—shouldn’t blur across the distance like smoke caught in a gale. Yet Revant closed the gap in a heartbeat, his right hand driving toward Koll’s chest like a piston.

Koll dissolved into shadow and rematerialized behind him.

”You’re bleeding out. Accept defeat gracefully.”

Revant’s head didn’t turn. His entire body did—bones cracking and restructuring as his back became his front, his face flowing across his skull like wax. The dislocated arm snapped back into place with a sickening pop that echoed across the frozen wasteland.

”Graceful? Do I look graceful to you?”

He was on Koll again, his movements no longer fluid but jagged, desperate—a dying animal that refused to acknowledge the concept of death. His bare left hand shot forward, the mouth in his palm yawning wide.

Koll flickered backward, and obsidian chains erupted from the ice, lashing toward Revant’s legs.

The Broken Tyrant didn’t dodge. He simply let them wrap around his calves, let them dig into his flesh and draw fresh blood. The chains tightened, trying to anchor him in place.

Revant looked down at them with theatrical disappointment.

”Really? Chains again? How pedestrian.”

Then he smiled—that awful, blood-stained smile.

”But I appreciate the commitment to aesthetic consistency.”

The chains suddenly went slack. Not broken—consumed. The mouth in Revant’s palm had somehow extended its reach, invisible jaws crunching through the links without him even touching them.

Koll’s expression finally cracked.

”How are you—”

”Still keeping up?”

Revant finished, taking a shambling step forward. His right leg buckled slightly—internal damage, probably.

”You want to know the secret?”

Another step. Blood dripped from his fingertips, pattering onto the frozen ground like rain.

”From the day I opened my eyes, I’ve been poor, and I’ve always had to depend on him. You know what poverty teaches you?”

His grin widened impossibly.

”How to stretch a single copper coin across an entire week. How to make nothing into something. How to keep going when every logical bone in your body screams that you should just lie down and die.”

He was close now. Close enough that Koll could see the wild gleam in those blue eyes—not the calculating gaze of a warrior, but the fevered determination of a man who’d learned long ago that surrender was more expensive than bleeding.

”You think these wounds slow me down?” Revant’s laugh was hysterical now, unhinged.

”I’ve worked three jobs simultaneously while suffering from pneumonia! I’ve fought monsters while starving on that frozen mountain! You think a few cuts and a dislocated arm are going to stop me from collecting your organs?!”

Koll unleashed a barrage of black swords. They came from every angle—above, below, from the sides—a geometric nightmare designed to give no quarter.

Revant didn’t try to dodge them all. He couldn’t. Instead, he wove through the gaps with manic precision, taking blades through his shoulder, his thigh, his side—anywhere non-vital. Each impact drew blood. Each wound should have been debilitating.

But he kept coming.

”You want to know the real difference between us?”

Revant’s voice had gone quiet now, almost gentle, as he closed the final distance between them. Blood poured from a dozen new wounds, painting him crimson from head to toe.

Koll tried to phase backward again, but this time Revant’s bare hand caught his wrist.

The Tyrant of Reflection froze, feeling the crushing grip—feeling the wrongness of it. This shouldn’t be possible. A man this wounded shouldn’t have this kind of strength.

Revant leaned in close, his breath hot against Koll’s ear.

”You’re fighting for some grand purpose. World domination, chaos, whatever.”

His fingers tightened, and Koll felt bones begin to creak.

”But me? I’m fighting for money to rent a damn house and be independent!”

His other hand—the gloved one—shot forward and plunged into Koll’s chest.

”And there is nothing—”

Another organ torn free.

”—NOTHING—”

Another bloody harvest.

”—more terrifying than a broke man with bills to pay!”

Koll finally screamed.

Revant stood there, painted in blood both his own and his enemy’s, organs dripping from his hands, his body a roadmap of wounds that should have killed him three times over.

And he was still grinning.

”Now then. Shall we continue?”

Revant’s lunging hand suddenly froze moments before piercing into Koll’s chest. He frowned darkly and looked behind over his shoulder.

About five enormous black spears were hurtling through the air from above with terrible speed.

He grimaced, released Koll, and jumped away to dodge the spears.

He watched the ominous things as they dissolved into the air.

”That’s fair. Never really liked it to begin with.”

He looked up. Koll did the same, searching for whoever had interrupted their battle—or in this case, saved him.

The being had large wings spread across the sky, hovering directly above and looking down at them.

Koll narrowed his eyes as he recognized who it was.

”I’m not surprised... but what I am surprised about is how you have the void.”

The Chaos Prince slowly descended to Koll’s front. His face was cold and emotionless.

”Koll, my friend. You have that thing with you, don’t you?”

Koll hesitated.

”What about it?”

Chaos Prince smiled.

The smile was harmless—then again, it was evil. A level of madness too incomprehensible to grasp, the kind that could draw in a little girl for warmth and stab her viciously while still smiling.

”You want his Origination. All I want is my soul back. Things are beginning to get rather... irritating.”

Koll looked over to Revant, who was slowly moving toward them despite his terrible state.

”Oh, that one...?”

Chaos Prince pointed a finger toward Revant.

”Let me deal with him.”

Something shot out of his finger, blurred, and carved a large hole into Revant’s chest.

The Tyrant stopped moving at that moment, trembling uncontrollably as blood dripped from the hole in his chest and his mouth.

He grinned, blood staining every tooth.

”Fuck you.”

Then he collapsed.