Reincarnated Hero System

“Because I’d obviously be fucking the mother of my kids, duh? What were you thinking?”

He didn’t answer. Instead, he turned his gaze away and muttered under his breath.

[If I could think it, that means you could too. Why on Earth am I you?]

“You forgot to add a ‘V’ behind that ‘Earth’. You destroyed Earth I, after all.”

[YOU DID!]

The armless entity snapped his gaze back at me, screaming, but perhaps annoyed at being ignored, he bent his head and rammed it into my side, trying to push me off the hill.

Using his own arm, I whacked him in the head and steadied myself before shouting, “The fuck is wrong with you?!”

[You pissed me off, that’s what. Congratulation, Evankhell. You managed to piss yourself off.]

He rolled his eyes as he spoke, and I whacked his head with his arm once more before reattaching both to his body.

“Dare to push me, and I’ll throw you into that star in the sky.”

[…]

His hands froze when I spoke, and he clicked his tongue before lowering them.

“That’s what I thought.”

He turned away and huffed to express his anger, but I ignored his actions and continued speaking.

“For convenience’s sake, I’d call you “Prisma”. Since that’s what you are anyway.”

[Did you forget how I just explained that I am nothing but an amalgamation of the memories you don’t wanna absorb?]

“Who knows?”

I shrugged, much to Prisma’s annoyance. Also ignoring that reaction, I ordered him.

“Now then, tell me what I want and need to know. Start from when Arthur showed up on Aramis.”

Prisma’s expression made it clear that he wanted to make a quip, but it seemed my orders overrode his desires as he immediately began narrating the events that occurred after Artemisia and Beatrix dragged me away from the ruins of the Kyrexi System.

[It didn’t seem like much, but it took the two goddesses hours to heal you to the point where you were stable. By the time Arthur arrived, heard the situation from them, and headed to the Kyrexis System, things had already rounded up there.

Kayla was captured by the Enforcers and sealed back in the Star of Lightning. The only ones left there were Craig and the leader of the Enforcers.]

What he said correlated with what Kayla had told me the day I got sent back in time, right after our run-in with Belphont.

[Arthur’s return, which he made absolutely NO effort to hide, sent waves across the intergalactic stage.

To begin with, your last attack on the Kyrexi already attracted a lot of attention, and then Craig and Kayla’s battle pulled the eyes of Race Rulers from other galaxies too.]

“And Kayla lost?”

[Well, it would have been a draw if the Enforcers weren’t there to leverage her weakness as a Rogue Celestial Body Consciousness. But since they were, Kayla lost.]

Prisma’s words implied that Craig wasn’t capable of beating Kayla on his own, even with the power boost granted by his position as Master of the Valmone Universe’s Pantheon.

[Moving on, about Arthur’s actions…]

He placed a hand on his chin, thinking for a few seconds before continuing.

[Depictions of Craig after that day always show him with a mechanical right arm.]

At first, I was confused by this, but after a second, realization dawned, and my eyes widened.

“No way, right?”

[Oh, yes way. Arthur took a page out of a certain “Heavenly Demon’s” book and ripped off his right arm since he was involved in your defeat against the Kyrexi.

The Arthur who returned to Valmone in Year 5012 was a fully realized Candidate of Destruction.]

I was about to ask what this Candidate stuff was about when Prisma, perhaps sensing my confusion, began explaining.

[As at the time you’re in, Year 1054, the EOTD technically doesn’t exist.]

“Technically?”

[He transcends time but also doesn’t exist at that point. Too complicated to explain.]

I had no intention of delving into such unnecessary and complicated topics, so I told him to continue with the Candidate explanation.

[Anyway, the “Candidates” are the prospective replacements for the former EOTD who died billions of years ago.

Arthur of Year 5012 was one of them, and using that power of Erasure he has, he deleted the source code of Craig’s arm, making it impossible for him to ever regrow a flesh and blood arm, regardless of how many reincarnations he goes through.

Oh, and on a side note, that was his dominant arm. That’s why Arthur deleted it.]

“That does sound like something Arthur would do.”

The boy was already unhinged as a teen. I couldn’t even imagine how much worse he’d be after 4000 years.

[Using the technology of the fallen Machine god King, Craig created a mechanical arm, but it would never perform to the level of his flesh and blood arm.]

It seemed Arthur had dealt him the kind of wound that would haunt him for the rest of his life.

‘But to think Arthur was that strong when he returned…’

He must have gone to many other universes and gained countless power-ups over the years.

Pushing thoughts of Arthur’s strength aside, I continued my questioning.

“What happened after that?”

[After that, you left the universe.]

“I left the WHAT?!”

This guy just said something crazy in the most casual voice possible, so I couldn’t help but retort loudly.

[The Valmone Universe.

Arthur took you out of the Universe for some time, and made you a member of his Multiversal army.]

“A Multiversal army? To fight against what?”

In response to my question, Prisma placed a hand on his chin and once again said some insane things in the most casual voice possible.

[Pretty much anything, from basic stuff like Candidates and cosmic horrors to serious stuff like Eternals and-]

“Hold the fuck up! Did you just use the words ‘basic’ and ‘cosmic horrors’ in the same sentence?!”

[Dude, this is the part where you’re supposed to ignore it since it’s gonna give you a headache to think about it.]

Prisma turned to me with a deadpan gaze, and though I wanted to refute him, he was right. This was exactly the kind of thing I tended to ignore since thinking about it was too much of a headache.

Besides, it wasn’t like I was going to be dealing with any cosmic horrors or anything.

Pressing my fingers to my temple as if that would suppress my headache, I told the bastard to continue.

[Did you just call me a bast-?]

“Shut up and continue.”

[Fine, fine.]

Prisma sighed, raising his hands in mock surrender before continuing.

[Anyway, after joining Arthur’s army, you became one of his Generals like Stelan did. One of the Zodiac godslayers.

Since there was an empty position and you already had a connection to a zodiac yourself, Arthur placed you there.

You became the Aries of the Zodiac godslayers, the Prismatic godslayer.]

“That damned constellation again…!”

It seemed the constellation of ‘Aries’ was destined to follow me for eternity.

Ignoring my quip, Prisma continued his narration.

[It took you around 1000 years of Valmone Universe time to return, and when you did, the universe was caught up in WAR.]

“War?”

The entire universe was engulfed in war? What in the seven flames could have possibly caused something on that scale?

[Yes. WAR.

You’ve always wondered how the Aidos of the 51st General Calendar’s Year 1054 regressed to what it was before you were sent to the past, no?

You’ve also wondered how Gozon, which you’ve seen with your own eyes, managed to regress as well.]

“I think I see where this is going.”

From what I had seen of the current Gozon’s Intergalactic Empire, and knowing that Aidos was on par with them, a war spanning the entire universe was more than enough to crumble them.

The Valmone Universe, according to my newly recovered knowledge, stretched across at least 150 billion light-years. And that was only the known regions—there were likely undiscovered expanses beyond that.

A war spreading across such a vast territory would have undoubtedly crippled intergalactic empires like Aidos and Gozon. They must have taken immense damage, sending them into a spiral of decline.

Then Aidos got caught up in that god’s rampage, likely having most of its surface wiped out, which only worsened its downfall. This probably accelerated their regression even further, eventually leaving Aidos in the pseudo-middle-ages state I found it in when Artemisia tossed me there.

Coming to that conclusion, I gestured for Prisma to continue.

[That was the Great Valmone WAR. A war spanning every known corner of the universe, affecting every single intergalactic force.

Powerful hegemons disappeared in the course of that war. The death toll reached into the decillions.

Around 60% of the known Race Rulers of the universe either died, retired, or went MIA.]

“What, the actual fuck?”

Sixty percent?!

Having recovered a portion of my past incarnation’s memories, I completely comprehended the powers of Race Rulers. The idea that they had fallen in droves was mind-boggling.

[Artemisia, Beatrix, Alvey, McEnda III, Sigesi—that generation rose to prominence as Race Kings during that war.

It was also during that war that Artemisia became the goddess of Evolution, a seat that had remained vacant for centuries since you killed Dorian. The universe was playing favourites.]

His words reminded me of Artemisia’s title—Valmone’s Favourite. It seemed the universe had kept the seat warm for her after Dorian’s death.

[Beatrix took up the position of goddess of Space and Time, which was vacant since Rilene Xagna suffered grievous injuries in battle against the Demon King of Destruction, Malorum, who for the record, also went MIA.]

A lot of powerful figures really went down during this war. I wonder what the Race Emperors did? Craig, at the very least, would have meddled.

[Alvey and McEnda III became the new ‘Supreme’ Demon Kings, heading Gozon’s 72, and-]

“Hold up, wait a minute. Something’s not right.”

Prisma paused as I cut him off, turning to me with a raised brow and I voiced my question.

“Alvey and McEnda became ‘Supreme’ Demon Kings? What happened to Jamie and McEnda II?”

[Jamie left the Universe and returned to Zanerth.]

“That’s understandable. What happened to McEnda II? Did he become a Demon Emperor or something?”

[…]

Prisma didn’t answer me.

Seeing his facial expression, I had a really bad premonition.

[Everything obeys the laws of cause and effect.]

“I don’t like where this is going.”

[That same principle applies to wars.]

“Stop right there.”

Despite my protest, Prisma ignored me and continued speaking.

[You already know that Elven Emperor Falael is dead in the future—he was the last remaining Deadly Sin of his generation, and a new set couldn’t be born until all the previous members had perished.]

That was true. I recalled inadvertently revealing his eventual death to Sigesi and Arthur on my second day in Aramis.

[Ever wondered how he died?]

“…”

[The cause of the Great Valmone WAR was the murder of Demon Emperor McEnda II—at the hands of god Emperor Craig and Elven Emperor Falael.]

Craig, that son of a bitch!

I knew he had to be involved somehow.

“Hmm? Wait, did you just say Demon Emperor? McEnda II became a Demon Emperor? Also, aren’t the other Demon Emperors his parents? Why didn’t they intervene?”

If McEnda II became a Demon Emperor, then the Demons had three Emperors at once. That would have easily made them the strongest race in the universe!

[They would have…if they were around.

No one knows how or why, but shortly after McEnda II ascended, McEnda I and Empress Nephinae vanished.

The prevailing theory was that, much like you, they left the universe, entrusting the demons to their son.]

“A fucking HORRIBLE decision!”