Reincarnated Hero System

“Come, my friend. I’m going to need you for something.”

Jamie reached into the suddenly appearing patch of darkness, his hand vanishing for a moment before emerging once more, this time gripping the hilt of a long sword.

The weapon had a polished obsidian hilt, and its blade looked as though it was forged from swirling black mist, glimmering with a faint, iridescent sheen.

It resembled the swirling galaxies and nebulae adorning the night sky—the image of outer space itself.

“Wait a second!”

Arthur reacted instantly at the sight of the sword, and at once, both his Ego Weapons manifested of their own accord.

[Galaxy Sword?!]

Celestia’s voice rang out, naming the sword now in Jamie’s grip—Rule Breaker Number 4.

The other sword, Lostvayne, also spoke, though neither Arthur nor Evan could hear the words directly.

The sword’s voice operated on a frequency Lower Existences couldn’t perceive, but Celestia translated.

[The Ego of the sword… it’s asleep?]

Like Arthur’s swords, Jamie’s Galaxy Sword possessed an Ego of its own. But for some reason, it was sleeping.

“Oh, Lostvayne. Long-time no see,” Jamie said, casually addressing Arthur’s sword, completely unfazed by the revelation.

[– —- –]

Though no one could hear what the blade said, whatever it was made Jamie burst out laughing.

“Didn’t I tell you once? The day would come when you’d find yourself serving a ‘lower existence.’ Guess I wasn’t wrong, now was I?”

In response, Lostvayne pointed its blade away from Jamie, as if offended, and Jamie only chuckled at the display.

Meanwhile, Arthur, Evan, and even Byrant could only remain silent, trying to make sense of the surreal exchange.

It was Byrant who first broke out of the daze, stepping in front of Jamie with growing alarm in his voice.

“Wait, J-man. What do you wanna do?!”

“Hmm? Get Kayla’s attention. What else?” Jamie replied matter-of-factly, shooting Byrant a look that questioned why he’d even asked something so obvious.

“Then why did you summon that thing?!”

Byrant shouted, carefully keeping his distance from Jamie’s sword, but the Hybrid only laughed in response.

“Relax. I’m not trying to fight her or anything.”

“That doesn’t—!”

Before Byrant could finish, Jamie waved his hand again, releasing a swirl of cosmic energy that instantly wrapped around the Spirit King and whisked him away in the blink of an eye.

Jamie then poured Cosmic Energy into the Galaxy Sword—so much that Arthur felt cold sweat forming down his back.

Even with its slumbering Ego, the Galaxy Sword was still a Rule Breaker weapon. And unlike with Arthur and Lostvayne, Jamie was a Deity who could draw out its true power.

Jamie’s eyes began to glow as his Unique Authority activated, and in his True Voice, he spoke.

|Dimensional Slash|

He swung the blade, and the fusion of azure spatial power and cosmic energy tore through the sky in a single, devastating slash.

Reality fractured in response, a colossal crack splitting the heavens above. Moments later, the sky itself shattered.

Half of the stars in the night sky disappeared.

Both boys’ eyes widened in shock, and even the nearby Automations were stunned.

Evan couldn’t form words. His hand trembled as he pointed toward the now-empty sky, voice breaking.

“D-Did y-yo…?”

Jamie only chuckled at Evan’s visible confusion, sheathing the Galaxy Sword before turning to answer the unspoken question.

“No, I didn’t destroy all those stars,” he said casually. “I only destroyed a portion of the ‘space’ between us and those stars.”

He continued, his tone light, as if he’d done nothing more than rearrange a few chairs.

“Stars emit light, and that light travels through space and takes time to reach us. What I erased was that space and time.

So, with nothing for the light to travel through, we can’t see it. To us, it looks like those stars have disappeared.

But they’re still out there, perfectly fine, however many millions of light-years away.”

As the explanation sank in, Arthur and Evan exchanged glances, still trying to process the sheer scale of what had just occurred.

‘I’ve seen my share of crazy shit, but I guess there’s always something crazier.’

Who could say how many star systems were now staring up at a sky missing half its stars? Judging by the flurry of auras flaring up from hundreds of kilometres away, it was a lot.

Arthur took a breath to calm himself before finally asking, “Why?”

Jamie returned the Galaxy Sword to his subspace and replied,

“Like I said earlier. I need Kayla to come out to my range so I can get her attention. Unless I do something of this scale, she wouldn’t budge.

What’s more, Kayla is an existence closely related to stars.”

At that, Evan’s eyes widened slightly. His expression quickly returned to normal as he controlled himself, though no one noticed.

‘This son of a gun. He knows Kayla is the Star of Lightning…’

Evan had his suspicions when Jamie took them to the SOL, but now, he was 100% sure.

Meanwhile, Jamie continued speaking.

“If Kayla is here, there’s no way she’d sit back while half the stars in the sky abruptly disappeared. She’d attempt to investigate and that would bring her out from wherever she is.”

Just then, Jamie looked up at the broken sky and smiled.

“She was faster than I expected.”

And with that, he vanished.

◇　◇　◇

Space was meant to be dark—empty, with nothing to trap the light from distant stars.

Yet with so many stars strewn across the galaxy, that darkness should have been speckled with endless points of light.

Jamie’s actions had changed that, leaving behind a hollow void where light once was. And someone was not happy about this.

Far from the Garden of Stars, a woman floated in the silence of space.

Her long black hair flowed down to her waist, the ends curling softly. A simple black dress fluttered gently around her knees, and a drowsy look lingered in her noble gold eyes as she rubbed them, trying to chase away sleep.

Like many others, she had first assumed the stars had simply disappeared—an illogical thought, but one that pushed her to investigate.

But as she approached the affected zone, understanding dawned.

Floating in the vacuum, she reached out, slowly extending her hand until it crossed an unseen threshold.

And was instantly severed.

“A Dimensional Line.

Space was severed, leaving behind a dimensional line that slices everything that comes into contact with this severed space.”

She spoke calmly, using her magic to retrieve her severed hand. With ease, she reattached it and healed the wound with light magic.

Her brows knit in thought as she flexed her fingers.

“But why?”

The reason behind the phenomenon eluded her. Her gaze turned toward the Garden of Stars.

That was when she felt it—the aura lingering in the severed space. Her eyes narrowed, carefully analysing the residual energy.

Slowly, realization crept into her expression.

“Shit!”

She cursed and spun around, preparing to flee, but an all-too-familiar voice echoed in her ears before she could move.

|Too Late|

Her heart dropped.

Jamie appeared behind her, arms wrapping tightly around her waist, and in a blink, they both vanished.

A second later, he reappeared before Arthur and Evan, holding the Spirit Empress firmly in his grasp.

But alas, this was not the ‘Kayla’ that Evan knew in the future. This was the full-powered ‘Spirit Empress’ Kaylatheurge—not someone who could be kidnapped so easily without consequence.

On sheer reflex, her right hand lashed out, striking Jamie square in the face with enough force to trigger a shockwave that tore through the landscape.

The resulting blast annihilated everything behind them, levelling half the forest in its wake. Arthur and Evan were thrown from where they sat, despite being on the opposite side of the impact.

As for Jamie who took the full brunt of the hit, his neck snapped at an unnatural angle with a sickening crack, and his limp body hit the ground with a heavy thud.

Kaylatheurge didn’t hesitate to elementalize her body in a bid to escape, but an invisible force constricted the space around her, binding her in place and sealing off even the faintest trace of energy from leaking out of her body.

She fought against the suppressive force and spun around, glaring at the suit-clad man whose hand still gripped her wrist, despite his neck hanging at a broken angle.

*CRACK!

With that sickening crunch, Jamie’s neck snapped back into place, the fractured bones realigning and healing instantly.

He tilted his head to test his restored mobility, before calmly meeting Kaylatheurge’s glare.

“You know,” he said, “even if I can regenerate, it’s still painful to have my neck snapped.”

“Let me go, you annoying bastard!”

Jamie merely chuckled at her furious demand. His grip tightened as he slid an arm around her waist again, forcing her into the chair he’d been sitting in moments ago. His cosmic energy wrapped around her, locking the surrounding space and freezing her in place.

“How about… no?” he replied with a smirk, watching her writhe in annoyance.

It was obvious she hated the situation, and just as obvious that Jamie was thoroughly enjoying it.

Knowing that struggling would only feed into his amusement, she reluctantly gave up, refusing to grant him that extra satisfaction.

“Pfft…”

Still, Jamie was entertained. He dragged a chair over beside her and sat down, still wearing a smug grin.

“Long time no see, Kayla. How’ve you been?”

“…”

The Spirit Empress didn’t respond. Instead, she turned her gaze away, inadvertently looking in Arthur’s direction.

Her eyes widened in shock.

“…what the hell are you?”

Not who, but what.