Reincarnated Hero System

The concentration of ambient magic power spiked, and without a moment’s hesitation, all twelve disciples launched their attacks simultaneously, their unified battle cries echoing through the air.

“Courting death!”

“Accept my strike!”

“You dare defy us?!”

Universal Law Energy surged from the disciples as their techniques lit up the sky. Flames roared, gales howled, and blades of radiant light sliced through the air, all converging on the two laughing figures.

Arthur, still grinning like a fool, barely raised an eyebrow as the incoming attacks approached.

“Oh man, this just keeps getting better.”

The flow of time slowed, giving the two enough space to rise to their feet.

“Alright, now’s the fighting part,” Evan said while summoning his sword, and with a single swing, he deflected several energy blasts at once.

Beside him, Arthur, hands still in his pockets, manipulated gravity, bending the space around him so the incoming attacks twisted off course and disintegrated mid-air.

One of the two Inferior Sovereigns in the Denerth group, furious at the sight of his attacks being so easily brushed off, unleashed a powerful sword technique engulfed in spiralling flames as he charged Evan, shouting a fierce attack name.

Still laughing lightly, Evan activated Mesarthim and effortlessly blocked the strike, his swordsmanship overwhelming the disciple despite the intense flames.

“What is this…? How is a Legendary like you this strong?!”

Evan grinned behind his mask and, choosing to embrace the cliché, taunted his opponent.

“You have eyes but failed to see Mount Tai!”

Activating Pierce Guard, he thrust his sword forward as he shouted, driving it into the Sovereign’s shoulder. He then followed up with a punch infused with frostfire, leaving the disciple stunned and staggering backward, unable to believe he had just lost the clash.

Meanwhile, Arthur faced the second Inferior Sovereign, easily sidestepping the disciple’s wild but predictable attacks without drawing his sword.

As the opponent grew frustrated and accused Arthur of toying with him, Arthur coldly responded that he saw him as nothing but an ant before knocking him from one end of the mountain summit to the other.

The disciple coughed, struggling to stand, his expression marred with disbelief.

“How can you be so strong… how can you wield such powerful law energy?”

Arthur replied coldly and dismissively, subtly increasing the concentration of law energy around his palm.

“You have a shallow understanding of the Dao.”

Arthur then proceeded to beat the living daylights out of the guy with just one hand, before kicking him away.

Bloodied and bruised, the wounded Sovereign stumbled forward, biting his finger and drawing blood that dripped onto the ring on his hand as he shouted desperately,

“Old Grandpa! Help me!”

The ring glowed with a brilliant white light, and from it, an old man’s spirit materialized, his presence pressing down on the mountain as he glared fiercely at Arthur.

But before the old man could act, Arthur and Evan erupted into laughter once more, completely shattering the dramatic tension.

Arthur dropped to his knees, howling with laughter, while Evan clutched his sides.

“He has an old grandpa in a ring!” Evan managed to gasp between breaths, and Arthur, nearly rolling on the ground, wheezed, “I knew it! I knew this was going to happen! Classic!”

The old man’s face twisted in confusion as the two continued their ridiculous laughter, his imposing presence deflated by their total lack of seriousness.

But the more they laughed, the angrier the old spirit became.

[Juniors! You dare laugh at me?!]

The old man’s expression twisted in fury as his spiritual energy surged, shaking the ground beneath them.

He condensed his law energy in his ethereal palm and shouted, unleashing a devastating strike aimed at Arthur.

[Die!]

Suddenly, the laughter that had filled the air abruptly ceased, and for a split second, the colours of the world around them inverted.

Everyone blinked in confusion before recoiling in existential fear as they recognized the cause—the black sword with silver lines running along its blade that now appeared in Arthur’s hands.

This sense of dread was even stronger in the old man, who existed solely as a soul with an astral body.

Although the old man tried to cancel his attack, Arthur moved faster, swinging the sword in a blur and unleashing a thin slash of silver energy.

It sliced through the old man’s astral body, bisecting him cleanly, then continued through three mountains behind them, splitting them in half with a thunderous crack.

The old man’s soul was devoured by the sword, and Arthur casually sheathed and unsummoned the sword as if nothing had happened.

The remaining Denerth Sect disciples stared in terror, realizing how outmatched they were, and began to retreat while shouting hollow threats.

“W-we’ll make you pay for this!”

One of them stammered, his voice trembling as he slowly began to retreat.

“W-we’ll call our senior brothers! Y-you’ll regret this!”

Another added, though the fear in his tone was impossible to miss.

Without wasting another moment, the Denerth Sect cultivators turned tail and fled, tripping over rocks and debris in their frantic scramble to get away.

“Senior brothers? Man, these guys don’t give up, do they?” Evan muttered as he sent his sword back to his Inventory.

Arthur chuckled, casting a glance at the spot where the old man’s spirit had been as he responded.

“At least we know they won’t be bothering us for a while.”

Evan laughed, shaking his head before adding, “Only until the next cliché.”

◇　◇　◇

As the group of Denerth Sect disciples descended the mountain, still fuming and vowing revenge, one of them—the one who had been the loudest about his sect’s supremacy—glanced around nervously.

His frustration boiled over, and he spat out,

“I’ll call Senior Brother Feng! He’ll take revenge for me, and they’ll all—”

But before he could finish, a flicker of movement caught the edge of his vision, and the words died in his throat.

Suddenly, there was nothing. No feeling below his neck, no sensation at all.

He looked down and saw something surreal: a headless body gushing blood like a fountain. It took him a blink to realize it was his.

And not just his. The other ten disciples were in the same state—each head conscious for an instant, watching in silent horror as their bodies remained upright for one impossible moment before crumpling to the ground.

Then everything went dark, and their lifeless heads hit the ground.

Moments later, the ground beneath them cracked open and tendrils of vines and roots slithered out, wrapping around the corpses.

One by one, the bodies were pulled below, vanishing into the earth as it sealed up again, leaving no sign they’d ever been there.

From atop a jagged peak nearby—one of the same mountains Arthur had split earlier—a lone figure stood, observing the aftermath in silence.

His yellow, flower-patterned eyes gleamed in the morning light as he murmured.

“Fools. Always looking to complicate things for us.”

The man stood tall and lean, his dirty blond hair tousled by the wind. His greyish skin gave him a slightly sickly look, made worse by the deep eyebags beneath his uniquely patterned, flower-like irises.

A faint stubble lined his jaw, and two prominent horns curved upward from his head. A long tail extended from his lower back, curling as it rested against the cracked earth beside him.

He wore a brown trench coat over a black button-up shirt and matching trousers.

This man, was an Infernal Devil.

At the sight of him, Evan wouldn’t even need Full Appraisal to know this wasn’t just any random Devil, but an Infernal Archdevil.

The aura he exuded was every bit as intense as Alvey’s or McEnda’s, though it was tightly restrained to just a few feet around him.

He was the one who had beheaded the Denerth Sect members moments ago, eliminating them before they could call whatever ‘senior brothers’ they had in mind and risk drawing more attention to the area.

His gaze remained fixed on the dungeon entrance, watching as the group of six vanished inside.

“So they’re entering there, huh? Perfect for us.

It’s a dungeon we’ve cleared before, so we know the layout. We’ll set up an ambush at the exit point.”

Just as he said this, another figure approached from behind. This one also radiated the unmistakable aura of a Transcendent, an Infernal Archdevil, just like the flower-patterned-eyed man.

“We’ll catch them right after they’re done.”

The two Devils stood side by side, eyes locked on the entrance, when the second Archdevil narrowed his eyes and asked with a frown.

“Still, that series of dimensional rifts a few days ago… spat all these outsiders onto the continent.

What caused it? I initially thought none of them would pose a threat, considering they were Inferior Transcendents at best. But to think that there was a group capable of threatening us…”

At that moment, a third figure stepped forward, a woman this time. She wore a long, flowing dress that fluttered in the wind, her expression stern.

“Anyone with Destruction law energy needs to die. They would be capable of destroying the link Vonun would create.”

She cast a glance toward the Archdevil with the flower-patterned eyes as she spoke, revealing his name to be ‘Vonun’.

But that wasn’t the most important detail at the moment.

What truly mattered was her face.

Had Evan seen her now, he would have recognized her instantly, as she was the same Infernal Archdevil who had been masquerading as a spirit and approached him two days ago.

And more importantly, this wasn’t a ‘Soul Clone’, but her real Transcendent Level body.

From her words, it was evident that the Infernal Devils on this continent were targeting anyone who possessed powers related to the Law of Destruction.

Whatever their plans were for this land, destruction was a direct threat to it.

While several Transcendent level cultivators who had fallen onto this continent dabbled in Destruction, most had already been hunted down and eliminated by these Infernal Archdevils.

Now, Arthur and Evan were next on their list.

Based on what the Devils had observed so far, Arthur’s destructive capabilities far surpassed those of the dozen Transcendents they had already slain combined.

As for Evan, although they had initially placed him low on their threat list due to still being a Legendary Level, his killing spree through hordes of monsters the day before had made it clear that he wasn’t someone to take lightly.

Letting those boys roam freely was not an option. They needed to be eliminated.

Sometime after the group of six had entered the dungeon, a fourth voice rang out across the mountaintop, calling the names of the first three in the order they had appeared.

[Vonun, Jegunul, Yujia.]

The humanoid figure behind the voice emerged from a spatial gate, but unlike the others, his body was translucent, like an astral projection hovering just above the ground.

[You can do whatever you want with the others, but leave the dragon boy. He’s mine.]

Vonun, the first Archdevil, frowned at the demand.

“What’s so special about him?”

The newcomer didn’t hesitate to respond.

[He has the bloodline of a White Dragon.]

“?!”

Vonun’s eyes shot wide open, disbelief flashing across his face. A White Dragon? Here?

Jegunul, who had remained silent beside him, turned toward the newcomer, a look of realization lighting up his expression.

“If that’s true, then you should be able to—”

[I know.]

The translucent figure cut him off, eyes still locked onto the dungeon entrance.

[Kill the others, but leave that boy. I need to absorb his soul to obtain the keys and control his body perfectly, achieving 100% synchronization… immediately.]

His final words came as a murmur, spoken more to himself than the others, yet all three heard them clearly.

[If I have his body, I will be able to return to my full strength. My full Transcendent power.]

Unlike the three Archdevils standing atop the mountain, this one bore no horns or tail, yet he was a devil all the same.

A Soul Devil, to be exact.