Reincarnated Hero System

The scene the wind revealed was that of Evan, now with his sword raised high, and without hesitation, he brought it down on the shoulder of the one who had tried to ambush him, stabbing the blade deep into their flesh.

He then stomped his right leg down onto the back of their knee, activating Collapse with an impact that shook the ground, crushing the knee and rendering them immobile.

As the attacker howled in pain, Evan asked calmly.

“Why have you been following me for the past two days?”

And then, pressing the blade even deeper into the attacker’s shoulder, he finished the same sentence he’d begun earlier.

“Any unsatisfactory answer will result in the loss of a limb.”

The rest of the group stared in disbelief as their strongest had been subdued just as swiftly and effortlessly as they had.

As the group remained silent, Evan raised an eyebrow and said, “Did I mention you had thirty seconds? Well, you have twenty now. Start talking.”

He pressed his sword deeper into the shoulder of the one beneath his foot as he spoke, his attention turning toward the spirits Beatrix had restrained, because only they were in any condition to respond.

The ones restrained by Artemisia were being squeezed by a massive lightning avatar, paralyzed and completely unable to speak. Of the three Evan had subdued, one had a lightning dragon clamped onto their body, another was frozen from the neck down and still reeling from shock, and the third was coughing up blood with a punctured lung.

With only Beatrix’s captives left capable of speech, two of them tried to talk at once.

“We were just trying to—”

“We didn’t mean any harm, we only—”

“Shut up, both of you,” Evan snapped, his Intimidation Skill activating, and with it, Destruction energy surged out from his body like a crimson-gold tide.

It immediately had all of them trembling involuntarily, shivering in fear from the sheer pressure.

Then he pointed at one of them and commanded, “You. On the left. Speak.”

The chosen spirit didn’t hesitate.

“We’re not hostile—”

Evan cut him off with a voice cold enough to kill.

“You’ve been tailing me for the past two days, ever since I fought that Soul Devil. Why? What were you waiting for? Go straight to the point.”

That cold command left no room for evasion, and the spirit immediately responded, unwilling to risk Evan losing patience and executing his companions.

“We wanted to recruit you to help us fight against the devils!!”

At that, Evan scoffed.

“Devils? Are you not devils yourselves, merely wearing the guises of spirits?

You’re not the first group I’ve seen pull this trick, so what makes you think I’ll believe a single word you say?”

Of course, Evan already knew they were genuine spirits. The moment he and the girls had subdued them, he’d used Appraisal on all seven.

But just because he knew their identity didn’t mean he intended to reveal that knowledge. After all, he still didn’t fully understand the relationship between spirits and devils on this planet.

The ones he had fought before were devils disguised as spirits, but that didn’t necessarily mean the real spirits were enemies of the devils. For all he knew, they could be allies, or worse, something far more complicated.

There could be all sorts of layered deceptions at play that Evan hadn’t seen yet.

So, genuine or not, Evan wasn’t about to drop his guard. If anything, knowing they were real spirits only made him more cautious.

The one under his foot squirmed, and Evan pressed his sword further into their bloody shoulder and said coldly, “Stop trying to move, or my leg will do to your spine what it did to your knee.”

The threat immediately made the spirit go still.

Evan then turned his focus back to the one who had been speaking and said,

“Alright, continue your little story. Don’t leave out a single detail.

Because what you say next decides whether the eight of you leave this place walking on your legs… or as corpses in my inventory, like the devil dragons you watched me put away two days ago.”

At his words, all the spirits froze, teeth clenched, eyes wide in shock, their faces etched with disbelief. That was the collective reaction.

To think that Evan had noticed them all along, and had simply pretended not to. They had been so confident in their stealth, certain that no existence beneath Transcendence could possibly detect them if they truly committed to hiding.

Clearly, Evan was a glaring exception to that assumption. And not just Evan, Artemisia and Beatrix had noticed them too, even if the two goddesses only sensed their presence once they had drawn much closer.

They had been waiting for Evan to finally meet up with them and had moved in closer than usual while discussing how best to approach him.

Unfortunately, that also happened to be the exact moment Evan lost his patience with their stalking.

“It seems you really don’t care much for your companions, huh?” Evan’s voice was calm, eerily so, considering what followed.

“Because that’s the only logical reason why you’re still not talking even while my sword is this close to tearing into his neck.”

As he spoke, he lifted his blade, ready to bring it down on the one beneath him, and at that, the spirit panicked, shouting out in desperation.

“Please wait!!! We actually need your help to fight against the devils! Everyone on the continent knows that devils and spirits are enemies! If you met devils disguised as spirits, it was probably to trick you into letting your guard down. It’s a tactic they’ve used on humans and elves too!

Please believe us! We just needed your help against the devils!”

Evan turned to him slowly, his gaze still steeped in suspicion.

“You needed my help against the devils? Please. I’m just one out of thousands of cultivators that were shipwrecked onto this godforsaken place. And I’m not even close to the strongest of them. There were Transcendents among us.”

He narrowed his eyes. “So tell me… why come to me? Unless you sent a squad of eight spirits to tail every other person who landed on this continent a few days ago. Did you?”

“No,” the spirit blurted out quickly, “It’s because you’re one of the only Destruction users among them that’s still alive!”

At those words, Evan went silent, his eyes widening slightly.

“…still…alive?”

“Yes. We know about the other outsiders who fell into this world a few days ago. But we didn’t go after them, but you, because of your power of Destruction.

The war with the devils is intensifying, and their grand plan for this continent is something that the power of Destruction can heavily threaten. That’s why they’ve been hunting down every Destruction user they can find.

Destruction law users were already rare to begin with, but thanks to the devils, they’ve been driven to near extinction on this continent.

When you outsiders fell into this world, the Infernal Devils noticed, just like we did. They immediately began searching for Destruction users among you and began eliminating them.

Spirits and elves tried to protect some, but the Infernal Devil Vice Commanders got involved, and we ended up losing several elite squads along with the people we were trying to protect.

If you encountered devils disguised as spirits, those were likely scouts. And if you didn’t kill them, there’s a good chance they reported your existence to their superiors.”

At that, Evan remembered the woman he had met on day one and cursed inwardly.

‘Fucking hell… so that’s how they found out about us.’

For a moment, he regretted not killing her when he had the chance. But then he recalled the state he had been in at the time and realized that if he had fought her, he definitely wouldn’t have come out unscathed, and might’ve ended up in an even more precarious situation.

Worse still, if the battle had drawn the attention of other Infernal Devils who then descended on him right after, then engaging her would’ve basically been a death sentence.

While he had those thoughts, the spirit continued speaking in a trembling voice.

“W-we know that your Destruction power exceeds even those with much higher levels, and so do the Infernal Devils.

Even as you are now, you’re a threat to their plan. If you’re allowed to grow stronger, if your power of Destruction grows stronger, you would become even more of a threat to them than Transcendent Elder Spirits.

That’s likely why their Commanders personally came after you and your companions at the volcano.”

The moment the word volcano left the spirit’s mouth, Evan, Artemisia, and Beatrix all reacted at once.

Their gazes sharpened instantly, and the killing intent they radiated became so intense, that the spirit could swear he could physically see it in the air.

Evan’s voice followed, cold and laced with suspicion. “And how did you know we were attacked in a volcano? Were you spying on us before then?”

He fell silent after that, a frown creasing his features.

‘There was no way Arthur would have failed to detect them…’

As that thought crossed his mind, Evan’s foot, still planted on the back of the spirit pinned beneath him, slowly pressed down with increasing force.

The earth beneath cracked, spiderweb fractures spreading out from the point of contact like it was about to give way beneath the spirit’s body. It was as if Evan was trying to crush him through the ground.

Feeling the pressure, and recognizing the danger, the spirit panicked.

‘Ah, shit.’

Evan had already been clearly pissed. But now, his fury had reached an entirely new level.

The spirit scrambled to speak. “Wait, no! We weren’t spying on you! We didn’t spy on you!”

“Then how do you know what happened on the other side of the continent?” Evan snapped. “As far as I know, crossing that Chasm isn’t something you can do willingly. So how do you know what happened over there?”

At that, the spirit froze. His mouth opened slightly, then closed, and he bit his tongue, clearly hesitating.

Evan watched him for a second, then spoke calmly. “I see. Very well.”

He raised his leg, magic power rapidly gathering at his heel. Collapse was already activated, and the moment Evan’s foot made contact again, it would release all that built-up magic and the man’s spine would become nothing more than a memory.

Just before the foot came down, the spirit beneath him shouted, his voice filled with the desperation to save his own spine., “It was our Prophetess! She divined it!”

Evan’s foot froze, mere inches from making contact, though the glow of magic didn’t fade. His heel still hovered threateningly, suspended in the air above the spirit’s back.

He tilted his head slightly. “Prophetess? Divine… what?”

The restrained spirits under Beatrix’s watch suddenly burst out, trying to speak over each other.

“No, the prophetess is—!”

“She divined your presence—!”

But Evan cut them off with a glare. “Didn’t I say only one of you should speak?”

The cold edge in his voice shut them up at once. He turned toward the second spirit who had interrupted and warned, “Another word from you, and your head rolls.”

Then, pointing to the one who had been speaking originally, he added, “Only you will speak from now on.”

Beatrix, feeling a twinge of sympathy for the poor spirit since she knew Evan was annoyed enough to make good on that threat, snapped her fingers. Instantly, the temporal stasis affecting that second spirit spread over his mouth, freezing it in time and making it physically impossible for him to speak.

Sensing the pulse of magic power, the spirit who had been speaking shivered and glanced at Beatrix from the corner of his eye.

‘Terrifying! The boy with distorted time is crazy enough, but these two are equally frightening! In what world are these supposed to be teenagers!?’

“Oy. Why’d you go silent?”

“Ah! Sorry, Sir!”

The spirit switched to a deferent tone, and Evan, though momentarily confused, d chose not to question it and simply ordered.

“Explain this whole Prophetess business.”

The magic power that had gathered in his leg dispersed, and both the spirit pinned beneath him and the one he ordered to explain exhaled, visibly relieved.