Reincarnated Hero System

The wyvern’s body jerked violently as the monster’s soul entered it, twitching in futile resistance against the invading presence. Unfortunately for the monster, it was no match for the Artificial Monster’s soul, and the power of the one controlling said soul.

Its once amber eyes turned completely black, and it let out a guttural roar before unleashing a breath of spectral light towards Evan.

The attack moved at relativistic speed, far too fast for Evan to react. The light pierced Evan’s body, its malignant power surging straight towards the root of his existence.

But in that moment, Evan felt a skill activate, and a wry smile played on his lips behind his mask.

Information wasn’t the only benefit Evan got from his meeting with Agnes last year. With how much the girl stared into his eyes, it felt as if she was begging him to take her skills.

And Evan obliged her request.

“Soul Attack? Too bad, I’ve got Anima!”

| Anima;

Type: Ultra-Rare Skill

Effect:

Anima is a rare skill that empowers its user by tapping into the depths of their soul, significantly boosting their soul power and capacity.

By channelling the essence of spiritual laws, the user gains exceptional resistance to soul damage, heightened spiritual fortitude, mental clarity, and emotional resilience. This greatly enhances the user’s magical abilities and overall vitality. |

As Evan exclaimed, he launched himself at the wyvern who coated its claws in spectral light and swung them at him, but Evan parried with his shield and threw an uppercut at the wyvern’s jaw.

“Seeing a wyvern reminds me of Craitid, but you’re nowhere near as strong as he was.”

Evan grabbed the wyvern’s wing, planting his feet on a void step and spinning its massive body around in a blur of motion. The speed of his movement generated a powerful momentum, and he used it to fling the wyvern skyward.

“Since Limit Break is already active, I’ll put it to good use.”

He unleashed his maximum magic power, the burst of energy releasing shockwaves and creating a crushing pressure in the atmosphere. Holding up his hands, he activated a Skill combination.

‘Harbinger of Ice + Hammerfist.’

Magic power surged from Evan’s body and pierced the skies.

Then, the heavens darkened, and the clouds parted to reveal a gigantic fist construct of ice. The wyvern, struggling to regain its balance in the air, discovered too late that the wing Evan had touched was frozen solid.

It tried to melt the ice with its flames, but the ice was too strong to yield easily. Left with no choice, the monster turned its rage towards Evan, releasing another breath of spectral light.

The attack phased into Evan, bypassing his physical form to target his soul, but was rebuffed by Evan’s Anima.

“That didn’t work the first time, so what made you think it’d work again…”

‘…Mortis.’

Evan did not call that name aloud.

Instead, he lightly punched his palm, and the giant Hammerfist in the sky descended, crashing into the wyvern’s body.

Simultaneously, a massive platform of ice emerged from the ground, and the wyvern’s body collided with it.

The giant Hammerfist crushed the wyvern’s form against the icy platform, resulting in an explosion of icy energy that cleared the clouds from the sky for kilometres, leaving the battlefield eerily silent.

Shockwaves and powerful gusts of icy winds reached the ground, freezing rooftops and the winds blew Evan’s cap off his head, but he caught it faster than it could fly off and put it back on.

“Now then, what should I name this attack?”

Evan placed a hand on his chin as he thought of possible names for the new technique he just used.

“The options are

Frozen Fist of Doom.

Subzero Smash.

Blizzard Breaker.

Eternal Ice Crusher.

Glacial Hammerfall.

I’d leave it to the readers to decide.”

He shirked the responsibility without hesitation, before turning his gaze in a seemingly random direction and tilting his head in confusion.

“At these kinds of times, I’m supposed to say ‘Must have been my imagination’ and pretend I didn’t notice the very suspicious black haze moving in the direction of the City Lord’s mansion…right?”

[The goddess ‘Artemisia’ says you should really keep such thoughts to yourself.]

Evan just laughed at Artemisia’s words as he activated blink, arriving at Eliza’s side after repeated teleportations.

At that moment, there was a loud rumbling and a cloudless drizzle began, with Eliza quickly pulling an umbrella out of her Storage Ring and opening it up.

“We’ve done enough, right?”

“Yeah, we have. They should be able to handle the rest. By the way, you exceeded your time limit by 2 minutes.”

“Wait, what?!”

Eliza’s words reminded Evan of the fact that he had intended to round everything up in 15 minutes and informed him that he had failed to do so.

“This is because of that damn regenerating Gryphon! I would have finished earlier.”

Evan lamented his loss while Eliza just chuckled lightly before suggesting they get going since their train in Usrolis was going to be leaving soon.

Nodding in affirmation, Evan informed his party members that it was time to go, before grabbing Eliza and teleporting with blink, leaving behind the dumbfounded adventurers who had wanted to speak with them.

News of Evan and Eliza’s deeds in Zlunard spread like wildfire, and a few days later, he would open his status to see the title of ‘Frostfire Fist’ added to it, but that was a story for another time.

◇　◇　◇

City Lord’s Mansion

Zlunard Metropolis

December 2nd

Year 1054

A man stood at the balcony of the mansion, overlooking the metropolis and silently watching the fires caused by the monster outbreak being put out.

Earth mages had already been commissioned to help with rebuilding the city, and damage reports were already coming into the City Hall.

‘Those two masked SS Ranked Adventurers, where in Hell did they come from? Their presence ruined everything.

Especially the woman…her support abilities were too powerful and she was able to disperse the death essence with her mere presence.’

The man stood stall, with long, jet-black hair cascading down his back and piercing dark eyes holding a calm gaze. He had a short, well-groomed beard adorning his serene face, and his deathly pale skin contrasted sharply with his aura, which seemed to emanate both vitality and an eerie sense of death.

Despite his calm expression, he was very…VERY annoyed.

“More importantly, that boy…”

His gaze narrowed as he remembered the scene where the boy using flames and ice had his cap removed, revealing his black hair.

Contrary to what one might expect, this man did not mysteriously figure out that it was the Irregular Hero Evan. His brain didn’t even go there.

Instead, his brain remembered someone else. Someone he had seen in the past, thousands of years ago.

“It looked so much like him. That ‘Masked Rogue Hero’…”

There was a big difference between ‘Heroes’ and ‘Rogue Heroes’, and this man felt Evan resembled a certain Rogue Hero he knew in the past.

“During the War, the Masked Rogue Hero’s identity was revealed and everyone found out who he was behind the mask.

He did have connections with Artemisia because of the old gods who tried to kill him, but did he also Fall?”

Just as the man thought that, he refuted that conjecture. Evan did not realise when it happened, but this man had used the many ghosts and lingering spirits in Zlunard as conduits to scan the boy and he was able to accurately determine his age.

“His body’s age was not up to 18, so he hasn’t reached physical maturity. The woman wasn’t far off either.

My Soul Attack didn’t work on him, but I could detect his Soul’s Age and it wasn’t high either.”

He was still musing to himself when he received a call, putting his hands into his pocket and retrieving the Guild Card before answering it.

[Mortis, what’s the situation?]

“A failure, Faulin.

I thought I picked a fine city without anyone above the Inferior Epic Realm, but two SS rank Aventurers travelling incognito interfered.

Thanks to them, the casualties were too little so if I take any corpses, it’d be noticed.”

[SS Rankers? Travelling Incognito?]

“Yes. A Mage woman using life and gravity magic, and a young boy wielding both flames and ice. He seems to have the Frozen Inferno skill so I guess that’s why.”

The dark-haired man called Mortis informed the person on the other end of the line about the details he gathered.

“They teleported away at the end and I tracked them down until they left the city and went to Usrolis.”

[Doesn’t that sound like they came there just to interfere with your plans?]

“I thought that at first, so I gathered all my ghosts and found information about their movements ever since they entered here.

It seems they were originally headed to a different city and temporarily stopped over at Usrolis, but there was a train delay and they left the station city to kill time while waiting for their train.

They were just walking along the street when the break happened and decided to interfere to help their fellow adventurers.

However, the life mage dispersed my death essence, and the boy had a strong soul resistance, strong enough that I couldn’t harm him even after burning that Chimeric soul…”

The man commanded numerous ghosts and lingering spirits throughout Zlunard, utilizing them to create an undetectable information network.

As such, besides Evan who expected this, all the others were unaware that this man had gained information about all their movements in Zlunard—he did this for any particularly powerful people who entered the city.

But thanks to their recognition inhibition, and the fact that none of them spoke their names even once, the man was unable to gain much information about their identities.

[If they didn’t purposely stop your plan, then fine.

Pull out of Zlunard, the soldiers there would be very vigilant since this plan failed.]

“It seems I’d have to make do with the ones I got from the Cemeteries.”

[That’d have to suffice to hold off the Holy Knights that boy is bringing.]

The words of the man on the other end of the line revealed that he was aware of a certain Hero secretly bringing in Knights from the Holy Kingdom into Tarse.

“One last thing…”

[What?]

“…”

The dark-haired man wanted to ask about the ‘Masked Rogue Hero’ he had mistaken Evan for, but he shook his head and decided against it.

“No, never mind. Just saw a lookalike.”

With that, he cut the call and silently watched the recovery efforts taken by the people of Zlunard, his gaze moving to the giant chunks of ice that dozens of mages were struggling to melt.

“Ice, huh?

Oh well, I suppose it’s a good thing that it was Frostfire he used…and not prismatic flames.”

The man raised his head and looked at the sky as he continued speaking in a solemn tone.

“After the War, he most likely left Valmone together with the Progenitor godslayer, that’s why we don’t know where he is.

Besides, there are billions of planets in the Galaxy; what are the odds that Prisma would be on this one?”

With those words, the man—Death Celestial Mortis—turned around and disappeared into a swirling spatial portal of celestial energy.