Reincarnated Hero System

“Don’t frown so much, Mallory. It’d ruin that pretty face of yours.”

The flow of time slowed and a figure materialized behind her, but besides Artemisia, no one could perceive them.

Selective Imperceptibility.

The power to only be able to be perceived by certain means or people. Because of that, no one knew that Artemisia wasn’t the only goddess on the planet at the moment.

In this world where time had been slowed to a tenth of its normal speed, only the two of them—the goddess of Evolution and the goddess of Time & Space—moved normally.

Artemisia’s body tensed and she wanted to break the chains binding her, however, the voice of the other goddess questioned her.

“You sure you want to do that? I wonder, the energy burst from you forcefully breaking causality’s binds…that sounds like something strong enough to kill Evan, does it not?”

|…|

K̴̬̚i̷̛̹r̴̐ͅo̷͇̔n̷̺̚ë̴̱’s words made Artemisia freeze in her tracks and the divinity she was gathering slowly dispersed. Noticing this, the other party laughed and wrapped her hands around Artemisia’s waist, pulling her into a back hug.

Her breath was warm against Artemisia’s neck, and the sensation of her body pressing close was both intimate and unsettling.

“Your presence still calms me so…makes me feel at home…just like always…”

The goddess spoke as her hands moved up Artemisia’s body, phasing through the chains of causality coiled around her arms and softly rubbing the slender limbs. Her touch lingered, fingers tracing delicate patterns along Artemisia’s skin.

“…my dear…dear…Mallory…”

K̴̬̚i̷̛̹r̴̐ͅo̷͇̔n̷̺̚ë̴̱ muttered Artemisia’s middle name as her hands moved up Artemisia’s arms and onto her shoulders.

Her voice was one anyone would hear to be filled with endless love, and her touch on Artemisia’s skin was tender, almost reverent, as if she was afraid she’d damage it.

But only Artemisia could sense the undertone of deep hatred that lay beneath it.

And it seemed the other party couldn’t hold it back anymore as her hand slid towards Artemisia’s neck and circled her fingers around it.

|You have no idea how much I’m resisting the urge to just tighten my grip and crush your neck right now…|

|…|

Artemisia said nothing and K̴̬̚i̷̛̹r̴̐ͅo̷͇̔n̷̺̚ë̴̱ wasn’t surprised. She wasn’t expecting Artemisia to reply to her anyway.

“But oh well, leaving aside if I can get through that over-evolved durability of yours; even if I snapped your neck now or ripped your head off this instant…it wouldn’t kill you.”

Again, it was mentioned.

Last year, the EOTD had said Artemisia wouldn’t die even if all the gods in the universe were to gang up on her.

And now, K̴̬̚i̷̛̹r̴̐ͅo̷͇̔n̷̺̚ë̴̱ was saying Artemisia wouldn’t die even if her head was ripped off.

“Now then, my dear. Just stand back and don’t do anything.”

K̴̬̚i̷̛̹r̴̐ͅo̷͇̔n̷̺̚ë̴̱ paused for a moment, before looking at the chains coiled around Artemisia’s limbs and laughed.

“Well, you can’t, even if you wanted to.”

Her hands moved to the sides of Artemisia’s head, forcing her gaze forward as the flow of time returned to normal speed.

And then, Conroe’s lips parted to call out the casting words of the Magic Circle floating behind him.

|¬Tier 8 Spatiotemporal Magic! ¬|

◇　◇　◇

Evan was perplexed.

Both he and the three Deadly Sin Siblings had sensed Conroe exude Deity-Level power, so Artemisia’s attack hadn’t surprised them.

However, when causality suddenly intervened, they were befuddled. Looking back at Conroe, they saw the man’s power had inexplicably reverted to that of a Transcendent.

It left them dumbfounded, with Evan beginning to wonder if his senses were deceiving him.

How could Conroe’s power elevate to a Deity’s level and then plummet back to a Transcendent’s in an instant? Was the World Magic spell glitching or something?

His focus was split between the current incomprehensible situation and the alarming situation of Laurene whose eyes were now bleeding.

She’d unfortunately been facing in Conroe’s direction when the magic circle appeared and her Mystic Eyes, acting on her command, automatic tried to analyse it.

But this was Tier 8 magic. It wasn’t something the current Level 500 Laurene was strong enough to even analyse.

Conroe, however, gave Evan no chance to even decide what to tackle first.

The celestial moved his hand and spatial power enveloped Evan, lifting him off the ground and throwing through some broken buildings on the side, separating him from his companions.

Roselia, Nadarus and Leviah were his next targets as the three Deadly Sin Demons were a grave threat to the other FCDs.

He waved his hand and brown-coloured divinity poured from his body—the power of the goddess of Time and Space.

In the first second, spatial energy concentrated into a bullet of the fabric of space, which he fired at Leviah.

The Demoness raised her spear and used Stout Guardian, but the spatial strike tore through her defensive skill and struck her, dealing blunt damage that knocked her into the distance.

Conroe’s second target was Nadarus. He used spatial crush on him, but the demon’s instincts were sharp. Nadarus jumped out of the way at the last moment, though not quickly enough to completely avoid the strike, resulting in his left arm being crushed, and his bones shattered to pieces.

In the third second, Conroe aimed at Roselia. For her, he conjured a dozen spatial bullets and launched them simultaneously.

She didn’t hesitate to warp space to redirect them using her idiosyncrasy, but her energy was tapped out after deflecting ten bullets, so the last two struck her shoulder, blowing off a portion of her flesh and bone.

Conroe stomped his foot on the ground, releasing a surge of celestial energy that permeated the earth and shattered Eliza’s Life Energy Draining Prison, preventing her from using the life forces of the other FCDs to heal her companions.

To ensure she stayed down, he fired spatial bullets at her as well. Unfortunately, Eliza lacked Nadarus and Leviah’s agility, nor did she have Roselia’s reality-warping powers, so she was unable to react in time and ended up taking two shots to her stomach.

The impacts shifted her internal organs, and for a moment, she felt as if her blood was flowing backwards.

Elemental attacks flew towards Conroe from all directions, so he took his attention off the Life Mage and waved his hand, using the goddess’ divinity to stop the attacks in time. He then blew away the spirits who attacked him with spatial power.

Suddenly, he felt a chill run down his spine and turned towards his left, just in time to witness the prismatic mass of flames spiralling towards him.

He condensed the divinity he borrowed and created a wormhole to absorb the attack, before activating the magic circle floating behind him.

|¬Tier 8 Spatiotemporal Magic! ¬|

His Faux True Voice echoed throughout the area, resounding in the ears of all those present.

A smaller 8-ringed magic circle appeared underneath Evan’s feet, and the powerful energy constricted the fabric of spacetime around the boy, completely sealing his movements.

No matter how he struggled or forced his body to move, it didn’t budge an inch.

◇　◇　◇

‘Is this the Height of Magic?’

Evan wondered internally as he beheld the sight of the Tier 8 Magic Circle floating behind Conroe. Thanks to his language comprehension, he could translate what was written on it, but the meanings eluded him.

Only those who had comprehended the laws of time and space would understand.

In the heat of battle, Evan hadn’t had the chance to process everything completely. But now he was forcibly stilled, Time Difference activated, slowing his perception to a crawl as thoughts began swirling in his mind.

‘Everything has been strange from the beginning.’

Starting from the fact that the FCDs knew of his plans beforehand. They knew who he was sending to where, they knew about Kayla’s true nature and Belphont’s main goal in Zanclike was to get her out of the equation.

It was almost as if he had a spy leaking information to the FCDs.

Yet, the most perplexing anomaly was Conroe’s presence.

Evan waited for Conroe to die first before he took action. He had confirmed from ‘Aidos’ that Conroe had indeed passed away.

Yet, here the man was.

The curse of an Ultimate Skill was not something that could be cured unless by another Ultimate Skill.

This means there was someone who had dispelled the Absolute Death Curse on Conroe, and that someone had an Ultimate Skill.

Next up, was Conroe suddenly pulling out Spatiotemporal magic out of nowhere.

Conroe’s power was ‘The Sun’.

He could only use basic spatial manipulation and had zero time manipulation abilities. What’s more, Conroe had attacked Nadarus and Leviah with Divinity.

That was intentional, as Demons were weak to divinity, but Conroe was a user of celestial energy and magic…where the hell did he get divinity from?

There was also something else that Evan had noticed.

For a fraction of a second, Artemisia’s energy had spiked, before suddenly receding. At that same moment, Evan had a strange feeling, the same one he usually had after EOTD stopped time.

There was no way that this wasn’t connected to Conroe’s sudden ability to use divinity and space-time magic.

Not just any random magic, but Tier 8! Something only Higher Existences could use.

Even if Conroe was once one, he currently wasn’t, so shouldn’t be able to use such magic. Yet here he was.

‘…but what if…’

Conroe was no Irregular; he conformed to the norm, and the norm was that Tier 8 magic was not something he could use.

And so, a thought crossed Evan’s mind.

‘…spatiotemporal magic…’

He pondered on the class of the spell, and his brain started taking things apart and piecing them back together.

‘Space + Time.

Time.

A Curse of Absolute Death.’

Perhaps…?

‘The reason Conroe didn’t die was because someone rewound the Curse off him? Then that person would need to have an Ultimate Time Skill…

It makes sense. If he’s rewound to before he received the Curse, then it would make sense he’d survive.

But I don’t understand how it didn’t rewind his power too. Or can they selectively choose what to rewind? That sounds like something an Ultimate Skill would be able to do.’

With his thoughts going in that direction, Evan pondered the divinity and space-time powers that Conroe just used.

‘…what if…they belong to that person…’

His eyes looked up at the celestial laughing maniacally and he questioned.

‘What if they belong to the person actually casting the Tier 8 Magic Spell?!’

As soon as he thought that, Conroe turned towards Evan like the man had sensed his thoughts. However, Conroe’s face and eyes were blank like there was no life in them.

Suddenly, light returned to his eyes, but the colour of his irises was not light green, but brown.

The same shade as the divinity he used.

Evan felt he could see a starry sky in those eyes.

Conroe then tilted his head to the side while looking at Evan—

“?!”

—and his lips curled up into an evil grin.