Reincarnated Hero System

Evan raised his hand, and a towering wall of ice surged up to intercept the attack, freezing the black ink mid-air. With a downward gesture, he used his Elemental Weapon Barrage, sending a cascade of Frostfire spears raining down on the Kraken’s massive, writhing form.

The creature shrieked, its voice a guttural roar that echoed across the ocean, and it retaliated, launching another blast of pressurized black ink that punched through the icy wall, splintering it with explosive force.

Slamming its immense tentacles down, the Kraken struck the water with such ferocity that towering waves surged toward Evan, threatening to engulf him. But Evan simply beat his wings and soared into the sky, dodging the waves with ease.

‘World Sunder!’

The massive slash of destructive essence split through the Kraken’s thick scales and tough hide, carving a deep gash into its flesh and sending blood spraying like a fountain.

He teleported away to avoid its tentacles, then returned to that same position with his destructive flames whirling around his sword.

‘Vortex!’

The second Unique Skill landed on the open wound Evan had dealt earlier, shredding apart the Kraken’s skin with spiralling flames and burning its flesh.

The creature shrieked, writhing as the flames burned through its core, black smoke and steam billowing up from the wound.

Finally, Evan parted his lips, gathering energy, and released a beam of prismatic light that struck the Kraken’s exposed wound, boring through its massive body and out the other side.

[KREIK—!]

With a final, strangled cry, the Kraken’s body convulsed and then began to fall. The massive weight of its body crashed into the ocean with a thunderous impact, sending towering waves surging outward and scattering nearby sea monsters.

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

[Level Up]

“…”

Instead of the rush of joy he usually felt as he levelled up, Evan felt… hollow.

It washed over him suddenly, an unexpected emptiness emerging from deep within.

With a quiet sigh, he descended to the ocean’s surface, landing atop the Kraken’s floating corpse.

He surveyed the battlefield—the Aramisian sea monsters clashing viciously with Gozonian demons—and then glanced down at himself, almost as if he were a stranger.

He thought of the side of this battle that he was on.

Though he had already been told about this more than a month ago, this was the first time that it was happening.

The first time he was actually participating in a battle to help Gozon invade and conquer another world.

To attack a continent with hundreds of millions of Aramisians and conquer their lands.

“Truly, a joke by fate.”

He murmured under his breath, his gaze lifting to the vast sky above. Another sigh slipped from his lips.

“You know what? I’ll just do as Arthur said.”

He turned back toward the oncoming wave of monsters, their attacks slicing through the air, each one aiming to rip him apart.

“I can get stronger faster, four times faster, even. And sure, I’ll reach a level of strength I can’t even comprehend right now—but that’s just someday in the future. Right now? I’m still not strong enough.”

As the enemy’s attacks closed in, he extended his hand and used Stout Guardian. The shield-bearing Knight shattered under the wave of attacks, but he simply reformed it again and again, refusing to let their attacks land.

Meanwhile, he used Elemental Weapon Projection to fill the air with Frostfire weapons, raining down a storm of blazing ice on everything around him.

Evan’s mind began tossing questions at him, each one cutting deeper than the last.

‘What if you’d had this power back during the incident with the Fallen Celestial Deities? You could have stopped Faulin, right? If you were even stronger, a Legendary, perhaps, then could you not have killed the FCDs outright and ignored whatever Fate and Time threw your way?’

‘What if you hadn’t wasted time on political manoeuvring for that Intercontinental Influence plan of yours, and instead focused solely on building your physical and magical strength?’

‘What if you’d left the Aidosians to figure out televisions and all the other things you dipped your hand into on their own, instead of pushing their technological advancement? Think of all the time you could have spent levelling up, time you poured into projects instead of power.’

‘What if you’d ignored everything and everyone—except Liz—and just trained in the Tower of Trials? You could’ve slaughtered so many monsters, levelled up so relentlessly, that Artemisia herself would’ve had to stop you so she could pull monsters from other worlds just to keep the Tower stocked.’

‘If you’d done all that, you’d be far stronger now, wouldn’t you?’

‘Alvey and McEnda would have not been able to hold you here regardless of what you wanted. You’d be free, unstoppable, doing whatever you wanted on Aramis.

Maybe you wouldn’t even be here at all, after all, you would have been able to stop Faulin and Conroe with ease.’

The questions cut into him, each one echoing with a truth he’d been avoiding.

‘Do you really like this situation? Maybe you don’t care much because it’s not your world. But… isn’t there a part of you that feels like a hypocrite, just a little?’

‘Deep down, don’t you wonder? What if you were on Aramis’s side, helpless against the power of a Rogue Hero from another world?’

‘But there’s a way out, isn’t there?’

‘An answer that sweeps all of these doubts away.’

‘You already know what it is.’

‘If you were the one on Aramis’s side, you wouldn’t feel helpless. You’d have the power to crush anyone who tried to interfere with your world’s business.

Since you already don’t care because it’s not your world, then forget the little bit of hypocrisy you might feel.

It doesn’t really matter. The world of the strong is built on double standards.’

‘Hypocrisy doesn’t matter. Might makes right.’

‘Before you lies a feast—an endless supply of monsters waiting to be devoured.’

‘So just get STRONGER.’

The path was clear; brutally simple.

Evan took a deep breath, coming out of the slowed world of Time Difference and looked at the smaller Sea Serpents tearing through his Stout Guardian to reach him.

Evan’s last bit of hesitation that he didn’t even know he had disappeared like smoke in the wind—

“Burn, Mesarthim.”

—And the world burned.

A brilliant flare of prismatic energy erupted from Evan’s body, expanding outwards in a nuclear-level explosion.

The sheer force ignited the ocean’s surface, sending towering walls of steam and flames roaring in all directions.

Weaker sea monsters were instantly incinerated, while the larger, stronger beasts shrieked as the flames seared through their scales, blackening flesh and leaving them charred and wounded.

The shockwave slammed into nearby ships, pushing them aside like mere driftwood, their crews clinging to rails as the force swept over them.

Even the ocean itself recoiled, with waves surging outward, scattering debris and ripples of flame across the battlefield.

Evan cleared the Level Up notifications entering his field of view and looked at one of the Sea Serpents writhing about like an earthworm as flames burned it and laughed.

“Pfft…! World Sunder.”

His slash divided the monster in two, ending its life and Evan laughed once more.

“This is the perfect chance.

In a way, getting sent here is a blessing in disguise.”

Evan launched forward, cutting through the air at supersonic speed, colliding head-on with a Kraken that had just torn a ship in two.

-Here, I don’t have to constantly think about the Demonic Hand’s schemes or the looming Disasters planned to kill millions and feed that damned World Formation. –

His blade plunged into the creature’s skull, and he tore it forward, carving a path through thick flesh as blood sprayed wildly.

-I don’t have to worry about the First Finger’s fate manipulation or think about having to outwit him. –

Evan leapt away to avoid the flailing tentacles, letting go of his sword so he could cup his palms and blast through the Kraken’s limbs with an energy blast.

-Here, I don’t have to worry about Demons coming in from Rifts in Space to decimate any Desert Countries. –

He landed back on the creature’s massive head, where he stomped down, shattering its skull with Collapse and retrieving his blade to send a lethal vortex deep into its body, killing it instantly.

-Here, I don’t have to think about any Basilisks who are too kind for their own good, being forced to petrify hundreds of millions. –

Evan jumped onto the back of a flying monster, piercing its head with his sword, then leapt to the next target as its corpse fell to the ocean.

-I don’t have to think about any Barbarians fighting a civil war and displacing millions of civilians over a fucking crown! –

His sword came down and ripped through a line of sea monsters, cleaving hundreds with a powerful slash that sent waves of bodies hurtling toward a nearby Scout Fleet.

-I don’t have to think about any unnecessarily large Wolves erasing people from existence just because they can! –

Evan switched elements and summoned the Frostborne Colossus, sending it barrelling toward another Kraken as he activated Tempest Avatar.

-I don’t have to think about the Child of Space and Gravity becoming strong enough to kill ‘The Five’! –

He threw his hands forward, unleashing shockwaves with each punch, and the Tempest Avatar that mirrored his actions punched the living daylights out of his target Kraken.

-I don’t have to worry about any Ancient Demonic Dragons coming back to life even though they should have died a millennium ago. –

Evan spun and launched a fierce kick at a Sea Serpent sneaking up behind him, the Tempest Avatar mirroring the motion and sending the serpent’s brain flying out of its skull.

-I don’t have to think about any FCDs and the ‘Myriad Transforming’ Demon King they’re sealing. –

He sent the Tempest Avatar lunging forward, wrapping its arms around a gargantuan sea serpent and detonating it in a burst of crimson-gold energy.

-No thoughts about the overarching threat of Ginaroad! –

Evan let go of his sword, making it float beside him. He then gazed over the throng of creatures before him, thousands of them swarming the sea as far as he could see.

“All I have to think about here…”

The boy clenched his fist and coated it in powerful frost energy.

“…is simply getting stronger.”

Then he punched his palm and the skies parted.

An enormous crimson-gold ice fist materialized above, descending on the waves of monsters below with devastating force. An eruption of frost exploded outward, freezing and shattering everything in its path.

“Let’s make a small goal.”

“By the time we’re done with Plomux…I should have left the Epic Level behind me.”

With those words, Evan flapped his wings and sped into the sky, unleashing chaos upon the monsters.

[IMPORTANT AUTHOR NOTE]