Reincarnated Hero System

“The Planet itself wants to get rid of me? Well, it’ll have to try harder than this.”

The godslayer gestured toward Tanyth as if daring the planet to make its move, and in response, more cosmic energy surged into the young man’s body.

All Arthur did was laugh and snap his fingers, activating one of his Pseudo-Authorities.

|¬Stop. ¬|

And Time obeyed.

The flow of time around Tanyth came to a halt, frozen in place. But a moment later, a crack split through the monochrome stillness, and the Hero was released.

His eyes widened in shock as he jumped back, putting some distance between himself and Arthur.

Meanwhile, Arthur was looking at him with wide eyes.

“Oh my, I never thought this was possible.”

To an outsider, it appeared as if Tanyth had somehow broken free of Arthur’s time stop with his own power, but any wielder of Time Authority would have recognized what truly happened.

It wasn’t Tanyth’s strength that shattered the time stop—it was the Planet itself that had broken him free.

The flow of time was like a river, and to stop it, Arthur used his Pseudo-Authority to build a dam in its current.

However, the Planet Aramis’ Authority over its own time flow shattered the dam Arthur erected, freeing Tanyth from the time stop.

Fascinated by this unexpected development, Arthur activated his Pseudo-Authority again, freezing time once more. As before, the planet immediately broke the hold, but by the time it did, Arthur had already teleported behind Tanyth.

“I see…it’s not fast enough. And it can only do this because my Authority is still ‘Pseudo’.”

“?!”

The Hero barely had time to react to Arthur’s sudden appearance behind him. With a quick turn, he raised his arms just in time to block the godslayer’s fist from smashing into his skull.

But despite the successful block, the force of Arthur’s punch knocked him back, and Evan wasn’t about to just stand and watch the open back of an opponent.

The Unforged Vale appeared in his hands, and Mesarthim activated as he thrust his sword forward.

“Prismatic Vortex!”

Evan had every intention of taking advantage of his Unique Skill’s new Boost.

|50% Damage Bonus for ‘Vortex’ variations with ‘Elemental’ Attributes. |

The spiralling mass of multicoloured flames crashed into Tanyth’s back and launched his body into the air. Following this, Evan used ‘Blue Judgment’, calling down a blue lightning bolt from the skies above to strike him.

Within the same second, Arthur appeared above Tanyth and delivered a powerful downward kick that sent Tanyth crashing down to the ground with tremendous force.

The earth quaked upon impact and a crater formed beneath the fallen Hero.

As Arthur landed on the floor beside Evan, the Rogue Hero shook his head and spoke.

“Damn, I used my Unique Skill and still didn’t deal as much damage as you did with a single kick.”

Evan smiled wryly under his mask, but the situation was hardly surprising.

He was currently an Inferior Legendary while Arthur was a Superior Sovereign. It’d be weirder if Evan could deal as much damage as Arthur could.

Furthermore, the Aramisian Hero was currently being boosted to Level 899, granting him increased durability that no normal Legendary could deplete. Without the ability to breach it, dealing any meaningful damage was impossible.

But with Blessing of Destruction + Mesarthim, Evan was one of the abnormal Legendries who could bypass this durability and deal damage.

|…

When used offensively, Mesarthim has a fixed chance to ignore a percentage of the target’s durability and resistances, dealing percentage damage in accordance with their maximum Health Values.

…|

Arthur appraised Mesarthim, his eyes focusing on that one sentence as he spoke to Evan.

“Rather than aiming for big bursts of damage, focus on hitting as many times as possible.”

“Consistency, huh?

Even if my individual strikes don’t deal too much, if I hit him enough times, the damage would build up.”

Evan caught on to Arthur’s intent as he slotted a magic stone into the Energem Reclaimer and activated Limit Break.

For a split second, he was overwhelmed by the surge of power, but he quickly adapted to it and asked Arthur a question.

“Can I take the kill? Even if that guy’s power is boosted, he’s still an Inferior Legendary. If you kill him, the EXP gain would be too little to matter.”

Evan’s question caused realisation to flash in Arthur’s eyes. Currently, Arthur could only get substantial EXP from Level 800 kills, making anything below rather pointless.

But for Evan, Level 700 Kills were still very valuable.

“No problem.”

“Thanks. Now let’s beat the shit out of him.”

With that, the two masked boys launched themselves toward the enraged Aramisian Hero, who was already closing the distance with his Unique Skill activated.

“Champion of Aether!”

At Tanyth’s roar, the surrounding space transformed. Cosmic energy flowed from the planet and out the conduit that was his body, manifesting unstable portals of aether.

These unstable portals released rays of red energy aimed at his opponents.

Both of them teleported to dodge the attacks, but the rays curved and sought them out in their new positions.

‘Great, a Unique Series Skill with a homing attack.’

Rolling his eyes as he teleported again, Evan activated Vindiction’s Strike and conjured gold-rimmed portals in the air around him.

‘I remember when Vazgan first used this on us…how time flies.’

He thought this as he fired beams of prismatic light that collided with the aether rays chasing him and ignited them in massive explosions, while Arthur used the power of gravity to distort space so much the rays were bent off course and sent flying in random directions.

The godslayer then drew his semi-transparent sword, Celestia, and attacked Tanyth who raised his sword to block.

When their blades met, a huge shockwave was sent rippling through the battlefield and the earth beneath their feet turned fragile.

The winner of the first clash of swords was Arthur, a victory shown by how the Aramisian Hero was pushed back.

Arthur restrained a bit of his strength and swung Celestia in a wide arc, aiming at Tanyth’s midsection. Arthur’s strike was parried with an upward block and then countered with a thrust towards his heart, but the godslayer sidestepped it and retaliated with a lightning-fast horizontal slash that forced the Aramisian Hero to leap back.

The Hero’s feet hadn’t even touched the ground when Arthur closed the distance and used his Extinction Slash skill, delivering a horizontal slash that forced Tanyth to fly up to dodge.

Arthur followed Tanyth into the air and executed a series of rapid cosmic energy slashes and Tanyth matched his strikes blow for blow with the planet’s cosmic energy.

As their battle raged on, the ground below bore the scars of their clash—deep craters and fissures carved into the earth by the shockwaves of their skyborne attacks.

Evan watched this from the ground, sitting on a rock as he traced their movements with his eyes while waiting for the right moment to interfere.

He wasn’t just going to let Arthur do all the work, as that’d mean less EXP for him. But right now, their speed was a bit too fast for him to interfere without accidentally obstructing Arthur, so he waited while watching.

‘Besides, I have 13 slots right now. Let me see how he uses his skills and know if I’d take anyone.’

With those thoughts, he watched as Tanyth unleashed a sudden burst of aetheric energy, momentarily blinding Arthur. Seizing the opportunity, he swung his blade in a lethal arc aimed at Arthur’s neck.

However, Arthur’s left eye gleamed with a memory of the future, allowing him to react in that second his field of view was temporarily covered.

Arthur first blocked, before twisting his body and delivering a spinning kick that sent Tanyth hurtling backward.

Without pause, Arthur moved with a lightning-quick dash, closing the distance in a second. He brought Celestia down in a powerful overhead strike, but Tanyth met it with his aether blade, the impact of the clash sending shockwaves rippling through the air.

Infusing his blade with more aether, Tanyth shoved Arthur back, activating a technique tied to his Unique Skill.

“Phantom Strike.”

Tanyth’s blade moved at near-hypersonic speed, creating shimmering afterimages that trailed behind each swing. These phantoms, indistinguishable from the real blade, slashed through the air with lethal intent, each one imbued with enough cosmic energy to deal genuine damage.

Arthur quickly responded, channelling gravity law energy to distort the space around him. The invisible barrier warped the phantoms’ trajectories, sending them careening off course.

“Aether Chains.”

Tanyth called out, summoning radiant chains of aetheric energy to bind Arthur’s movements. Circling around, he aimed to strike from Arthur’s blind spot.

But before the chains could ensnare their target, Evan, who was watching the both of them from the ground finally saw his opening to interfere.

‘Everlasting Chains.’

His destruction energy-infused chains erupted from the ground, intercepting and tangling with the aetheric binds before they could get to Arthur.

“Spectral Rend!”

Tanyth swung his blade, unleashing a sweeping wave of aetheric energy toward Arthur. Preparing to launch another devastating arc, he suddenly felt his sword arm wrenched off course as one of the crimson-gold chains coiled around it.

Evan, holding the end of the other chain, waved at Tanyth with his free hand, before using said hand to fire an energy blast towards Tanyth’s head.

Tanyth was forced to tilt his head to evade the destruction energy, and that gave Arthur the time to close the distance and grab the back of Tanyth’s neck.

Evan then released the chain, allowing Arthur to hurl the Aramisian Hero to the ground with the force of a meteor.

Before Tanyth could orient himself, Arthur condensed destruction law energy into his palm, releasing it as a beam of crimson-silver light that struck the Hero mid-fall.

The beam ripped through the layer of cosmic energy surrounding Tanyth, shattered his armour, and tore into his flesh, leaving deep wounds that sprayed blood into the air.

Tanyth’s body crashed into the ground with a thunderous impact, but Arthur didn’t stop. He poured more destructive energy into the attack for about 10 more seconds before he finally stopped.

When his attack finally ceased, Arthur gazed down at the wounded Tanyth lying in a shallow pool of blood and sighed as he concluded.

‘This Planet…it doesn’t know how strong I am now.’

The godslayer was now certain of this.

Earlier, Arthur had deliberately restrained his strength after overpowering Tanyth in their initial clash. He intended to gauge the true capabilities of the Hero, now enhanced by cosmic energy.

However, the outcome left him disappointed.

Planetary Consciousnesses were capable of exerting their influence within their gravitational field, but that was it. They were not omnipotent.

For instance, while ‘Aramis’ could shatter Arthur’s Time Stop, it could not prevent him from activating it in the first place.

‘Aramis’ couldn’t act however it wished, wherever it wished, or whenever it wished. Furthermore, its actions were constrained by binding rules that restricted its direct intervention.

These very restrictions were the reason it resorted to an indirect approach, empowering a Hero with enhanced abilities to confront Arthur on its behalf.

Arthur’s thoughts drifted back to a past encounter in his home universe, where he had come face-to-face with the Sentience of a Higher-Order Celestial Body.

‘Even the Sentience of the Universe itself has its blind spots. A planet’s awareness, by comparison, is riddled with gaps—especially against higher powers.

This confirms that that ‘Aramis’ has no idea about Iklaque’s Existence. Kronos’ power falls squarely within one of these blind spots in the planet’s perception.

And my Singularity nature likely fits the same mould…’