Reincarnated Hero System

Mountain's Keep

Eldermoor Heights

Verduracliff Kingdom

February 15th

Year 1053

Eldermoor Heights was once a bustling centre of prosperity, but now, the capital city of the ancient mountain Kingdom of Verduracliff now lay in ruins.

Dilapidated strictures with crumbling facades dotted the landscape, their once majestic architecture now reduced to mere shadows of its former glory.

Nature had long since begun reclaiming its territory, with vines and foliage snaking through the cracks in the stone walls and winding around broken pillars.

The streets, once teeming with life were now overgrown with weeds and debris.

'Mountain's Keep', the Kingdom's castle once heralded amongst the top 10 largest and most beautiful castles on Aidos now lay desolate, its fountain dry and cracked while dust and decay hung heavy in the air.

The massive citadel had now become a fortress for powerful monsters of all kinds, many of which possessed the power to flatten cities on the ground with but a single attack.

Two people walked through the mazy hallways of this massive castle; the first of which was a rather attractive black-eyed man, who had a slightly bulky muscular build, with long legs that put his height at a bit over two metres.

He had short water-blue hair, tinged with grey strands, on both his head and on his chin, with slightly broad shoulders and thick forearms that looked capable of swinging any sword with ease.

This man, dressed in a simple black suit, was Luke Bowthe, the 'Sword Saint' of the Alpha Continent.

Beside him was a teenage boy almost 10 inches shorter than he was, with short slicked back black hair and dark grey eyes.

He wore a light grey corporate shirt atop a pair of black trousers and sneakers, all under a long black jacket that reached below his knees.

In his hands was a small card-shaped device with a 5'5 inches large display screen, plated gold at the back with the letter 'A' printed onto it.

'If the previous guild cards were just normal cell phones, then this A-rank one is definitely a smartphone.'

The boy, 'Hero of Mimicry'; Evan Bourne, thought to himself as he sorted through the items in the card's display.

'It's a lot heavier too, but with the strength of A rankers, it's as light as paper.'

He and Luke silently walked through the maze of the outer castle area, without a care for the fact that they had treaded into the areas under the control of some particularly territorial monsters.

**BOOMM!!

With a thunderous crash, the wall beside them shattered, and a monstrous creature emerged.

Towering on six legs and armed with a spiked tail, the creature's black-sclera eyes locked onto them with red irises, revealing a primal menace.

From its aura, it was most definitely a grandmaster-level existence.

Its sudden appearance caught the attention of the two, with them turning towards it with blank gazes, as if the fearsome aura it exuded didn't seem to bother them.

"Oh, a wild giant lizard appeared…"

Evan nonchalantly remarked as he stared at the creature, and as if taking that as a cue, it lunged forward at breakneck speed, swinging its aura-coated forelimb towards him.

In the creature's vision, the boy was only stationary and it felt that it had moved too fast for him to understand its movements.

Just when it thought it would get its first human prey in a while, the boy's eyes suddenly moved, locking gazes with it at the last moment.

'?!'

Suddenly, the creature's vision flipped 360 degrees and it found itself looking at the boy's body from below.

The card plate in his hands wasn't there anymore and replacing it was an obsidian black one-handed sword with an eighty-centimetre-long blade, coated in prismatic rainbow flames.

*BAM!!

A loud noise rang out, and it turned its gaze to the side, catching the sight of a headless six-legged creature, with a body that was very familiar for some reason.

'?!'

It was then that the lack of sensations below its neck caught up to it, and it finally realised that the headless body spurting blood on the floor belonged to it.

That was its last realisation before its vision was covered with darkness.

"It finally died."

Evan remarked as he deactivated his skill and swapped his sword back for his guild card, turning his gaze towards the monster's headless body and looking it over.

"I don't recall there being giant lizards here, but I guess seeing them is to be expected, considering this Volume is called 'Wars and Giant Lizards'."

"What are you talking about?"

"Hmm? Nothing much, just the name of the Volume."

He replied to Luke who had just come out of the hole where the monster emerged, having gone in to scout the place in the same instant Evan beheaded the creature.

"Volume of what?"

"…I think the narrator is gonna get pissed if I say anymore so Imma stop there. Anyway, find anything of note inside there?"

"…No."

Luke was clearly still lost on what Evan was just speaking about, but he chalked it up to the boy being weird and replied to his question.

"Thought so. We're still in the Outer Castle. The monsters here are also weak too, ranging around level 300-350.

This lizard was one of the stronger ones at around 340, but compared to the rest of the things here it's weak as fuck."

The two resumed their walk through the maze that was the castle's hallways, with Evan using the map from the game to navigate their way through to the Inner Castle.

"Where did you acquire that map?"

Luke asked as they got to a forked path, where Evan pulled up the system interface to crosscheck and then chose the centre path, curious about the source of the boy's information.

"From a game?"

"Why's your reply a question?"

"I was trying to test if I co-? Monsters incoming."

The boy cut his words short and pulled out his sword, the blade gleaming in the light as he stepped forward to handle the monsters.

"Oh, yeah. Gotta mute the area so others don't get attracted by the noise."

He spoke as he pulled out his sound isolation artifact that prevented noise in an area of about 250 metres from escaping, hanging it on his waist.

His agreement with Luke was that the man would deal with anything above Evan's league, and the Level 350 monsters heading towards them, clearly didn't fit that bill.

Soon the monsters emerged from the end of the path, each one having a fearsome appearance with an equally fearsome aura.

They stood on two powerful hind legs, had short stubby arms and bodies covered in rough scaly skin, down to their muscular tails. Their large heads were adorned with sharp serrated teeth, and a pair of small and piercing yellow eyes.

"Oi, ain't that a freaking T-rex?!"

Faced with three of the creatures who once existed in his home world and had long gone extinct, Evan couldn't help but let out a voice of shock.

"I feel like I'm in that movie about the island of cloned dinosaurs, except that I'm the one killing the dinosaurs in this case."

Immediately he spoke, the T-Rex at the forefront charged forward, crossing the two-hundred-metre distance between them in a mere second, its maw opening up to release a blast of bright red flames.

**BOOMM!!!

"Scratch that! Those Dinos didn't breathe fire!"

Letting out another silly quip, Evan blinked out of the way and appeared above the monsters, a thin layer of blue frost surrounding his sword as he released half a dozen blade cannons in an instant.

"GROAAAHHH!!!!"

The creature's pained roar rang out across the area, but thanks to the sound isolation, the noise was not going to attract other monsters to come near.

'Even if it did, the more powerful ones would just think it's the weaker ones fighting for territory, but better safe than sorry.

Don't wanna get caught up in another Epic Level battle again.'

He thought to himself as he kicked off a void step and shot towards the wounded T-Rex, landing on its neck and placing a palm on the back of its head.

'Energy Blast.'

The beam of condensed frigid energy shot out from his palm, piercing through the creature's scaly skin, its skull and the brain inside, before bursting out from the other end.

'Everlasting Chains, Chain Lightning, Thunder Clap.'

His energy surged forward, enveloping the other two T-Rexes that sent blasts of flames his way, causing golden chains to burst out from the ground and wrap around them, restraining them long enough for a wall of lightning blocks to form in front of their heads and then fold in a 'clapping' motion.

**BOOMM!!!

"GROOORRRR!!"

The monster could not even roar properly as another ball of lightning slammed into its face, wounding it before bouncing over to its brethren and doing the same.

The lightning ball then bounced back and slammed into it again, this time, with 1.5x the power, and then again with 2x power.