Reincarnated Hero System

"What are you doing here, Human Flame?"

"Bahahaha!! I've long since passed that title down to the younger generation."

The grey-eyed man—Thomas Randall—replied with a boisterous laugh, not caring about how Esoti figured out his former identity.

However, his laughter suddenly stopped and he looked Esoti right in the eyes before activating a skill.

Unique Series Skill: Benevolent Fire!

Thomas' body erupted into a pillar of flames, the intense heat radiating outwards in waves of scorching energy. When the fiery eruption subsided, it was no longer a human standing before Esoti, but a three-metre-tall flaming giant with glowing eyes.

His transformation increased the ambient temperature to the extent that Esoti had to cover his body with World Law to prevent himself from taking damage.

Thomas did not care for this little action as he spoke with a deep voice.

[Old people like us should stay out of the young one's games, don't you think?]

This was a not-so-subtle threat, and Esoti knew that if he wanted to keep his life and not doom Wolfen to destruction; then he had no choice, but to sit back down on his throne.

◇ ◇ ◇

The dark clouds heralded the coming of a storm, perhaps an even greater one than that of the day before.

Amiyah was ordering the fire mages to fall back since it was clearly about to rain when she inadvertently glanced at the clouds in the sky.

Her focus quickly turned somewhere else but her instincts—the same ones who had warned her that there was something wrong in the Todbury battle—flared up again.

She returned her gaze to the clouds in the sky, staring at them blankly for so long that Lierin noticed and asked what the hell she was doing during battle.

"No…"

[No? What do you mean by 'No'?]

"These clouds…they aren't natural!!"

[?!]

Lierin, and Beluar who were also connected to her via a Bluetooth-like communicator in their ears flinched when they heard her words.

Amiyah didn't offer any explanation and instead charged up her lightning magic power, kicking off the ground and heading straight for the Vanguard that was pressing Wolfen forces and making them retreat further into Cudjour territory.

"General?!"

Disregarding her subordinate's astonished words, she stretched out her arms, conjuring a vast lightning shield that enveloped thousands of Imperial Soldiers just moments before a colossal black lightning bolt descended from the heavens, crashing onto the shield with a deafening roar.

**BOOOMMM!!

The impact was explosive, unleashing a shockwave that sent Amiyah tumbling to the ground, her body careening amidst a throng of soldiers as if she were a mere rag doll.

However, she quickly got up to her feet, looking right at the dark clouds in the sky as she called out.

"It's him! STORMBRINGER!!!"

◇ ◇ ◇

"Tsk…they noticed too early."

Rodald clicked his tongue as he heard Amiyah's exclamation which had ousted his presence on the Battlefield. No one knew it but the bad weather they had experienced for the past three days was all caused by him.

He had seamlessly infused his magic into the clouds and if Amiyah had not given them a second glance, she would have not noticed what was going on.

But now that he had been noticed—

"It's time to act."

The man's black eyes glowed as he clenched his fist and activated his 'Stormbringer' Skill, sending another massive bolt of lightning towards another brigade of the Imperial Army.

Unfortunately for him, Beluar used his spatial powers and warped space, causing the lightning to veer off course and hit the walls of a random military building in Cudjour.

The powerful lighting blasted the building to bits in an instant, going on to gouge out a massive crater in the ground right after.

"Lierin! Beluar! The Soldiers!!"

"You don't have to tell me that!"

Lierin retorted sharply, driving her sword into the ground and summoning towering earthen bulwarks to intercept Rodald's lightning strikes.

Beluar warped space left and right to deflect dozens of bolts every second, while Amiyah charged forward, thinking this would have been the best time for Bourne to be present.

With a snort, Rodald extended his palm, unleashing a beam of supercharged black lightning toward the oncoming half-elf, forcing her to activate her Unique skill, countering with a similar attack to nullify it.

However, there was a stark difference in their demeanours.

While Amiyah exerted effort to block the attack, Rodald did so effortlessly; his gaze wasn't even on her as he unleashed the devastating power.

"You can't face him alone!"

Lierin shouted as she joined the fray, her blade flashing as she aimed for the Wolfen General. However, Rodald swiftly transformed into a bolt of lightning, evading her strike and darting hundreds of meters away.

Observing his actions, Amiyah narrowed her eyes with suspicion. He was looking across the battlefield as if trying to find something.

'…or someone?'

"Princess! He's after Princess Heather!"

Rodald's brow twitched and he turned to Amiyah with annoyance in his gaze. This same woman had figured him out twice in a row and he was beginning to find her presence irritating.

Truly, Rodald was after Heather as he aimed to leverage her as a hostage against Emperor Isaac.

Amiyah and Lierin charged towards him with full force, however, he spotted Heather's position and elementalized his body, zapping all the way over to where she was.

The two Seven Star Generals chased after him and Amiyah intercepted him, forcing him to rematerialize his body and face her in combat.

"Get out of my way!"

Rodald's voice crackled with power as he unleashed a surge of magic, sending all nearby fighters flying with immense force.

It did not have the power to kill, but it had more than enough knockback.

The man quickly resumed the chase, dashing towards Heather and stretching his hand to grab her, however, to his shock, the Princess was able to 'react' despite his speed.

Heather ducked to avoid his hand, rolling out of the way before getting to her feet and releasing her strongest slash of darkness in an instant.

The purity of the energy in the slash made Rodald flinch momentarily. The attack hit him squarely, managing to knock him to the ground while Beluar quickly activated a forced Teleportation and warped Heather to the other side of the Battlefield.

Lierin and Amiyah appeared beside Rodald and struck him with full power, but the man was able to get to his feet and catch their attacks with his hands!

He infused lightning into his left hand which held Amiyah's fist and then used wind magic to blow away Lierin on his right. The man then spun his body around and flung Amiyah's body to the side.

"Storm."

Rodald's eyes flashed as the man finally got serious. Everyone on the battlefield watched with awe and shock as the man showed why he was called the 'Stormbringer'.

Combining his wind and black lightning, he manipulated atmospheric pressure and created a writhing maelstrom of air currents that transformed into over three dozen tornadoes in an instant.

Pillars of black lightning descended from the heavens and connected to the earth, blasting away soldiers with each strike.

The man slowly levitated into the air, his eyes darting around as he locked onto all the Imperial Soldiers in his field of view, ready to concentrate his storm on them.

It was then that a young female voice resounded across the battlefield, calling out four words of power.

[Pseudo-Authority of Lightning]

'What?'

[Vanish.]

"?!"

Rodald nearly doubled over in shock. Blood found its way to the tip of his tongue as his skills were all cancelled forcefully.

The dark storm clouds that covered the battlefield, the maelstrom of tornadoes, and the giant pillars of lightning all fizzled out into oblivion.

"Wha-?!"

**BAAAMMM!!!!

Rodald suddenly found himself flying through the air, smashing through ballistae and many other tactical weapons before crashing into the walls of Brightwall Fort.

Silence pervaded the battlefield.

Over 250,000 soldiers went silent in that one moment as the figure of the man who seemed about to end the whole war by himself was smacked out of the sky and down onto the ground.

"What…happened?"

Rodald questioned in a daze. His brain understood that he had been attacked.

But by who?

When?

How?

His brain did not have enough information to compute answers for those three questions.

"Stormbringer!"

He activated his skill once more and the atmospheric pressure changed. Air currents began swirling upwards and downwards while black lightning crackled beyond the clouds.

[Ha…If I could cancel it the first time, what makes you think I can't do it a second time?]

*SNAP!

After that loud snapping sound that seemed to ring out in everyone's ears, Rodald felt his skill being forcefully cancelled once more and his lightning fizzled out into oblivion.

It was then that the person responsible revealed herself.

A young teenage girl with black hair and eyes shining with noble gold. She was adorned in a golden silk dress and had a long black-gold stole around her neck which was floating lightly.

Levitating atop her head, was a fragmented quarter of a cracked golden crown, adorned with various multicoloured precious stones.

Despite the thousands of metres of distance between them, Rodald's eyes caught her figure clearly standing in between Amiyah and Lierin.

She turned towards him and smiled, before opening her mouth and speaking.

[Don't focus on me too much now. You might miss it.]

"?!"

His instincts screamed 'DANGER!' at him and he immediately jumped away from his position, a mere second before the entirety of Cudjour's Brightwall Fort exploded.

Launching himself into the sky, Rodald shrouded his body in crackling black lightning, scanning his surroundings for the source of the attack.

He didn't need to search for long, as the person revealed themselves of their own volition.

A streak of golden light cut across the afternoon sky, colliding with Rodald in a dazzling explosion of black and gold radiance. Undeterred, Rodald retaliated, channelling lightning into his fist and delivering a powerful punch to counter his assailant's assault.

The collision between the two titanic forces rent the sky as clouds parted and shockwaves erupted, shattering the earth beneath their feet.

"You…! EVAN ERIS!!"

"That's my name. How may I help you today, Stormbringer? Perhaps, a serving of 'defeat' is what you would like?"

"Silence!"

Rodald unleashed his formidable aura, forcefully pushing Evan back before extending his arm to the side. In an instant, lightning condensed around him, distorting the space with its overwhelming power.

A flash of black light followed, and when it subsided, a Halberd materialized in Rodald's grasp.

The Wolfen Generals witnessing this spectacle were left utterly astounded, their minds reeling from the unexpected turn of events. Even observers from afar, including those in the Capital, shared in their shock.

The swift summoning of Rodald's infamous 'Black Lightning' Halberd after just a single exchange with Evan defied all expectations. It signalled that Rodald had instantly recognized Evan as a threat worthy of his full might.

The issue here was that Rodald was not a Grandmaster, but an Epic Level Existence. Someone who had broken through the Level 500 Barrier and achieved power exponentially greater than Grandmasters.

Yet, such a person had assessed Evan as a threat requiring his full power.

"Oh…this would be fun."

Evan's reaction was even more shocking, as the boy just grinned fearlessly and used Elemental Weapon projection to create gauntlets of crimson-gold aura around his fists, taking up a martial arts stance in the air as he spoke.

"Let's see how well I fare against an Epic."