Reincarnator

Kiriel was quickly reading through the memories within the three godly artifacts.

With a slight blush on her face.

‘That wasn’t so bad, right? He said he would guard me.’

Perhaps he wasn’t yet interested in her, but at least she had become a bit more trustable.

He wouldn’t give her such precious artifacts otherwise.

‘He fought with Jang Oh, huh?... He fought by himself a lot of the time, too...’

The memories were not in the God’s Flail, but inside the Rangkom’s Stake, and Arham’s Shield.

Kiriel smiled as she read the memories of Hansoo’s battles, and focused as she delved deeper and deeper.

The surrounding space quickly passed by as she went further and further into the past.

The days of when the flail had been below the ground of the Kingdom.

The days of when the Rangkom’s Stake had been embedded into the White Dragon Arena.

Faster, and faster.

But soon—

—chiiiiik—

She reached a formless barrier that prevented her from delving further into the past.

‘...This is it. This is where I got stuck before.’

Psychometry didn’t allow her to delve into everything.

Since things like emotions or thoughts could get erased with time.

The memory she could see with just the flail only reached up to the days of the Kingdoms and the Empire.

So memories past those one thousand years were actually hard to see.

‘But... if it’s all three... ’

Kiriel breathed in and started to scan through the memories of all three at once.

—crack—

—crack crack—

Countless memory fragments started to move towards her consciousness and fit together like puzzle pieces inside her head.

She mixed together the memory pieces from the three artifacts, and delved deeper.

Then—

sssss...

As the memories of the three artifacts fused, the blurry images of the past started to clear up.

And soon—

—papak!—

‘I got through!’

A crystal clear scene unfolded before her eyes as she continued to delve deeper and deeper.

The scene was of a man powerful beyond reason, surrounded in a white aura.

And the giant hammer in his hands.

She knew the name of the man already.

Though the Rangkom’s Stake had lost some memories, it would not forget its owner which had owned it for a thousand years.

‘Tiamet...’

And a voice came into her her mind.

‘Disassemble?’

Then—

—swooosh!—

A tremendous amount of energy poured into the hammer—

—booooom!—

—and then abruptly exploded.

—clank—

—crack!—

The light subsided as three objects appeared in place of the hammer.

And Kiriel realized why it had been so hard to remember the memories of the past.

‘...This was why it wasn’t possible, huh?’

Of course it would be hard for one object to retain the memories from its days of being three.

Even more so if it was a memory from a thousand years ago.

The handle of the hammer popped out as it became the stake.

The head of the hammer remained like a giant end of a flail.

The flat part of the hammer’s head, which was made to smash into the enemies, popped off and turned into a shield-like object.

And Kiriel focused on this scene to memorize the method Tiamat had used to disassemble the hammer.

Since she might be able to recreate that hammer if she used that method in reverse.

Like Hansoo had thought, despite being a very complex method, Kiriel’s trait allowed her to memorize it quickly.

‘...Shall I go back?’

Kiriel mumbled; she had completely memorized the methods after replaying the memory a few times.

But then—

‘... But who made this?’

She started to get curious.

It might’ve been hard for her to do it before, but since the artifacts had come together, it would be possible to see it.

The origins of that hammer.

If she saw how the hammer had been created, she would be able to see how to use the hammer better as well.

‘And he had disassembled it because it was a dangerous weapon... Why was it dangerous?’

At this point—

—the corner of her mind that wanted to be of a bigger help to Hansoo kept on calling out to her.

She also wanted to surprise Hansoo as well.

But she shook her head.

‘I must go and help.’

Though not much time would’ve passed in real life, she was worried at the fact that Hansoo was holding on by himself.

But as she was about to stop her Psychometry—

—kiriririririk!—

‘Huh? Ahhhh?!’

—she was suddenly bombarded with memories, each scene rolling back with increasing speed.

‘What the hell! What went wrong?!’

While she was still lost in shock, her consciousness was sucked in.

Deeper and deeper into the past.

...............................................

—rumble—

‘She’s taking a bit longer than I thought.’

Hansoo stole a glance at Kiriel, who was still in a daze, and then looked back at the Ark-Roa who was focusing on something.

“Is it tasty?”

—crunch crunch—

The Ark-Roa, who had been chomping on Hansoo’s left arm, smiled.

With a leisurely expression.

Hansoo looked back and forth between his shoulder where his arm got ripped off and at Kiriel, and then clutched his spear more tightly.

‘My left arm will regrow, but... the weapon is an issue... I don’t know if this was the right choice.’

The half-broken Forked Lightning swung from side to side.

And Hansoo sighed at this sight.

‘...It’s a Solo Numbering weapon. I guess it isn’t enough anymore.’

It wasn’t just the Forked Lightning that had been wrecked.

Hansoo looked at the half-destroyed Thousand Soldiers Armor, then shrugged.

When he’d woken up, his Nurmaha’s ring was long gone, and the two usable artifacts he’d had left were at the point of breaking apart.

Hansoo chuckled at what a miserable sight he made.

Well, it made a lot of sense.

Solo Numbering artifacts meant that they were the best artifacts of the seven zones.

Though they were top-notch artifacts that had saved his life countless times, ever since the seven zones had collapsed and people started crossing the barrier, these weapons just couldn’t keep up with the changes.

He needed better artifacts.

But the issue was that, as of right now, there was nowhere for him to gain any.

‘It would’ve been nice if I still had the Nurmaha.’

Hansoo muttered, thinking of the ring which had mysteriously disappeared.

Though it was in the lower ranks of the Solo Numbering, it was still a very powerful artifact.

Being ranked ninth, it was actually more useful than the sixth ranked Thousand Soldiers Armor, and even the Forked Lightning.

‘Well, how I obtained it was abnormal as well...’

He felt like there was something he didn’t know about, but there was no point in grieving over it since it was already gone.

No matter how good it was, if it wasn’t in his hands then it was even more useless than this broken-down spear.

‘...I knew this would happen to you eventually whenever you were bent like that in the past.’

Hansoo looked at the spear and sighed out loud.

He then applied some force and broke it apart.

—snap—

Despite him being a transcendent, it shouldn’t be a weapon that could break this easily, but it had still done so way too effortlessly.

It had already reached its limits.

‘You’ve done well so far. Please... hold on for just a bit longer.’

Hansoo held onto the half with the blade, and fed the bottom half to his armor.

—crunch crunch—

—crunch—

A mouth appeared on the chest of the armor, and it started to devour the halved Forked Lightning.

Soon, the silver armor started to repair itself, with bits of gold appearing to fill in the cracks.

‘This should be good enough.’

Though the range of his attacks had been considerably reduced, there was no point in using a spear that was already cracked in the middle since he wouldn’t be able to fully utilize its strength.

It was better to use it as a short spear and feed the rest to reinforce his armor.

But the Thousand Soldiers Armor was not the only thing that had finished its meal.

—crunch—

“Keke.”

The Ark-Roa smiled after having finished eating Hansoo’s left arm.

And soon—

—boooom!—

—the Ark-Roa roared and charged at Hansoo.

Towards Kiriel, who was behind Hansoo.

‘What a smart kid.’

As Hansoo moved into a defensive position to block the Ark-Roa—

—kwaddduduk!—

—another arm extended out from its chest and smashed into Hansoo’s spear.

Usually, he would just block something like this.

But then the Ark-Roa’s left hand would kill Kiriel.

—crunch!—

Hansoo felt his chest being destroyed, and thought of Kiriel behind him.

If he gave her up, it would be a much easier battle.

And that made sense as well.

He didn’t know what Kiriel would bring, but the current situation wasn’t very optimistic.

But he decided to just follow his heart.

‘Ugh, just treat it as a form of repayment. After all... you died for me.’

—boooom!—

Hansoo ignored the pain coming up from his chest as he used the short spear in his right arm to stab down on the Ark-Roa’s left hand.

—boom!—

“Kuahaha!”

Though its left hand had been penetrated, the Ark-Roa continued to smile.

The dull blade of the half-broken spear wasn’t strong enough to go through its defenses and its regenerative speed.

There wasn’t even a need to aim for the girl behind him either.

The Ark-Roa started frenziedly attacking the now-easier opponent.

—boom! boom!—

The Ark-Roa’s fists swapped around quickly from a sword, hammer, and then to a spear.

Whichever weapon was the best for attacking Hansoo’s body.

—crunch!—

—boom!—

Every time it blocked an attack, the remaining half of Forked Lightning bent and cracked apart even more.

And then—

—clank!—

The blade of the Forked Lightning broke apart into small fragments.

‘Dumbass.’

Hansoo fed the remaining bits of the spear to his armor, and then changed his posture to attack with his one remaining arm.

‘I kept telling myself not to be blinded by the past.’

Hansoo chuckled.

He’d thought that he wouldn’t.

But he’d been doing it up until now.

But it seemed to differ from person to person.

And the Ark-Roa, after watching Hansoo for a moment, started to charge towards him again.

—booom!—

To finish off it’s now-weaponless enemy.

The man hadn’t been its opponent even when his weapon was intact.

And now he was barehanded, and even missing an arm.

‘Looks... tasty.’

As the Ark-Roa started dashing towards him—

—charrrurururk—

—clank—

—clang—

—a strange clanking noise, like something being assembled, could be heard behind Hansoo.

The sounds of metal smashing into one another.

Then—

“Mr Hansoo! Catch!”

—swooshwooshwoosh—

Something quickly flew towards Hansoo from behind.

As the Ark Roa felt the terrifying aura, it started to quickly move its arm to try and intercept it.

‘Heh, what do you think you’re doing?’

Hansoo pulled his head back, and then smashed it into the head of the Ark-Roa.

—booom!—

“Ahh!”

As the Ark-Roa, who had been solely focused on its right hand, flinched from the impact—

—Hansoo reached back with his right hand and caught the object flying towards him.

‘Good. Very good.’

Hansoo smiled at the sensation that was rising up his arm.

The solid feeling it was giving off...

It was different from the shield and the stake.

‘Well met, friend.’

Hansoo then tightened his grip.

—swooosh!—

Swinging out with his right arm, he smashed the Ark-Roa’s head.

—boooom!—

Though the head had been hit, a loud noise rang out.

“Kuaaaaahhh!”

And as the Ark-Roa screamed, while grasping onto its head—

—chchchchchzzzzhzhch!—

The sky split apart as a humongous bolt of lightning, hundreds of times thicker than that of Zeus’s, shot down.