Reincarnation Of The Magicless Pinoy
From Zero to Hero: "No Magic? No Problem!"
Encounter 38: Point of No Return!
The courtyard didn't just feel cold—it felt empty. The air was being pulled into the vacuum of Luke's rising power, a synthesis of Earth's cold calculation and this world's nightmare mana.
Luke stood at the center of a swirling vortex of violet-black static. He looked down at his hands, watching the mana form into jagged, geometric shapes—Rolien's "Solid State" mana theories, perfected by a man who didn't care about the cost.
"You were always so proud of your 'efficiency,' Rowan," Luke whispered, his voice amplified by the void. "But you were limited by your humanity. I? I've embraced the glitch."
He flicked a finger.
A [Void-Railgun]—a spell compressed into a needle-thin line of infinite density—shot forward. It didn't just hit; it erased the space between Luke and the mentors.
"MARCELLUS! ARDEN! MOVE!" Rolien's voice was a shredded rasp.
Marcellus roared, throwing every drop of his remaining life into a Titanic Aegis. The golden light flared one last time, a sun defiant against the dark. But the Void-Railgun didn't bounce off. It shattered the gold like cheap glass and punched through Marcellus's chest plate.
The old knight was thrown backward, his massive body skipping across the stone like a pebble, slamming into a pile of jagged rubble with a sickening, wet crunch. He didn't get up. His golden aura flickered once, then died.
"One old dog down," Luke mocked.
Arden lunged, his blade a blur of desperate precision, but Thane—now wreathed in Luke's corrupted violet frost—was faster. Thane didn't just parry; he used a [Kinetic Absorption] loop from Rolien's own notes. He caught Arden's blade, drained the momentum, and delivered a frost-encoded palm strike to Arden's throat.
Arden's neck snapped back. He was flung through the air, crashing through a stone pillar and tumbling into the dark shadows of the broken colonnade.
Rolien watched it happen in slow motion.
He saw the blood. He saw the silence of the two men who had become his anchors in this world.
The System UI in his vision didn't just turn red. It started to bleed.
[CRITICAL PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA DETECTED]
[HEART RATE: 240 BPM]
[ADRENALINE: FATAL LEVELS]
[RAGE THRESHOLD: 100%... 150%... 400%...]
"They're gone, Rowan," Luke laughed, his face contorting into the mask of Hunter Solomon. "Just like your team. Just like your world. Now, come and die so I can go find the Princess's body and—"
Something snapped.
It wasn't a sound. It was the feeling of a world breaking.
Rolien didn't scream. A sound came out of his throat, but it wasn't human. It was a low, vibrating [STATIC REVERB] that made the stones of Blackfort vibrate.
The Jawbreaker arm stopped venting steam. The metal began to turn white-hot, then a terrifying, abyssal black. The hydraulic fluid inside ignited, turning into a pressurized sludge of cursed fire. The Tenbatsu no Yari fused to his hand, the crimson veins growing into his skin, stitching the sword to his skeleton.
[EMERGENCY OVERRIDE: STAGE 2 ACTIVATED]
[KING OF WRATH: BERSERKER LUCIFER]
[COGNITIVE FUNCTIONS: OFFLINE]
[REASONING: DELETED]
[TARGET: EVERYTHING.]
"H-HUNTEERRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR!!!"
Rolien vanished.
He didn't run. The ground beneath his feet simply detonated as he broke the sound barrier in a single step.
Vorax didn't even have time to raise his axe.
Rolien was suddenly inside his guard. He didn't use a sword technique. He grabbed Vorax's helmet with his bare, blackened Jawbreaker hand and squeezed. The sound of metal shrieking and bone shattering filled the courtyard. He tore the Slayer's head—helmet and all—clean off the shoulders and threw it at Thane like a discarded rag.
Thane shrieked, throwing up a frost shield, but the impact of the severed head shattered the barrier.
Rolien was on him next. He caught Thane's frost blades with his teeth, snapping the enchanted steel like dry twigs. He drove the Tenbatsu no Yari through Thane's chest, but he didn't pull it out. He twisted the blade and fired a [Max-Output Point-Blank Blast] through the sword's tip.
Thane didn't just die. He evaporated in a spray of black mist and shattered silver hair.
"LIFESPAN CONSUMED: 12 YEARS"
"LIFESPAN CONSUMED: 18 YEARS"
Rolien turned toward Luke.
His mask was gone. His face was a ruin of black veins and white, glowing eyes that held no soul. He wasn't breathing; he was venting black smoke from his lungs.
Luke's smile finally, truly vanished. He stepped back, hands trembling as he began to weave a [Grand-Calamity] spell. "Stay back! I have the grimoire! I know your moves! I know—"
Rolien didn't care what he knew.
He lunged.
Luke fired a barrage of violet spears. Rolien didn't dodge. He let them impale his shoulders, his legs, his gut—he just kept moving forward, the spears snapping off his body like toothpicks.
He reached Luke.
His hand—the black, demonic Jawbreaker—clamped onto Luke's throat. The force of the impact drove them both through three fortress walls, across the outer moat, and into the forest beyond.
Luke tried to scream, tried to cast a spell, but Rolien's grip was a black hole. It was draining the mana, the life, the very air.
Rolien lifted the Tenbatsu high. The blade was four meters long now, a jagged tooth of absolute darkness.
There was no "Zero to Hero" here.
There was only the Black Ripper, and he was done talking.
The forest outside Blackfort didn't just break; it disintegrated. The shockwave of Rolien dragging Luke through the stone walls had leveled a hundred-yard path of ancient oaks.
Rolien stood over the Duke, his hand still clamped like a hydraulic vice around Luke's throat. The King of Wrath state was screaming, the black smoke pouring from his visor now laced with a sickly, incandescent violet. He raised the Tenbatsu no Yari, the blade pulsing with the rhythmic thrum of a dying star.
He was a second away from the killing blow.
"ENOUGH!!" Luke roared, his voice distorted by a mouthful of blood.
A pulse of [Forbidden Singularity] erupted from Luke's chest—a desperate, self-destructive mana burst he'd stolen from the back pages of Rolien's grimoire. The explosion was purple-black, a localized gravity well that didn't just push Rolien—it tore him away.
Rolien was flung back, his body spinning through the air, crashing through the splintered remains of the forest.
As he hit the ground, two shadows flickered in the periphery.
Thane—his body now a patchwork of stitched violet mana and jagged frost.
Vorax—a headless juggernaut of black iron, his "head" now a swirling orb of Luke's psychic mana hovering where his skull used to be.
With Luke's desperate empowerment, the two Slayers had been forcibly resurrected as Void-Thralls.
Thane slammed a frost-laden kick into Rolien's ribs, the impact freezing the Jawbreaker's joints instantly. Simultaneously, Vorax's axe descended in a heavy, ground-shattering sweep that sent Rolien skidding across the dirt, his vision flickering between the HUD's red warnings and the dark, canopy-choked sky.
The roar of the battlefield faded into the chirping of cicadas and the rhythmic thwack of wooden swords.
Rolien, barely eleven years old, sat on the grass, chest heaving, his small wooden practice blade lying five feet away. His hands were red and stinging. Across from him stood Edric Grey, his father, looking barely winded, a gentle but firm expression on his face.
Edric knelt, the grass crunching under his boots, and placed a heavy, calloused hand on Rolien's head.
"Rage is good if you have a good head between those shoulders of yours, son," Edric said, his voice a calm anchor. "But you can't save anyone or anything if you don't keep a clear head. You are a good fighter, Rolien—maybe the best I've ever seen—but you still lack self-control."
Rolien looked up, his young face tight with frustration. "But Dad, if they hurt Elian big sister Elara, I have to—"
"I know," Edric cut him off with a soft smile. "When your kin is in danger, you always rush in and do things that are almost stupid. Almost. It works now because they're caught off guard. But what if they weren't? What if they were waiting for your anger to make you sloppy?"
Edric leaned in, his eyes serious. "You've surpassed the scholars, and you're stronger than the noble boys twice your age. You have a future brighter than anyone on this continent. But without a level head, you're destined to fall. Analysis over anger, Rolien. Don't fall into the rage. Got it?"
"Heh," a voice chimed in from the sidelines. Elian was leaning against a fence, sweating from his own training, a wide grin on his face. "My little brother is just like that. He always wants to do things his own way, even if it's the hard way."
Elian walked over and clapped Rolien on the shoulder, nearly knocking the boy over. "But don't worry, Dad. If this idiot starts to stray, I'll be the one who pulls him back."
"Heh, you talk too much, big brother," Rolien shot back, rubbing his shoulder. "Worry about yourself. I saw Sir Marcellus kick your ass earlier."
The three of them erupted into laughter—a sound of pure, untainted warmth.
"Hey, you three idiots!" Lady Lirien called out from the porch, her voice carrying across the yard. Beside her, Rolien's sister waved a pitcher. "Come on! We made some iced tea! Relax a bit before you kill each other!"
The laughter was cut short by the sound of a [Void-Bullet] shattering the stone near Rolien's ear.
Rolien's eyes snapped open. The "iced tea" was the smell of ozone and his own burning armor.
He was being juggled. Thane's frost-flicker movements were too fast to track in his berserk state, and Vorax's brute strength was pinning him down every time he tried to rise.
Luke stood fifty yards away, his face pale and veins bulging as he maintained the "resurrection" of his Slayers.
"Look at you, Rowan!" Luke screamed, blood dripping from his chin. "Where's that genius now? Where's the 'Black Ripper'? You're just a dying dog in the dirt!"
[LIFESPAN CONSUMED: 22 YEARS]
[SYSTEM WARNING: COGNITIVE LOSS IMMINENT]
[RAGE LEVEL: 99%]
Rolien felt the black tar of the King of Wrath state trying to swallow the memory of his father's hand on his head. The "Lucifer" protocol wanted him to scream, to lash out, to kill everything—including the memories.
But then, he felt the weight of Elian's hand on his shoulder in the memory.
"I'll be the one who pulls him back."
Rolien's breath hitched. The black smoke around his body flickered.
He looked at the headless Vorax charging him and the silver-haired Thane blurring for his throat. Behind them, he could sense the faint, flickering life-signals of Marcellus and Arden back in the ruins—broken, but still there.
If he stayed in the rage, he would burn his life to zero before he could save them. He would be the "stupid" fighter his father warned him about.
The HUD in his vision flickered. For the first time, the red bleed stopped spreading.
[MANUAL OVERRIDE DETECTED]
[EMOTIONAL PURGE INITIATED]
[CALCULATING... ANALYSIS MODE: ONLINE]
"Dad..." Rolien whispered, his voice cracking through the mask. "I got it."
The black, demonic fire around the Jawbreaker didn't vanish—it compressed. It pulled inward, turning from a wild inferno into a razor-thin coating of absolute-zero energy. The Tenbatsu no Yari stopped screaming and began to hum a single, perfect note.
Rolien's eyes—no longer wild and white—turned a deep, focused steel-blue behind the visor.
Thane lunged with his frost-blades.
Rolien didn't roar. He didn't even move his whole body. He tilted his head by exactly three centimeters, letting the blade graze his mask, and caught Thane's wrist with his flesh hand.
"Your patterns are recycled, Thane," Rolien said, his voice calm, cold, and terrifyingly lucid. "Luke didn't teach you how to improvise."
With a sickening crunch, Rolien snapped the Slayer's wrist.
Luke's eyes widened. "What... what are you doing? You're supposed to be mindless! The corruption—!"
"The corruption is just fuel, Luke," Rolien said, his gaze locking onto the Duke. "And I just figured out the chemistry."
[SYNC RATE: 100%]
[SKILL UNLOCKED: TRANQUIL WRATH]
Rolien stood up, the forest around him falling into a sudden, unnatural silence.
"Now," Rolien leveled the Tenbatsu at Luke's heart. "Let's try this again. With a clear head."
The surgical precision of the Tranquil Wrath was a flicker of lightning—brilliant, but agonizingly brief.
Rolien moved like a ghost. He shattered Vorax's mana-core with a single, calculated palm strike and sent Thane sprawling with a kick that carried the weight of a falling mountain. But as he turned to deliver the final blow to Luke, the white light around the Tenbatsu no Yari sputtered and died.
The "chemistry" he had figured out was too volatile for a body already pushed beyond the breaking point.
[CAUTION: SYSTEM OVERHEAT]
[TRANQUIL WRATH – DEACTIVATED]
[KING OF WRATH – DEPLETED]
[LIFESPAN CALCULATION IN PROGRESS...]
Rolien's legs buckled. The armor of the Jawbreaker hissed, venting thick, oily black smoke as the internal gears ground to a halt. The demonic glow in his eyes vanished, leaving him staring at Luke with nothing but raw, human exhaustion.
Luke, sensing the shift, let out a hysterical, blood-flecked laugh. He scrambled to his feet, the stolen grimoire clutched in a trembling hand. "Out of fuel, Rowan?!" Luke shrieked. "The 'Miracle' finally ran out of luck!"
Luke lunged. Without the boost of his system, Rolien was forced into a brutal, grounded brawl. They clashed evenly—not as gods or monsters, but as two dying men. Rolien parried a mana-blade with his reinforced arm; Luke took a headbutt to the face and countered with a knee to Rolien's cracked ribs. They tore at each other in the dirt, the air thick with blood and ozone.
They separated, ten paces apart. The final line.
Rolien stood hunched, his left arm—the Gerbarra Unit—screaming as it forced open every cooling vent. He didn't have enough mana to sustain the sword. He had one shot.
"This is it, Hunter," Rolien rasped.
Luke stood tall, his hands weaving a massive, unstable sphere of violet-black fire—a localized nuke. "Go to hell, Gray! Die with your failures!"
"GERBARRA BEAST ROAR!"
A colossal beam of blue-white energy erupted from the Gerbarra cannon. At the same instant, Luke released the [Violet Singularity Nuke]. The attacks collided in a white-hot explosion that leveled the remaining trees.
As the smoke cleared, Rolien was on his knees, vomiting blood. A shadow fell over him. He flinched, but a firm hand caught his shoulder. Arden. The older man was battered and bleeding, but his eyes were steady.
"You don't need to be like him to win, son," Arden said, his voice a fierce anchor. "We are better than him."
Across the crater, Luke rose, looking like a corpse held together by spite. "BETTER?!" he screamed. "You're nothing!"
Luke slammed a final, small-scale nuke into the ground at point-blank range.
BOOM.
The shockwave launched Rolien into the air like a ragdoll, hurling him hundreds of meters away. He crashed through the canopy of the deeper forest, slamming into the earth of a distant ravine. Luke, barely standing, called the reanimated Thane to his side and vanished in a swirl of frost.
In the ravine, Rolien lay amidst broken branches. His vision was a blurred mess of static.
[FINAL CALCULATION COMPLETE]
[LIFESPAN CONSUMED: 68 YEARS, 8 MONTHS]
[ESTIMATED REMAINING LIFESPAN: 3 YEARS]
[VITAL SIGNS: FAILING]
The impact finally settled into a deafening, ringing silence.
In the deep, shadowed ravine far from the ruins of Blackfort, the wreckage of the Jawbreaker lay twisted amongst the ferns. The black metal was cold now, the fires inside extinguished by the sheer force of the final blast.
Rolien lay motionless. His head was tilted back, eyes half-closed and glazed, staring at nothing. There was no movement in his limbs, no grit left in his jaw. The "Tranquil Wrath" had exacted its toll, leaving his body a hollowed-out shell of its former self.
The System HUD flickered one last time, the text dimming as the power core died.
[VITAL SIGNS: CRITICAL]
[NEURAL ACTIVITY: MINIMAL]
[LIFESPAN REMAINING: 3 YEARS]
[SYSTEM SHUTTING DOWN...]
The blue glow of the interface vanished, leaving Rolien in total darkness.
His breathing was so shallow it didn't even stir the dust on his lips. His heart, strained by the consumption of nearly seventy years of life, beat with a slow, erratic thrum—a clock ticking down its final seconds. He didn't feel the cold of the damp earth or the pain of his shattered ribs. He felt nothing.
High above the ravine, the smoke from the battle drifted lazily across the moon. Luke was gone. The Slayers were gone. But in the quiet of the forest, the price of that victory lay still.
Rolien Grey was no longer a hero, a soldier, or a genius. He was just a boy, broken and aged, slipping deeper and deeper into an unconsciousness so heavy it looked like the end.
Then a foot steps echoed...
[END OF VOLUME 3]