Reinhard's eyebrow raised at the new blessing that had just materialized before his eyes. He watched with a mixture of curiosity and amusement as the bullets that had been streaking toward him turned mid-air, their trajectories warping and bending at the last possible moment to avoid hitting him entirely.
The rounds curved around his body as though repelled by an invisible force, embedding themselves into the dirt and trees behind him without so much as grazing his skin.
It seemed that going forward, anyone who wanted to actually harm him would need to face him head-on in close combat, because long-range attacks of any kind—be they magical or physical—would simply do nothing to him. They would miss before they ever had the chance to land.
"He is immune to long-range attacks and magic. It must be a blessing." The leader called out to his companions, his voice sharp with urgency as his mind raced to find a solution.
Without missing a beat, the dwarf reached for a ring on his finger—which turned out to be a storage ring, a spatial artifact capable of holding items within a compressed pocket of space—and from it, he pulled out what looked to be a rocket launcher.
The weapon was crude in design compared to what Reinhard had seen in his previous life, but unmistakably built for one purpose: destruction on a large scale. Reinhard's eyebrow raised once more as he watched the dwarves load what appeared to be an explosive charge into the barrel, and without hesitation, they fired it directly toward him.
The projectile streaked through the air and landed right next to Reinhard's feet, thudding against the ground with a heavy, metallic clunk. Reinhard looked down at it in genuine confusion, staring at the device sitting there doing absolutely nothing. He looked back up at the dwarves, who seemed to be equally confused, their expressions shifting from anticipation to bewilderment as the seconds stretched on in silence.
"Damn it, it failed! Fire at it!" The leader roared in annoyance, veins bulging in his thick neck as frustration boiled over.
[New Blessing Gained.
Blessing of Anti-Nuke: If a tactical nuke, or explosive of similar making, were used against him, it would not detonate.]
The first time the explosive had failed to go off, it wasn't because of any blessing or supernatural intervention—Reinhard was simply too lucky. The sheer weight of his probability manipulation had caused the detonation mechanism to malfunction on its own, a one-in-a-million failure that occurred as naturally as breathing for someone with his level of fortune.
But now, even as bullets struck the explosive directly, sparking against its casing and hitting it dead center, nothing happened.
Reinhard's newest blessing had stepped in to ensure that from this point forward, explosives of that magnitude would simply refuse to function in his presence.
"Seriously, calm down. I'm not here seeking enemies. If I was, I would have attacked or something." Reinhard said, raising both hands into the air in a clear gesture of surrender, his palms open and facing outward. His tone was patient, his posture relaxed. Everything about him screamed that he had no interest in fighting.
"Like we would trust anything from you demons." One of the dwarves roared back, his voice thick with venom and years of accumulated hatred. The others quickly joined in, shouting their agreement, their fury drowning out any possibility of reasonable conversation.
Reinhard sighed quietly, unsure of what to say to people who had clearly made up their minds about him long before he ever opened his mouth. Words alone weren't going to reach them.
He thought for a moment, weighing his options carefully. Then, having decided on his approach, he unleashed a fraction of his aura. It was just a hint of it, the barest sliver of what he carried inside—but the effect was catastrophic.
The world lost all color in an instant. It was as if reality itself had been drained, turned into the black-and-white pages of a manga, every shade of life stripped away and replaced by stark, lifeless contrast.
The dwarves were left horrified, their bodies locking up as primal terror seized them at the deepest level of their being. Before them stood Reinhard, his once beautiful blue eyes transformed into something else entirely—cold, hollow, and terrifying, looking like the eyes of a demon staring through them rather than at them.
But the aura didn't last. It was just a split second, a flash of pressure that was there and gone before anyone could even draw a full breath. And yet, in that single instant, every single one of the dwarves had dropped to their knees, their legs giving out beneath them as though the strength had been physically ripped from their bodies.
Their combat spirit was utterly destroyed, shattered beyond recovery, and nothing remained in their eyes but raw, unfiltered horror. A few of them were even crying, tears streaming down their weathered faces as their bodies trembled uncontrollably, unable to process what they had just experienced.
Seeing this, Reinhard awkwardly rubbed the back of his head, wincing slightly as he realized he had released far more pressure than he intended. He had only meant to get their attention—not to break them.
It made sense that his aura would be this overwhelming, even if he hadn't expected it to hit this hard. He possessed a powerful, pure aura forged over the course of more than a hundred thousand years of relentless battle, death after death in that arena, each one adding another layer to the weight he carried.
All of that accumulated experience, all of that suffering, combined with his newfound power in this body—it was no wonder his aura had become something so deadly that even a fraction of it could bring hardened warriors to their knees in tears.
"He is at Rank Eight… we're done for," the leader said, his voice hollow and horrified, barely above a whisper as the words left his trembling lips. Why was such a powerhouse here, in their territory?
There was a treaty between the races—an agreement forged through centuries of bloodshed and negotiation—that dictated no one above Rank Six was to step into another race's domain. Any violation of this treaty would be seen as a direct act of war, an open declaration of hostilities that would drag entire civilizations into conflict.
The reason for this rule was simple. Just one Rank Six warrior held the power to erase an entire city from the map. A six-circle mage, armed with an area-of-effect spell, could unleash devastation that covered miles upon miles of land, leaving nothing but scorched earth in their wake.
A seven-circle mage held the power to erase a mountain with the right spell, reducing something that had stood for millennia to rubble and dust in a matter of moments.
And a Rank Eight—an eight-circle combatant—had the power to erase an entire island, wiping it from existence as though it had never been there at all.
And now, these dwarves, a small patrol group of modest rank, were standing before such a powerhouse with nothing between them but open air and the fading echo of their failed attacks.
[Name: Reinhard Pendragon
Race: Human / Dragon / God
Age: 21 years old
Number of Circles: Crippled
Warrior Rank: 6th Rank
Abilities: [Blessing of the World], [Authority of Adaptation], [Disaster]]
'I'm only at Rank Six. I doubt I could fight someone at Rank Eight,' Reinhard thought, his internal assessment far more modest than the image the dwarves had painted of him. He was unsure if it was even possible for him to skip ranks in a direct confrontation at this stage.
Sure, with his skills, he could theoretically cut through anything—space itself had yielded to a stick in his hands just minutes ago. But what fool would stand perfectly still and allow him to land a clean hit? Against someone two full ranks above him, with speed, reflexes, and power not to match that gap, landing a decisive blow would be far easier said than done.
"Calm down, I did all that to show you guys I could defeat you all if I wanted. And my bad, I didn't mean my aura to be so heavy." Reinhard said gently, his tone softening as he tried to undo some of the damage his display had caused.
Although still visibly uneasy, their bodies tense and their hands shaking, the leader of the dwarves forced himself to step forward. He approached Reinhard with gritted teeth, every step clearly requiring immense willpower to take, his instincts screaming at him to run in the opposite direction.
"What do you want?" He asked, facing Reinhard with the rigid posture and suspicious eyes of someone staring down a demon about to trick him into selling his soul. There was no trust in his gaze—only the calculated caution of a man who knew he had no choice but to cooperate.
"I'm not going to force you to do something you don't want to do. I just wanted to know how to get back to the human domain… but now I want to know why you guys hate humans. But if you don't want to, it's cool as well." Reinhard said calmly, his voice carrying no pressure, or command. It was a genuine question, offered freely with the explicit option to refuse.
"The human domain is that way," the dwarf said coldly, pointing toward the distance without a shred of warmth in his voice or his gesture. He offered the information and nothing more. Reinhard nodded, accepting the answer without pushing further.
But before turning to leave, his gaze drifted toward the humans scattered around the clearing—the dead, the mangled, and the few who had been bound and captured. He went on to use his Blessing of the God of Wisdom on each of them, pulling up their information one by one.
As he read through the details of who these people were and the things they had done in their lives, his expression darkened into a frown. What he found was not the profile of innocent victims.
"Thank you for the help." Reinhard nodded at the dwarf before turning on his heel and walking off without another word, leaving the captured humans behind without so much as a second glance.
"Are you not going to save them?" The dwarf asked, genuine surprise breaking through his guarded demeanor for the first time.
When Reinhard had looked at the humans, the dwarf had fully expected the worst—that this overwhelmingly powerful stranger would force them to release their captives, that he would use his strength to take what he wanted and leave them powerless to resist. But instead, he had simply turned around and walked away as though they didn't matter.
"Those are but criminals; if you free them, I will kill them myself," Reinhard said softly, his words landing with a quiet finality that left no room for doubt. The dwarf stood there stunned, watching Reinhard's retreating figure as he disappeared down the path.
He had never seen a human like this before—one who would willingly abandon his own kind to their fate without a shred of hesitation, not out of cruelty, but out of a sense of justice that transcended racial loyalty.
But the dwarf didn't dwell on it for long. He wasted no time and pulled out a mirror from his belongings. He channeled a trace of mana into it, and the mirror's surface rippled before connecting to another mirror somewhere far away, allowing him to establish a direct communication link with his higher-ups. What he had just witnessed needed to be reported immediately.
While that was happening, Reinhard was walking at a steady pace through the open terrain, his mind already shifting to the next matter at hand. He used the Blessing of the God of Wisdom once more, this time turning its focus inward to examine his Warrior Rank and what it truly meant for him in practical terms.
[Although your Warrior Rank is at Rank Six, you are a monster who cannot truly be ranked by conventional standards. Your skills, your combat experience, and your absolute control of the Mana Empowerment technique make you a being who can easily rival those of ranks far above your own. You can defeat opponents who are objectively stronger than you, as your skills and combat capability are more than sufficient to bridge any gap in raw power.]
'Nice, but I wonder what the maximum gap I could bridge actually is.' Reinhard thought calmly, turning the information over in his mind.
What the Blessing of the God of Wisdom had pretty much told him was that even it didn't fully know the extent of his power. There was no clean number to give him, no definitive ceiling to point to—his potential in combat was something that existed outside the neat categories the ranking system was built on.
A few minutes passed as Reinhard continued his walk in relative peace, the quiet of the open landscape surrounding him. And then, without warning, he felt it—danger. A sharp, piercing instinct that shot through his body like a bolt of lightning, every nerve firing at once.
Reinhard turned around almost instantly, his body reacting before his conscious mind had even fully registered the threat, and with the broken stick still in his hands, he swung. The blade of air created by his strike cut clean through a massive fireball that had been launched toward him from miles away, splitting it in two.
He cut through the fireball—a roaring sphere of condensed flame the size of an entire mansion, radiating enough heat to turn stone to slag—but the aftermath of the explosion wasn't so easily dismissed.
The sheer thermal energy released from the split fireball flooded over his body in a wave, the intense heat searing his skin and sending burning pain racing across his exposed flesh.
He moved in a flash, propelling himself out of the range of the residual heat with a burst of speed as the stick in his hands crumbled to dust, completely disintegrated by the forces it had been subjected to.
From a safe distance, he watched calmly as the spirits surrounding him, along with his natural regeneration capability, kicked in simultaneously. The burns that had scorched his skin began to fade almost immediately, the damaged tissue mending and restoring itself with an ease that made the injury feel like little more than a mild inconvenience.
Spirits, in this world, were pretty much elements that had come to life—fragments of the natural world that had gained awareness and a will of their own. There were countless varieties of them scattered throughout every corner of existence, and most of them were low-level beings, small and individually insignificant.
But they all loved Reinhard without exception, drawn to him by the blessing he carried and the nature of his very existence. They rushed to him eagerly, swarming around his body to heal his wounds even without Reinhard asking for their help, pouring their energy into him freely and without hesitation, as though caring for him was the most natural thing in the world.