Reincarnated with the Country System

"Pathetic," Caspian murmured, toeing the corpse of an ISSD trooper aside. "All this security... for me?"

A low chuckle rumbled in his chest.

Then—

A whisper of movement.

A shift in the air pressure.

Caspian's head snapped up.

"Finally."

She stood at the corridor's end.

Circe.

The woman who had caged him.

Caspian's lips curled into a feral grin. "Ah. You."

Circe showed no reaction.

"You remember me," she observed.

Caspian exhaled sharply, rolling his shoulders. "Hard to forget the bitch who stuffed me in a cage."

Circe's fingers twitched. The air around her warped, reality itself bending to her will.

"You were a rabid dog," she said, her voice colder than space. "I put you down."

Caspian threw back his head and laughed. "And now I'm back."

"Not for long."

She moved.

One moment she stood twenty feet away. The next, she was before him, her palm slamming into his chest.

"Graviton Burst."

The world imploded.

Caspian's body cratered into the reinforced wall behind him, the metal buckling like tin foil. Dust and debris exploded outward, the impact shaking the entire level.

Silence.

Then—

A wet, rasping laugh.

Caspian pushed himself from the wreckage, bones knitting back together, flesh stitching closed. He rolled his neck until vertebrae popped.

"That all?"

Circe's eyes narrowed.

She raised one hand.

"Hellfire Lance."

A spear of black flame erupted from her fingertips, screaming through the air like a damned soul. It punched through Caspian's stomach, searing flesh, boiling blood.

He didn't flinch.

He grabbed the burning shaft and yanked it free. The wound sealed instantly.

"Nice trick," he mused, examining the fading flames. "But fire doesn't scare me."

Circe's lips thinned.

"Then let's try something else."

She clapped her hands together.

"Grand Cataclysm: Event Horizon."

Gravity twisted. The air itself tore apart, a swirling vortex of crushing darkness forming between her palms. The floor buckled, metal groaning as it was torn upward into the abyss.

Caspian's body lurched forward, feet leaving the ground as the black hole dragged him in.

For the first time, his grin faltered.

"Oh?"

Circe's eyes burned. "Die."

The vortex collapsed—a singularity of pure destruction crushing everything to nothingness.

Silence.

Then—

A hand burst from the wreckage.

Caspian hauled himself free, his body reforming from the shadows, his laughter echoing through the ruined corridor.

"Now that," he purred, "was interesting."

Circe's breath hitched.

Impossible.

She had erased him. She had felt it.

And yet—

He was still here.

Caspian cracked his knuckles. "My turn."

He moved.

One step.

Two.

Then—nothing.

He vanished.

Circe's instincts screamed. She twisted, throwing up a barrier—

"Absolute Zero: Frostwall."

A shield of ice thicker than steel erupted around her.

Caspian's fist shattered it like glass.

The impact sent her flying, her body crashing through three bulkheads before skidding to a stop. Blood trickled from her split lip.

She wiped it away, glaring.

Caspian stalked forward, footsteps echoing in the sudden quiet.

"You're strong," he admitted. "For a human."

Circe pushed herself up. "And you're still just a man."

Caspian's grin turned feral.

"Not anymore."

His body shifted.

Muscles swelled. Bones cracked, elongating. His skin split, revealing something black and shining beneath. His jaw unhinged, rows of razor-sharp teeth glinting in the dim light.

Circe's blood ran cold.

Oh.

He wasn't transforming.

He was shedding.

The thing that stood before her now was not Caspian.

Not anymore.

It was something older.

Something hungrier.

"In'Therak sends his regards," the devil crooned, its voice a chorus of screams.

Circe swallowed.

Then—

She smiled.

"Good."

Her hands blurred, weaving a spell so complex it burned the air around her.

"Grand Sorcery: Apocalypse Nova."

The world ended.

Light.

Heat.

The entire level vaporized in an instant, the blast ripping through the facility like divine wrath.

For a moment, there was nothing.

Then—

A laugh.

From the heart of the inferno, something moved.

Circe's eyes widened.

No.

The devil stepped through the flames, its body reforming faster than she could destroy it.

"You are fun," it mused.

Circe gritted her teeth.

She was running out of options.

The thing wearing Caspian's face stalked closer, its footsteps sizzling where they touched the ground. Molten concrete pooled in its wake.

"Tired already?" Its voice wasn't a voice—it was a thousand whispers scraping against her skull.

Circe bared her teeth. "Fuck you."

She moved.

No incantation. No dramatic flourish. Just raw, vicious instinct honed by decades of war. Her fingers hooked into claws—

"Fracture."

The space between them shattered.

Reality itself splintered like glass, jagged cracks spiderwebbing outward. The devil barely flinched as its left arm sheared off at the shoulder, black ichor spraying in a viscous arc.

Circe didn't wait. She lunged, driving her knee into its gut hard enough to fold steel.

Crack.

The thing laughed as her kneecap splintered.

"Beautiful."

Its remaining hand snapped up, catching her throat. Circe gagged as her feet left the ground.

Snap.

Her windpipe collapsed.

Snap.

Cervical vertebrae ground together.

Darkness crept at the edges of her vision.

Then—

Boom.

The devil's head exploded.

Circe hit the ground gasping, her ruined throat knitting itself back together with a wet click. Through tear-blurred eyes, she saw him.

The Emperor.

He stood framed in the ruined doorway, his smoking railgun still humming with overcharge.

Circe's chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with her injuries. There he was—the man who'd haunted her thoughts...

"Your Majesty, you finally arrived," she rasped, immediately cursing herself. Why did she always sound so stiff around him?

Alberto tossed the railgun aside. It hit the ground with a clang, its barrel warped beyond use. "Yeah, you know I'm so damn busy."

The headless devil twitched. Black tendrils squirmed from its neck stump, weaving a new skull.

"Your Majesty, what should we do? His strength surpasses even mine."

"I know what I have to do," Alberto said in a cold voice.

The devil's new head finished forming. Its grin split ear to ear.

"Two for one," it purred. "How..."

Alberto moved.

Faster than physics allowed. Faster than Circe could track. His fist connected with the devil's chest—

Thoom.

The shockwave ripped through the facility. Support beams sheared like twigs. The devil rocketed backward through six walls before embedding in the seventh.