Reborn as a Useless Noble with my SSS-Class Innate Talent

Kyle took one step toward the shimmering mirror.

It cracked.

A fine web of light crawled across its surface, reacting violently to his presence. On the other side, Lucia jolted, her eyes widening in visible panic.

She raised her hand. Divine mana exploded from her form like a wave of frost, and the mirror snapped shut with a screech that tore through the empty space around Kyle.

For a moment, everything was still.

Then the fog around him churned.

From the nothingness beyond the broken statues and shattered pathways, the first monster emerged.

It had no face. No form. Just a dense, rolling clump of divine mana shaped vaguely like a beast, its mass pulsing and warping with each breath it took. No eyes. Just malice.

Then came the next. And another. Ten. Fifteen. More.

All of them silent. All of them hungry.

Kyle didn't move. His eyes narrowed, the air around him vibrating as he raised one hand and drew mana into it.

A dark light surged across his fingers, forming the outline of his sword—smooth, elegant, deadly.

"I guess we're doing this the hard way."

The closest creature lunged.

Kyle met it mid-air, twisting his body as he brought his blade down in a clean arc.

The slash carved through the beast's center, and with a soundless gasp, it exploded into fragments of corrupted mana. The light scattered into the void.

Two more replaced it immediately.

Kyle didn't hesitate. He dashed forward, steps silent and sharp.

One hand behind his back, he brought the blade up with surgical precision and cleaved through both monsters in a single upward strike.

Their bodies hissed into nothingness before they could touch the ground.

He pivoted, eyes scanning.

Three more came from the left. Four from behind. A dozen encircling him.

Kyle clicked his tongue.

"Trying to box me in?"

He placed one foot behind him and raised his free hand. The mana in the air trembled.

A burst of compressed energy exploded outward from his body—sharp like blades, invisible to the eye.

It tore through half the horde, ripping their limbs and torsos into unrecognizable chunks. The rest staggered, recoiling instinctively.

Kyle didn't give them time.

He charged.

A surge of raw mana cloaked his body like armor, his speed now monstrous.

He ducked under a jagged tendril of energy that came for his neck and countered with a low sweep that decapitated the creature in one blow. His movements were clean, efficient—no wasted force.

The monsters began to shift, combining.

Several of the remaining blobs melded together, forming a larger beast—a hulking thing the size of a carriage, its surface lined with writhing limbs and gnashing mouths.

Kyle stopped, studying it.

Then he smirked.

"Now you're trying."

The beast roared—a formless sound full of rage—and threw a wave of corrupted mana at him. Kyle spun his sword once, drawing a sigil in the air with the tip of his blade.

A dome of defensive mana formed instantly and absorbed the impact.

Then, from inside the shield, he pointed the blade toward the center of the creature.

Mana gathered along the length of the sword until the metal glowed white-hot.

He whispered.

"Collapse."

A beam of pure force shot forward, lancing through the creature's torso and splitting it in half. The halves didn't even fall. They dissolved into motes of mist, unable to withstand the raw, compressed energy.

But more kept coming.

From the far reaches of the realm, Lucia was sending everything she had.

Kyle's eyes burned with focus.

"You're afraid. You still remember me."

He murmured, barely loud enough to hear himself.

Dozens more manifested, and this time, they didn't wait.

They charged all at once.

Kyle dashed forward to meet them.

Each step he took cracked the ground, his mana pressure rising to a suffocating level.

He carved through the first three with fluid grace—left, right, upward slash—before pivoting and blocking a surprise strike from behind with the flat of his blade.

He retaliated with a palm strike to the creature's core, injecting mana directly into its body and causing it to implode from the inside out.

Three more.

He vanished—teleporting behind them using a brief flicker of space-manipulating mana—and decapitated them all in one merciless stroke.

His mana cloak began to twist now, morphing into jagged tendrils behind his back, each one moving on its own like limbs.

The formless monsters began to hesitate. They slowed. Fear was setting in.

Kyle advanced.

Every slash of his sword became poetry—fast, minimalistic, and elegant. He made destruction look like art.

Even as the void around him tried to reconstruct broken monsters, he kept tearing them apart. Faster than they could reform.

Lucia's divine voice echoed faintly, laced with desperatio.

"Why won't you fall…?"

Kyle's answer was a low growl as he lunged upward, striking a beast mid-pounce and dragging his blade through its body before landing with a perfect roll and rising to a stance.

Breath steady. Sword clean. Eyes locked on the next wave.

More bodies fell.

The broken fog around him turned into a battlefield of scattered divine mana, scorched lines carved by his sword, and the tattered remains of Lucia's defense.

By the time the final creature fell—a massive, writhing thing that Kyle bisected from crown to gut with a downward slam—he stood alone.

Bloodless. Breathless.

Triumphant.

He exhaled, sliding his sword back into his palm where it faded into ether.

"I warned you, Lucia. You shouldn't have let me in."

The silence returned.

The fog began to retreat, ever so slightly, like a curtain being drawn.

And Kyle, now standing amid the wreckage of divine creation, looked toward where the mirror had once been. Its remnants glowed faintly, like coals under ash.

He had broken through.

Lucia had tried everything to stop him… and failed.

Kyle took one step forward, toward the next gate.

The real fight had only just begun.

—

On the other side of the broken mirror, Goddess Lucia stood frozen, her trembling hands clenched tightly at her sides.

She had watched every second of Kyle's battle—his fluid movements, his terrifying efficiency, the sheer power that radiated from his strikes.

A tide of unease surged within her chest, unlike anything she had felt in a long time.

'Why won't he fold under my power?'

She thought, her divine senses recoiling from the aftermath of her failed assault. Every other human—priest, warrior, king—had crumbled before her will. Sleep. Madness. Despair. Her curses always worked. Always.

But not on him.

Just like before.

Her heart twisted in recognition, and a bitter thought crept in unbidden—

'Only one man ever resisted me like this.'

Kyle.

The memory hit her like a slap. That unwavering gaze, those hands that once reached out to her even when she was cast out by her own kind… a man who stood with her, believed in her.

She shook her head violently, banishing the thought with a snarl.

"No. That's not him. That man is dead. Gone."

She gritted her teeth, nails digging into her palm.

"This one is just a problem. An anomaly I will erase."

But no matter how fiercely she denied it, a part of her whispered:

'What if it's really him?'