That Time I Got Reincarnated as a King (Old Version)

FA – I Am the Weapon: Part 2

Twelve warriors stood between Kael and the end.

The courtyard of the enemy fortress was massive—wide enough to fit a siege colossus, now cleared for a single event: his execution. Cracked obsidian stone stretched beneath his feet, every inch enchanted to absorb shock and suppress magic. But Kael's aura still cracked the air.

At the center of the enemy formation stood their king.

He was massive—close to eight feet tall—encased in jagged obsidian armor with crimson runes etched into the chestplate. His helmet bore no visor, only glowing red slits where eyes should be. Smoke curled from the edges of his body, as if the magic sealed within was slowly leaking out. In his left hand, he held a chained relic—a flaming crown pulsing with anti-mana energy.

His champions were arranged perfectly, each at calculated intervals.

To the left:
– A high elf mage levitating slightly off the ground, spinning a runic staff.
– One royal knight in white, shield aglow with divine magic.
– A vice-captain covered in crawling glyph tattoos that burned into the stone below.
– One demon assassin crouched low, blades drawn.

To the right:
– The high elf archer—hood drawn, eyes glowing silver.
– A brutal army commander with a jagged greatsword.
– A royal knight in void-black armor.
– The second demon assassin, taller than the first and eerily silent.

Between them:
– Two armored captains, mirrored helms reflecting Kael's glow.
– The second vice-captain, her gauntlets sparking with chain lightning.

Kael stopped at the edge of the field, the air around him thick with tension. Blue mist curled from his shoulders. His slime armor rippled with life. Mana flowed visibly along his arms, coiling and looping like bioluminescent tattoos. His breathing was slow. Controlled. Barely restrained.

Inside him, Rimuru pulsed softly. Calm. Aware. Waiting.

"They're adapting to your mana signature," she said quietly.

"You've got thirty seconds of surprise left."

"Then I'll give them the worst thirty seconds of their lives."

The assassins moved first—no signal, no warning.

Just gone.

Kael's instincts screamed. His legs shifted instantly—slime forming beneath his boots, launching him into a spiraling dodge. One blade grazed his neck. The other hit his back.

He twisted midair, flinging out a slime tendril in a wide arc—caught one assassin mid-step, wrapped him like a snake, and slammed him into the ground. The second flickered behind him again.

"High!" Rimuru snapped.

Kael ducked.

The blade passed through his hair.

He lashed backward—his arm transforming mid-swing into a broad slime blade—and clipped the assassin's ribs, sending him tumbling through the air.

Before Kael could exhale, the archer fired.

He raised a slime shield—too late.

The arrow hit his shoulder, bursting into frost. He staggered, growled, then absorbed the ice into his armor with a hiss. His fingers twitched, recalibrating.

"Got that one," he muttered.

"Incoming—mage!"

Kael spun. The high elf mage's staff pulsed, launching a spiraling triple-cast of wind spears, lightning chains, and black flame. Kael's body split momentarily—two slime limbs detaching to intercept the lightning while he raised his arms to block the flame. He caught the wind spears in a shifting barrier—but the force still flung him backward.

He hit the ground hard, cracking a plate of stone.

The captains were already on him.

One dropped a hammer like thunder, the other spinning a halberd wrapped in energy chains. Kael rolled left—his leg liquefying and slithering under the hammer shockwave. The halberd sliced across his back.

Pain.

Real, hot pain.

Kael gritted his teeth, forced himself upright. His shoulder oozed glowing blue as Rimuru sealed the wound.

"Stamina burn increasing. You're overcasting."

"Don't care," Kael snapped. "I'm just getting started."

He formed a whip-blade from his forearm and slashed low, cutting one captain's knee. The other blocked—but Kael's slime-arm lashed around his weapon, then exploded, knocking both back.

The vice-captains rushed in—casting wide glyphs beneath Kael's feet.

The ground turned red.

Kael cursed, tried to leap—but one foot stuck. The trap locked him for half a second—long enough for a bolt of arcane chain lightning to hit his torso and launch him backward into a column.

Stone cracked.

His slime flickered.

He coughed, blue liquid splattering the ground.

"Kael—stop. You're bleeding energy."

"I said I'm fine!"

He threw both arms wide—slime erupting from his spine, forming wings. He launched upward and dove back down like a meteor, crashing between the two royal knights.

The holy knight raised his shield.

Kael struck it.

The shield held.

Barely.

But the void knight came from behind, sword slashing through Kael's lower back. His body flickered—slime reforming—but it hurt. Mana surged. Core wobbling.

The army commander charged next.

Kael was tired of playing fair.

He formed four arms.

All slime.

Two blocked the commander's greatsword. The others whipped out, latching onto a column and swinging Kael away just as the mage launched another barrage. Fire roared behind him. Ice raced along his boots. Every muscle ached—even the ones made of magic.

Still…

He grinned.

And laughed.

"You really brought your whole raid party, huh?"

No answer.

They were circling him again.

His slime armor dripped. His mana leaked. His limbs trembled. Rimuru had gone quiet, focused on internal reinforcement.

They were winning.

Kael could feel it.

"Kael," Rimuru finally said, her voice low and steady, "They're breaking formation. They think you're at your limit."

"I am."

"Then why are you smiling?"

Kael wiped blood from his lip and whispered,

"Because that means they're not ready for what comes next."

The courtyard was cracked, flooded with haze and broken magic. The remnants of Kael's earlier attacks shimmered faintly in the air—stray threads of blue slime drifting like dying fireflies. The silence left behind was total, as if the battlefield itself was holding its breath.

Kael stood in the center.

His body ached in ways that didn't make sense. Muscles he didn't have anymore pulsed with strain. The slime armor wrapped around him flickered—stabilizing one second, then rippling too fast the next, trying to hold him together. His feet felt like they were melting into the earth. His lungs burned. Every step felt heavier than the last.

He couldn't take much more.

But he wouldn't need to.

The remaining enemies—those who hadn't been incapacitated or already consumed—began to spread out again. The commander limped into position. The royal knights fell back into dual formation. The mage, scorched and bleeding, was already preparing a chant. They were forming up for the final strike.

"Kael," Rimuru said inside his mind, voice drained but focused, "they're adapting to everything we've shown them. We're out of forms. Out of tricks."

"Good," Kael rasped. "Then it's time to show them something new."

"We don't have the energy to fight them one by one."

"We won't."

He closed his eyes. Raised his arms slowly. Let the last of his mana flood into his chest.

And then he reached inward.

Not into himself, but into them—the echoes of every attack, every fragment of mana Predator had consumed during the battle. It was all still there, inside his body, humming just beneath the surface. Thousands of mana types. Unique frequencies. Residual instincts.

And Rimuru.

He could feel her, curled in his core—not just a slime anymore, but a storm. A will. A partner.

He whispered into the void, "Let's end this together."

She answered by fusing deeper.

His body began to glow.

The glow was slow at first—soft blue light building at his fingertips, then his palms, his chest, his spine. The slime no longer swirled or rippled. It smoothed. Thickened. Stabilized. His limbs didn't just glow—they radiated, until his silhouette blurred into a column of rising energy.

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Above him, the sky rippled.

Clouds parted—not from wind, but from gravitational pressure as Kael's mana bent the atmosphere itself. Arcane rings formed in the sky. Blue light twisted into impossible spirals, patterns overlapping like massive gears turning overhead.

"Kael," Rimuru said, sounding not tired anymore—but reverent, "you're shaping a physical spell construct. It's forming through us. I can see its structure. It's enormous."

"I know."

He didn't scream.

He didn't summon.

He simply lifted his arm—palm flat to the sky.

And the sky answered.

The slime began to form above the battlefield, slow and deliberate. First a drop. Then a thread. Then a surge.

A massive limb of semi-transparent blue slime curled through the clouds, stretching outward and downward, forming the outline of a colossal hand. The knuckles alone were the size of siege towers. Mana bled from the edges like fog pouring from an open wound. Runes spiraled across the fist, made of condensed thought, compressed memories, and every skill Kael had devoured with Predator.

The twelve enemies stared up at it.

Frozen.

Even the king didn't move.

"This… is you?" Rimuru asked, awed.

Kael didn't answer.

He hovered upward, slowly rising into the sky until he floated just beneath the fist, arms extended wide, the glow of the spell reflecting across his slime-wrapped face.

From the ground, he must have looked like a god.

He was silent.

And then he dropped his hand.

The Slime Fist descended—not like a weapon, but like a verdict. No speed. No sound. Just inevitable, crushing judgment.

The first to be touched was one of the vice-captains. A thin tendril slipped from the base of the fist and wrapped around her arm before she could move. She screamed—and was lifted, dragged upward toward the mass. Her body dissolved slowly as she rose, like sugar melting in water.

The rest began to move.

The mage fired bolt after bolt of lightning, fire, ice. It passed through the fist like it wasn't even there.

The demon assassins blinked—teleported out, reappeared a hundred meters back.

Didn't matter.

The fist pulsed—and expanded.

Dozens of tendrils shot out, like a sea anemone responding to prey. They curved, twisted, and slammed downward. They didn't crush. They consumed.

The mage tried to raise a barrier. The fist wrapped around it and slowly squeezed. It shattered like glass.

One of the knights threw up a holy ward—only for it to be absorbed, neutralized, then reflected back at him.

Kael floated downward, eyes half-lidded, watching.

The commander tried to charge.

Didn't reach the halfway point.

Slime swelled beneath his feet like liquid quicksand and pulled him under. He reached out with his blade—only for his arms to stretch longer and longer as they were consumed, until even the sword dissolved.

Two remained.

The archer and the king.

The archer ran.

The fist didn't chase her.

The ground beneath her liquified and rose.

A mouth formed.

She didn't scream.

There wasn't time.

Then only the king remained.

He stood still, head bowed, sword in the ground.

Kael landed in front of him.

His body sagged. Limbs trembling. The glow dimming. But the fist was still above him. Still pulsing. Still watching.

The king raised his head.

Kael stared into those burning eyes—and saw no fear.

Just respect.

"Who are you?" the king rasped.

Kael's voice was quiet. "A dream."

And the fist descended.

Slow.

Gentle.

Final.

When it hit, it didn't explode.

It just absorbed.

The king sank into it without resistance, like someone stepping into sleep.

Kael dropped to his knees.

The light faded.

The air stopped pulsing.

The Slime Fist began to melt—its blue glow dispersing like rain in reverse, climbing upward into nothing. In its place was only steam, cracks, and silence.

Kael couldn't move.

Not out of pain. Not fear.

Just exhaustion.

"Rimuru…"

"Still here," she whispered, her voice soft. "It's over."

Kael's eyes fluttered.

But deep in the ground—

Something twitched.

Then glowed red.

Kael dropped to one knee.

Then both.

The world around him swayed, shimmering with residual mana. His hands, once glowing and sure, now trembled like leaves in a dying wind. The blue slime around his body slowly dripped away, returning to its base state. Steam curled from his shoulders.

His mouth opened, but no words came.

He had no more.

Behind his eyes, Rimuru pulsed—dim but present, her voice quiet inside his mind.

"It's over."

Kael nodded slowly.

Until it wasn't.

A faint sound echoed behind him.

Drip.

Kael's head lifted.

Drip. Drip.

He turned.

Where the high elf mage had fallen, the stone was no longer cracked and charred—it was glowing red. Blood—thick, blackened, and laced with magic—was flowing upward from the corpse in long, arching ribbons.

Then the mage's body moved.

Jerked.

Lifted into the air like a puppet pulled by unseen strings.

Kael staggered upright, legs weak. "No…"

The mage's limbs bent in impossible angles. His fingers spread wide, and from his chest, a summoning circle expanded—etched in glowing crimson, spiraling with black runes and ancient glyphs that should not have been known. Each symbol pulsed like a heartbeat, feeding off the death around them.

"Kael—get back!" Rimuru screamed.

Kael raised a shield.

Too late.

The circle exploded in lightless fire—no heat, no wind, just a pull. The entire battlefield seemed to shudder as if reality itself had hiccuped.

And then—

A claw emerged.

It was massive. Gray-black skin stretched over runed bone. Shackles still hung from its wrist, engraved with names in a forgotten language. It gripped the edge of the summoning circle and pulled.

Then came the second claw.

Then a head.

A humanoid demon, thirty feet tall, began to rise—body stitched with crimson glyphs, its eyes sealed shut with wax and nails, its jaw sewn closed with iron thread. It wore no armor. No clothes. Just layers of ritual brands and chain bindings etched deep into its flesh.

The chains rattled as it stood fully upright, back arched like a thing unused to the air.

Kael stepped backward. His legs gave out.

"That's not a summon," Rimuru said, voice nearly broken. "That's a sealed demon from before the Cataclysm Era. That circle wasn't just a trap—it was a coffin key."

Kael's slime tried to respond. It didn't.

He forced himself to his feet. "I can still fight."

The demon's head twitched toward him.

Its nostrils flared.

It smelled him.

Then—its arms lifted. The runes along its arms glowed, and blood floated into the air.

Kael's eyes widened.

The blood was his.

It had tracked every drop he'd spilled during the fight.

The blood curved into the air above him, shaping into a circle—sharp, spiraling, chaotic.

And then the demon spoke.

No words. Just a sound. A gurgle of pressure.

The spell activated.

Pain exploded through Kael's chest.

He screamed.

Dozens of blood spikes erupted from inside him—jagged, twisting spears that tore out from beneath his skin, splitting through bone and slime armor. He dropped, convulsing, trying to breathe through the agony as more spikes burst from his arms, legs, back.

"Kael—disconnect! Let me shut off your nerve signals—"

"I can't—"

One spike twisted mid-protrusion, drilling into his own shoulder blade.

His body arched.

Blood pooled in his throat. Rimuru's form, now buried deep in his core, flickered—trying to reinforce him, trying to close the wounds—but there were too many. The demon wasn't fighting him.

It was puppeting him.

Kael's limbs jerked upward, held aloft by his own blood like twisted marionette strings.

He saw the demon step forward—its sealed mouth curving into the hint of a smile despite the iron thread.

His vision blurred.

"Rimuru…"

"…I'm still here…"

Kael's body convulsed one last time.

And then collapsed—limp, twitching, half-melted into his own slime.

Blood spread outward beneath him like a crimson eclipse.

Kael lay motionless.

His body—once glowing, unstoppable, fused with Rimuru's essence—was now a shattered shell trembling against the cold stone. The brilliant, churning slime armor had all but evaporated, reduced to a few flickering strands trying to stitch his limbs back together.

Each breath was a war.

His chest rose once—jerked. Then again—shallow. His lips parted, but no sound came. Blood trickled from the corners of his mouth, joining the crimson pool spreading slowly beneath him like a shadow that no longer obeyed his shape.

The pain was beyond feeling now.

It was structureless. No longer sharp. No longer burning. Just… weight. As if the dream itself had decided he was no longer the protagonist and had laid its hand across his chest to keep him down.

"Kael," Rimuru called to him—her voice smaller than he'd ever heard it. "Please… answer me. I—I can't repair you. I can't… sync to your nervous system anymore."

He heard her.

Barely.

In the space between collapsing thoughts and fading awareness, he wanted to comfort her. Say something funny. Tell her it was okay. But the words wouldn't form. His tongue felt like stone. His mouth didn't obey.

The demon's presence loomed above.

Its steps were slow—unrushed, deliberate. Not arrogant. Not celebratory. Just methodical. It didn't see Kael as a threat anymore.

Kael wanted to hate that.

But he couldn't even lift his hand.

One footstep. Then another. The ground trembled slightly with each impact.

The demon's head tilted, its sealed mouth still stitched closed with blackened threads, its face unreadable. Runes crawled up its neck, shifting every second, never repeating. One long chain dragged behind it like a leash that had outlasted its master.

And yet—it never spoke.

Not aloud.

But Kael felt it in his mind.

A voice not made of words, but pressure.

You were interesting. But not enough.

His thoughts cracked under the weight of it.

He flinched as more of his blood—still alive, still obeying the curse—rose from his wounds and began to curl again. The spikes hadn't returned yet. But he could feel it building. Like a second heartbeat—eager to finish the job.

"Don't—don't move," Rimuru said frantically. "Kael, if you tense up—if you try to cast anything—it'll trigger the secondary wave. The spell is adaptive. It knows."

Kael twitched anyway.

A flicker of reflex.

And the demon raised its hand.

A second blood circle formed.

Kael screamed—not from the pain.

From the certainty.

He wasn't getting out of this.

The circle activated.

This time, it didn't stab—it twisted.

Dozens of thin, flexible blood-tendrils snaked out from his own body, wrapping around his ribs, wrapping around his spine. His limbs jerked upward—not willingly. Not instinctively. He was being puppeted from the inside out.

His body arched unnaturally.

Joints cracked.

Nerves fired.

He couldn't scream this time—his throat locked in a silent, choking gasp.

Tears streamed from his eyes.

"KAEL—LET ME SHUT OFF YOUR CONSCIOUSNESS—PLEASE—"

"D-Don't," he managed through gritted teeth. "I don't… want to die in the dark."

A new wave of tendrils exploded from his shoulder, slicing through what remained of his armor and flinging blood into the sky like a broken fountain. Slime sprayed out with it—burning away from his limbs.

His right hand disintegrated.

Then reformed—twisted. Controlled.

"I—I can't stop it," Rimuru cried. "I can't reach your mana core. You're slipping too deep. If I go any further… I'll lose myself too."

Kael felt her in his chest—shaking. Not physically. Not emotionally.

Existentially.

This wasn't her battle.

But she refused to leave him.

The demon took one more step. Close now. Looking down.

Kael's vision faded at the edges.

The tendrils dragged his body up like a broken marionette.

He hung there, limp, like a puppet caught in the final scene of a tragedy no one wanted to finish writing.

He locked eyes with the thing that had ended him.

And he smiled.

It was small.

Crooked.

Bloody.

But real.

"You win," Kael whispered.

"But this is my dream."

And then—

His body gave out.

The blood tendrils unraveled.

The slime evaporated in a soft hiss.

Kael collapsed in a heap, face down, his blood blooming out around him in red petals that soaked into the stone.

Rimuru hovered beside him—silent. No glow. No bounce.

Just stillness.

The demon turned.

And vanished into shadow.

Kael jolted upright with a strangled gasp.

His hands flew to his chest—searching for pain, blood, ruptured bone. But there was nothing. No slime. No chains. Just breath. Unsteady, but real.

The floor beneath his mattress creaked softly.

Moonlight spilled through the open window, painting long silver streaks across the wooden ceiling of his treehouse bedroom. Leaves rustled beyond the canopy. A distant owl hooted. Emberleaf breathed around him—safe, familiar.

His eyes moved automatically. The shelf of half-finished scrolls. The clay lamp. That goofy goblin sketch from last month still pinned on the wall. Everything was right.

Too right.

Kael exhaled shakily.

"…I'm home," he said, almost to convince himself.

Floating just above the floor was Rimuru—silent, still.

No bounce. No glow. Just a faint shimmer across her surface, like mana barely holding form.

He reached out. She drifted into his palm with no resistance.

Warmth. Familiar. Grounding.

Kael blinked hard and whispered, "…Yeah. We're definitely not using that mode again anytime soon."

Silence.

Then the system voice returned, clinical and dry:

[Dream State Terminated.]
[No physical harm detected.]
[Emotional Trauma: 74%.]
[Cognitive fatigue—estimated recovery time: 9 hours.]

He groaned and dropped back into his pillow. "Next time, just let me dream about snacks."

Rimuru rippled faintly.

Kael closed his eyes.

...

And opened them again.

But the room was different now.

The window was gone.

The ceiling above him was cracked stone instead of wood.

The scroll shelf… gone. The goblin sketch… gone. The bed beneath him wasn't a mattress anymore—just cold, pulsing stone.

His breath caught.

A familiar pressure built in the air, as if something ancient had just noticed him breathing.

Rimuru shimmered nervously in his palm.

[WARNING: Dream fracture detected.]
[Lucid transition unstable. External presence interfering.]

Kael sat up slowly.

"…Oh no," he whispered. "We're still in it."

Rimuru pulsed once in agreement.

And then the sky tore open like paper.