I died with the world screaming my name.
Kael the Dread Sovereign. Lord of the Nine Calamities. King of Ruin.
They say the sky wept black the day I fell. That the ground split in mourning. That gods themselves shuddered as the Hero's blade pierced my heart.
I remember none of that.
I only remember silence. The kind that presses against your eardrums like the weight of oceans. The kind that feels final.
Then—
Breath. Too cold. Too sudden. Too… alive.
I gasped, flailing in damp sheets, heart pounding like a wardrum. My fingers clawed at my chest—intact. No sword. No blood. Only the ghost of pain.
I was not in the obsidian throne room where I died. Not in the Fortress of Endless Night.
I was in a wooden bed, in a small room that smelled of dried herbs, ink, and dusty parchment. Moonlight filtered through a warped glass window, casting familiar shadows on the stone floor.
My breath caught.
I knew this room.
This was the apprentice dormitory at the Arcanum Lyceum. The magic academy.
I hadn't seen this place in… nearly two decades.
Not since I was sixteen.
Not since before I became the monster.
---
"You have one unread system message."
A chime rang out in my mind, like a whisper across broken glass.
No.
It couldn't be.
I hadn't seen system prompts like that since I merged with the Relic of Pandemonium during the Fall of Aelgard. That cursed thing had rewritten my body and soul into the perfect vessel of ruin. Its messages had been etched into my very thoughts.
[You have triggered a Unique Regression Event.]
[Timeline divergence detected. You have returned to: Age 16 – Year 765 AE.]
[Warning: Residual Sovereign-level power detected. Sealing in progress…]
I didn't need the system to confirm it.
This wasn't a dream.
I had regressed.
Somehow… I had come back.
Back to before everything. Before the empire burned. Before the sky cracked. Before I bled the world dry.
I staggered to the mirror above the basin. A boy stared back—young, sharp-cheekboned, but with hollow eyes that didn't belong in any teenager's skull.
I reached up, trembling.
The face I touched was mine… and not.
The old Kael—this Kael—had been brash, cocky, arrogant in a stupid, hopeful way. He'd believed in the Lyceum. In the nobility of magic. In saving people.
Before betrayal carved that out of me.
Before I broke.
---
I sat on the edge of the bed, hands clasped together, trying to steady the storm of thoughts. It didn't help.
Why had I returned? Who did this? Some cosmic error? A final curse from the gods?
Then, a second chime.
[New Trait Unlocked: Villain's Legacy]
You carry the stain of the future you once created. This world remembers. This world fears.
Perk: All characters possess altered memories or fates based on your former actions. Some will seek to aid you. Others will try to erase you early.
Warning: Your mere existence will cause ripple events. Choose wisely.
---
I barely had time to process that when I heard it—
Footsteps.
Fast. Heavy.
A knock. No—a bang.
"Kael! Open up! You're under arrest by order of the Archmage!"
What?
I rose, dizzy with disbelief.
The door burst open with a gust of force magic, sending wood shards across the room. I blinked against the dust.
Three figures entered.
Two battlemages—robes trimmed with enforcement red—and a third behind them: Professor Marek, my former illusion instructor.
He looked twenty years younger. Less grey. But his sneer was the same.
"I always knew you'd snap one day, Kael," he spat. "Dark aura readings. Unsanctioned spellwork. You've been hiding things."
"What?" I rasped. "What are you talking about—"
"Don't play dumb. Your aura registered a Class-8 spike. Forbidden tier. That's Dread Sovereign magic."
The words hit like a slap.
I'd barely woken up. I hadn't even cast a single spell. But my body—the corrupted shell I'd once honed to godhood—was already leaking power into this young vessel.
They saw the darkness in me. Before I'd done anything.
"You can't prove anything," I said quietly, though my fists clenched.
Marek's eyes narrowed. "You're coming with us. Peacefully… or in pieces."
---
Option Triggered: [Villain's System – Crisis Event]
1. Surrender to the Enforcers. Trust in due process.
> Outcome: 85% chance of magical imprisonment. 40% chance of forced memory probe.
2. Fight your way out. Escape the Lyceum.
> Outcome: 92% survival. Reputation penalty: High.
3. Use Forbidden Memory Echo: Channel past self's power for 5 seconds.
> Outcome: Unknown. Danger Level: Catastrophic.
---
I chose none of them.
Instead, I stepped forward and whispered, "Let me show you who I'm not anymore."
Then I raised one hand—and surrendered.
---
Chains clicked around my wrists as they marched me through the moonlit halls of the Lyceum. Students whispered from behind archways and stairwells, their eyes wide.
Kael of Dorm 3B. The quiet one. The orphan scholarship case.
Now? A criminal. A monster. A potential dark mage.
I kept my eyes down. Not because of shame—but calculation.
I had to know how far this stain went. How many remembered shadows of what I'd done.
How many would hate me for sins I had yet to commit.
They brought me to the Tower of Severance. The Lyceum's most guarded wing—normally reserved for arch-criminals and magical aberrations. The cell they threw me into shimmered with warding sigils. The air inside crackled with nullifying magic.
A normal mage wouldn't be able to light a candle here.
But I was not a normal mage.
Not anymore.
---
Hours passed.
Then, footsteps.
This time, they were soft. Measured. Familiar.
She stepped into view—and my stomach turned.
Red hair. Emerald eyes. That stubborn furrow in her brow.
Seren Vale.
My childhood friend. My first light in this wretched world.
And, in the future I remembered—
My executioner.
---
"Kael," she whispered. "Tell me it's not true."
Her voice cracked like dry ice. She stepped closer to the cell bars, hands trembling.
I looked into her eyes and saw ghosts. Of nights we studied under starlight. Of spells shared. Of hands brushed, unspoken feelings swelling.
And then I saw her, twenty years later, standing above my broken body, sword wet with my blood.
It hadn't been anger in her eyes.
It had been grief.
"It's not true," I said quietly. "But maybe it will be."
"What does that mean?"
"It means I don't know if I can stop it."
She blinked. "Stop what?"
I exhaled, slow.
"The future."
---
She stepped back like I'd struck her.
"I knew something was wrong. Ever since the aura spike, you've been… off. Like your soul got older overnight."
It had.
But she couldn't know that.
Not yet.
"You don't trust me," I said. "Even now."
"I want to," she whispered. "But something's… off about you. You feel like a shadow of yourself. And your aura—it's drenched in death. That's not normal."
She hesitated.
"I'm not here as your friend, Kael. The Council has ordered a truth-seeking ritual. If you resist, they'll strip your mind like a book's spine."
I flinched.
A memory probe.
They'd see everything. The massacres. The throne. The screams. Her face as she killed me.
"I'll go mad before they reach page two," I muttered.
"Then fight it. Prove them wrong. Prove me wrong."
I looked up.
"Would you believe me," I said, voice raw, "if I told you I already died?"
She stiffened.
"…What?"
I stood, chains clinking.
"I died twenty years from now, Seren. At your hand. And I deserved it. I became something terrible."
She stared at me, face pale as parchment.
"You're insane," she said.
I smiled, broken.
"I hope so."
---
She turned and left.
Not running.
But not staying either.
The door slammed shut.
And I was alone.
Again.
---
[Villain's System: Special Event Triggered]
World Line Instability Detected. Fate Threads Shifting.
Warning: Anomaly Entity Detected Nearby.
Entity Name: [Sealed Future Self – Dread Sovereign Fragment]
Status: Dormant. Suppressed.
Location: Beneath Arcanum Lyceum, Layer B7.
Behavior: Unknown.
---
I went cold.
There shouldn't be anything beneath the Lyceum.
Nothing except bedrock, old wards, and—
Wait.
Layer B7.
That's where they buried the failed experiments. The magical anomalies too dangerous to study. The forbidden vaults.
And now… part of me was down there?
A piece of the future I escaped?
No.
I hadn't just returned.
I'd brought something back with me.
Something monstrous.
Something that wanted the throne again.
And if it woke up…
This world wouldn't survive either timeline.
hapter 2 next? Or an outline of future plot arcs and twists?