The Abyss of Justice
The subterranean dungeon was a mausoleum of broken ambition. It smelled of ozone, rust, and the metallic tang of Kaelen's own evaporating blood. He was pinned—not just by the massive, silver-white blade sunk into his torso, but by the combined weight of the continent's Holy Seal magic, designed specifically to nullify the Stygian Mana that was once the source of his infinite power.
His chest rose and fell in ragged, sputtering motions. Every breath was a shard of ice, and every heartbeat was a desperate drumbeat counting down his final seconds. He could no longer feel his legs, or the ruined mess of his left arm, but the pain—the searing, absolute agony of magical suppression—was sharper than any weapon. It was the pain of a soul being meticulously disassembled.
Above him, the four members of the Hero party stood in silent, self-righteous judgment.
Orion, the Hero, stood closest, his broad-shouldered silhouette blocking the meager light. The massive Blade of Destiny, still warm from the killing blow, was his handiwork. Orion's face was etched not with hatred, but with a crushing, weary moral superiority. "The war is over, Tyrant. The lives you took, the sorrow you sowed—it all ends with you."
Kaelen wanted to scream, to laugh, to lash out with the power that had once leveled mountains, but only a wet rattle escaped his throat. War? His mind, though failing, remained razor sharp, cycling through the memories of his second life—the life where he became the Tyrant to prevent the suffering he endured in the first. He had conquered to bring order, to crush the corrupt empires that thrived on the blood of the innocent. But the Heroes, the supposed paragons of good, only saw the darkness he wielded.
Then there was Lyra, the Grand Mage. Her blue eyes, once full of fire and defiance, were now glistening with tears—tears of relief, of sorrow, and of final closure. Kaelen had spent years tormenting her in his guise as the wicked noble, pushing her into the arms of Orion, fueling her hatred. He had made her into the powerhouse mage she was, solely so the final conflict would be more poetic. And yet, seeing her weakness now, Kaelen felt a surge of cold contempt.
She cries for the monster, but not for the world that created him. Hypocrisy.
Finally, the source of his deepest, most agonizing betrayal: Elara, the Saintess. Her presence was a suffocating aura of light magic, forcing Kaelen's last wisps of dark energy to recoil. She was the one he had tried to save in his first life; the one he had sworn to protect in his second as the hidden benefactor, only to be rejected and judged for his methods. Her golden hair, usually soft and loose, was pulled back, emphasizing the grim, resolute set of her jaw.
"May the gods grant you peace, Kaelen," she said, her voice clear, the voice of the divine messenger passing final sentencing.
It was too much. The pain, the judgment, the crushing weight of two lives ending in failure, boiled into a final, pure distillate of rage.
Kaelen forced his head up, blood bubbling over his lips, forming a wet, crimson smile. His eyes, fixed on Elara, began to glow with a furious, dying ember.
"Peace?" he rasped, the word a cruel mockery. "You, the Saintess, deny me justice while granting mercy? I sought to correct this world's corruption, and you threw your light in my face! Fine. Do your duty. But hear my oath."
The air crackled, not with Kaelen's magic, but with the sheer force of his dying will.
"If any power, any chaotic shred of fate, grants me another chance, I swear this: I will not rule by fear, I will rule by control. I will not kill you, Heroines. I will break you. I will dismantle your purpose, corrupt your strengths, and twist your righteousness into instruments of my will. You will tearfully beg for the death you deny me now. You will beg for forgiveness for daring to judge me."
And then, as the Hero prepared his final, clean strike, the dungeon was swallowed by an impossible light.
The Gift of the Void
It wasn't light. It was a chaotic, sickening vortex of purple and black energy, surging up through the floor, ignoring the Holy Seals and the wards. This was no magic of Aethel; this was the raw, unblinking malice of the cosmos.
The Heroes recoiled, screaming warnings. The Saintess's light dimmed, overwhelmed by the sheer scale of the anomaly.
The vortex didn't consume the dungeon; it targeted Kaelen alone. The cold, divine pain gripping his soul was suddenly replaced by a scorching, invasive heat. He felt the silver-white blade in his chest shatter, vaporized not by power, but by the utter foreignness of the energy.
A final, cruel joke, Kaelen thought, feeling his consciousness unravel. A cosmic power granting the wish of a dying madman.
The energy funneled into the cavity where his mana core once lay, fusing with his last remnants of will. It felt like drinking liquid darkness, an exhilarating, painful communion with chaos. His soul was not being saved; it was being reforged into a weapon.
In the final microsecond before his world dissolved, Kaelen saw Elara's face one last time. It was no longer judgmental, but filled with pure, unadulterated terror.
Good, Kaelen registered before the final blackout. Let the last thing she ever feels of me be fear.
Eighteen Again: The Cradle of Betrayal
Kaelen woke with a gasp that tore his lungs.
He shot upright, his body drenched in cold sweat, his breath ragged. For a moment, he was certain he was still pinned, still bleeding out. His hands immediately flew to his chest, tracing the outline of muscles under soft, silk fabric. No wound. No pain. Only the frantic, hammering rhythm of a healthy heart.
He was in a massive, four-poster bed. The air was cool, scented with expensive, floral potpourri, and the silence was broken only by the gentle tick-tock of a clock on the mahogany mantlepiece. Sunlight, not dungeon torchlight, streamed through tall, curtained windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air—a stark contrast to the eternal night of his tyrannical capital.
This… this is the Azure Star Academy manor.
The realization slammed into him with the force of a tectonic shift. He leaped from the bed, ignoring the dizziness, and stumbled to the full-length mirror, his bare feet sinking into plush carpet.
The reflection was devastatingly familiar: the eighteen-year-old Kaelen Varrus. Slender, still lacking the hard, corded muscle he built during the Tyrant years. The face of the so-called Trash Noble, a boy whose future was ruin and humiliation.
He recognized the exact moment: the morning after he arrived at the Academy, one week before the main Hero party enrolled, one week before his second life of engineered villainy began.
I am back. All three lifetimes converge now.
He tore open the nightshirt, searching for his core. His old, shattered mana core was, as expected, gone. In its place, however, was something entirely new, terrifyingly dense, and throbbing with dark power beneath his skin. It was a singularity of purple light and black shadow—the Dark Heart.
He focused his will, and a stream of the newly formed Stygian Mana responded instantly, flooding his senses. It felt chaotic, untamed, and infinitely vast, dwarfing the original mana he'd meticulously cultivated across his second life. The cosmic force had not just reversed time; it had given him a new engine of destruction.
I am not just the Regressor. I am the vessel for something… primordial.
Kaelen closed his eyes, his consciousness momentarily expanding. He mentally scrolled through the Temporal Echoes—the complete, perfect memories of his Tyrant life. He knew every political scandal, every hidden artifact, every plot thread, and most importantly, every single weakness of the Heroes.
His revenge plan, birthed in blood and perfected in the chaos of his regression, took immediate, crystalline form.
The Meticulous Vengeance
Kaelen had failed the first time because he tried to be kind, and the second time because he tried to dominate. Both paths had led to his downfall. This time, his method would be surgical.
"I won't conquer kingdoms this time," he murmured, his voice now low, a silken promise of future suffering. "Conquest is loud, messy, and invites resistance. No. This time, I will conquer souls."
He identified his first target: Lyra, the Grand Mage. In the last timeline, he had publicly humiliated her as a noble, which drove her to seek strength with the Heroes.
I must not drive her away; I must bind her. She is hungry for power and terrified of poverty. I will offer her an alternative to the Heroes—a dependence so complete she will see me as her only salvation.
He walked to a heavy, iron safe hidden in the room, easily recalling the combination from his past life. Inside, nestled among legal documents and empty deeds, was a single, non-magical, yet crucial item: a plain copper signet ring. This ring was the key to a vast, hidden store of ancient texts and secret financial accounts—assets the original Kaelen Varrus was too foolish to use.
He slipped the ring onto his finger, the cool metal grounding him in his new reality.
The Hero party was due to arrive at the Academy in one week. He had seven days to secure his power base, recruit his first pawn, and ensure the foundations of the Hero party never solidified.
Kaelen looked back at his reflection, the crimson glint of the Dark Heart faintly visible in his gray eyes. His face was calm, utterly devoid of the rage that fueled his dying vow, replaced instead by the chilling satisfaction of a hunter preparing a perfect trap.
Elara, Orion, Lyra. The game begins now. And this time, I know every move. You will not face a Tyrant on a throne. You will face a spider weaving its web, and you will fall into the darkness, one by one.
He turned from the mirror, his path clear and his heart cold. The time for the Trash Noble to play the fool was over. The reign of the Regressed Tyrant, the new master of manipulation, had begun.