I Am a Villain, So What?

The pitch-black dome had fallen less than a minute earlier.

Duke Darian Solmere charged through the Academy's pulverized gates, Platinum-Rank lightning blazing around his broadsword. Behind him, Marquis Lancelot Raven led a flood of elite Imperial Knights onto the campus, with several Platinum-Rank commanders at the front.

They had spent the last hour attacking an impenetrable wall, bracing themselves for whatever nightmare required a barrier that dense.

By the time they reached the central courtyard, the battle was already over.

The Imperial forces ground to a sudden, collective halt.

There was no enemy left to fight.

Instead, they walked into a graveyard of shattered bedrock, collapsed faculty buildings, and a fifty-meter crater bleached entirely white. The air smelled of ozone, burnt blood, and scorched stone. Black ash fell over the courtyard like snow, drifting from the spot where a twenty-meter Calamity had just ceased to exist.

Darian's lightning flickered and died as he took in the sheer scale of the destruction. In the center of the crater, an enormous rusted halberd lay half-buried in the broken stone. The residual malice radiating from its iron surface made the veteran knights instinctively tighten their grips on their swords.

"Secure the perimeter!" Lancelot ordered, his voice breaking the stunned silence. "Find the survivors!"

The knights scattered. Imperial medics rushed toward the edge of the crater, carrying healing staffs, stretchers, and emergency potion cases.

They found the Golden Generation huddled behind a wall of broken bedrock. Mariella was supporting Bordon, whose shattered knee could no longer hold his weight. Elisha leaned against the stone with her torn, bloodied fingers curled against her chest. Princess Celestia lay unconscious but breathing.

Near the ruined alchemy building, Instructor Samantha remained half-buried beneath the collapsed façade. Her left arm was mangled, her breathing was dangerously shallow, and her Platinum aura had completely vanished.

Darian rushed past the knights, his eyes scanning the ruin until he saw the cracked lenses of a familiar pair of spectacles.

Ariana was sitting in the dust, her knees bruised, staring toward the center of the crater. Darian dropped to one knee and pulled his daughter into an embrace, his heavy armor clanking against the broken cobblestones.

Ariana stiffened against him. She was breathing. She was alive. But her gaze remained fixed on Lucien at the center of the crater.

"Father," she rasped, pressing one hand weakly against his armor. "Lucien needs help."

Lancelot's gaze moved from the unconscious Princess to the bloodied cadets behind the barricade. His expression hardened. Another few seconds behind the dome, and the Empire would have lost an entire generation of its strongest heirs.

In the center of the bleached crater, the Executioner stood over Lucien.

A squad of Platinum Knights approached them, their heavy boots slowing as they neared the trench-coated figure. The overwhelming, condensed density of the Executioner's aura pushed against them. Several senior knights recognized the twin revolvers and weathered coat from sealed military records. Their faces drained of color.

They lowered their weapons, silently signaling the younger knights to do the same.

The Executioner ignored them completely. He looked down at Lucien.

The boy was on his knees, swaying, his Shadow-Weave Suit soaked in his own blood. The Lumeveil Enforcer lay discarded on the white stone. Lucien's fingers were loosely curled around the Rosary of the Weeping Saintess.

The Executioner reached down.

The watching knights tensed, but no one dared step forward.

The First Gun Master gently pried the Rosary from Lucien's numb fingers. He did not pocket the artifact. Instead, he unclasped the silver chain and secured it firmly around Lucien's neck, tucking the cross beneath the boy's ruined collar.

A high-tier Imperial medic broke away from the barricade and rushed toward Lucien, a powerful restorative spell already glowing between his palms.

The Executioner turned his head.

"Lower the output," he ordered. "His mana pathways are ruptured. Stabilize his breathing and stop the bleeding, but do not force mana through his core."

The medic immediately weakened the spell to a faint glow and dropped beside Lucien.

The Executioner looked back down at the bleeding boy.

"Your technique is still ugly," the Executioner noted.

Lucien dragged his heavy eyelids upward. He forced a ragged, wet breath into his lungs, looking at the ash falling around them.

"The target died," Lucien whispered.

The Executioner held his gaze for a long second.

"That it did."

Before the Imperial commanders could reach him, the Executioner turned his collar up against the falling ash.

Holy mana shimmered faintly around his coat. A moment later, the First Gun Master vanished, leaving no trace behind.

Lucien swayed, his vision narrowing into a dark tunnel.

At the edge of the crater, healers swarmed over Kael. Most of the Golden Boy's armor was gone. The restorative mist Ariana had thrown earlier had sealed the worst of his wounds, but his golden aura remained completely depleted.

He refused to lie down, sitting up against a jagged slab of bedrock.

Duke Darian approached him, stepping around the shattered bedrock barricade. The Duke looked at the fallen Calamity's massive halberd, the residual holy light bleaching the stone, and then at Lucien, who was finally collapsing.

"Kael," Darian asked quietly, his voice carrying over the chaos of the courtyard. "Who killed it?"

Kael followed the Duke's gaze. He looked at the smoking barrel of the Enforcer resting on the stone. He looked at the boy he had once dismissed as academy trash, a boy who had just bled from his eyes to keep them alive.

"All of us hurt it," Kael said, his voice raspy but steady. He nodded toward Lucien's unconscious form. "He made sure it died."

Silence fell over the nearby knights. Several of them turned toward Lucien, their earlier suspicion replaced by stunned disbelief.

In the center of the crater, Lucien's knees finally gave out. He pitched sideways, hitting the cold stone.

The golden text of his massive reward payout still hovered in his fading vision. Then his ruptured mana pathways seized, and a new set of System windows covered the rewards in harsh red.

[Critical Condition Detected: Ruptured Mana Pathways.]

[Mana-based skills unavailable until stabilization.]

[Warning: Forcing mana or Divine Force through the damaged pathways may result in permanent disability or death.]

Lucien read the warnings through his narrowing vision. Until his pathways stabilized, he could not cast spells or safely force Divine Force through his body.

Until his pathways stabilized, he could only rely on weapons that did not require his own mana. The Enforcer's Phantom Cylinder was useless, but the revolver could still fire physical ammunition.

He looked at the hundred thousand System Points he had just ripped from the jaws of the Abyss.

He closed his eyes, letting the absolute darkness take him.

Lucien managed one exhausted, bloody grin.

"At least it paid well," he muttered.

As his eyes closed, two final notifications appeared through the darkness.

[The survival of the Golden Generation has significantly altered the original future.]

[Abyssal attention toward Lucien Ashborne has increased.]

Then the System vanished with the rest of the world.