The Emperor's Regression

The Weight of Rage

The System notification arrived three days later, cutting through the quiet hum of the warehouse like a blade.

[Divine Attention Escalating: Named Monster Dispatched.]

[Target: Ethan Voss — Guild: Conqueror's Dawn.]

[Estimated Arrival: 24 Hours.]

Ethan stared at the words for a long moment before calling everyone together.

"A named monster," he told the gathered guild members, most of them still new enough to flinch at the term. "Something with a real title, real power. Sent on purpose. This isn't a random spawn."

"Sent by who?" one of the newer recruits asked.

"Something old," Ethan said. "Something that's decided we're worth paying attention to."

He didn't say Lila's name out loud, though he suspected everyone in the room already knew exactly why a god might be watching them this closely. She stood near the back, arms crossed, jaw tight, saying nothing.

They spent the next day preparing. Ethan drilled formations into recruits who'd barely held a weapon a week earlier. Kael organized supply lines with his usual calm efficiency, smiling and encouraging, playing his part perfectly.

Ethan watched him the entire time, the folded note burning a hole in his pocket where he'd kept it hidden since the gate breach.

That evening, while checking the warehouse's status window alone, Ethan noticed something that made him go still.

[Loyalty Rebate: Skill Evolved.]

[New Effect: Honest Bonds Amplified x10.]

Ten times. Not double anymore. Ten times whatever strength, whatever power flowed from genuine trust between himself and the people fighting beside him. Ethan sat with that information for a long while, turning it over, understanding slowly what it meant. Every recruit who'd joined for real reasons, every bond built on something true instead of convenience, was quietly becoming a weapon far greater than any sword.

"If that's true," Ethan murmured to himself, "then Kael's the one weak point in all of it."

He didn't have time to decide what to do about that before the named monster arrived.

It came at dawn, tearing through the warehouse's outer defenses with a roar that shattered windows three blocks away. Ethan's guild scrambled into position, formations holding just long enough to buy precious seconds as the creature's massive, twisted form crashed through their first line.

[Named Monster: Ashveil the Hollow Flame.]

[Threat Level: Severe.]

"Hold the line!" Ethan shouted, driving his blade into the creature's flank as it barreled past him. "Second wave, fall back to the courtyard!"

The battle turned brutal fast. Ashveil moved with unnatural speed for something its size, fire pouring from cracks along its body, scorching everything it touched. Ethan felt the rebate skill humming through him with every honest strike, every recruit fighting beside him amplifying his own strength in ways he was only beginning to understand.

Then he saw Kael.

Kael stood near the courtyard's eastern gate, the one section of their defense meant to stay sealed no matter what. Ethan watched, horrified, as Kael's hand slipped, almost too smoothly, releasing the locking mechanism at exactly the wrong moment.

"Kael, the gate!" Ethan shouted.

"I've got it!" Kael called back, fumbling with the mechanism in a way that looked almost convincing.

It wasn't fast enough. Ashveil's tail swept through the opening gap, and a section of the eastern wall crumbled inward, flame pouring through the breach.

A child screamed.

One of the youngest recruits had been posted near the eastern gate, a boy barely twelve years old who'd begged to help despite Ethan's reservations. He froze in terror as fire rolled toward him, too shocked to move.

"No!" Lila's voice cut through the chaos.

She was already moving before Ethan could shout a warning, sprinting across the courtyard and throwing herself between the boy and the wall of flame. The fire hit her instead, and she went down hard, shielding the child's small body with her own.

"Lila!" Ethan's voice tore from his throat.

He crossed the distance in seconds, dropping to his knees beside her. Blood soaked through her shirt where the flame had torn through skin, dark and spreading fast against the pale stone beneath her.

"The kid," Lila gasped, her voice weak. "Is he okay?"

The boy scrambled free, unharmed, sobbing but alive. Ethan barely registered the sight, his focus locked entirely on the wound spreading across Lila's side, blood pooling faster than he could process.

"Stay with me," Ethan said, pressing his hands hard against the wound. "Stay with me, Lila."

"I'm trying," she whispered, eyes fluttering.

Something inside Ethan snapped.

He looked up, past the chaos of the battle still raging around them, straight at Kael, who stood frozen near the breached gate, an expression on his face that might have been shock, might have been something else entirely.

Rage flooded through Ethan's veins, hot and consuming, ten years of buried fury finally finding a target it could reach. A new option flickered into existence at the edge of his vision, one he'd never seen before, glowing red and pulsing with dark, hungry power.

[Forbidden Skill Detected: Executioner's Judgment.]

[Effect: Instant Death to Target.]

[Warning: Use of this skill marks the User as an Enemy of Heaven. Effect is permanent and irreversible.]

Ethan's hand shook, hovering over the trigger, Lila's blood still warm against his palm, the world narrowing down to nothing but Kael's frozen face across the courtyard.

One command. One thought. Kael would be gone forever, the note in Ethan's pocket avenged before it ever had the chance to matter.

His hand trembled harder.

"Ethan," Lila's voice came weak, barely a whisper against the roar of battle still surrounding them. "Don't."

He looked down at her, blood soaking through his fingers, her eyes struggling to stay open, struggling to find his face through the pain.

"Don't," she said again. "Not like this."

The forbidden skill pulsed at the edge of his vision, patient, waiting, offering him exactly the vengeance he'd carried across ten years and one entire lifetime.

Ethan's hand hovered, shaking, directly over the trigger.