Vengeance of the Reborn Villain: This Time, I Defy Destiny

Ch 1: Back In Time

Ethan gasped for air, pressing his fingers against his stomach where the poisoned knife had plunged deep into his flesh.

The metallic scent of blood filled his nostrils as the life rapidly drained from his body.

Darkness crept in at the edges of his vision, and he understood that his time was running out.

This was it. The end of his life.

'NO! I don't want to die.'

Ethan refused to die unsatisfied, and his mind screamed in protest.

He hadn't exacted revenge on his treacherous ex-fiancée or on those hypocrites who took everything from him: his wealth, his reputation, and his future.

They even murdered his loved ones, tortured him for what felt like an eternity, and left him in this miserable state, bound by chains that bit into his flesh, dying alone in this forest.

Here, after his death, his body would be devoured by wild animals, and his existence would be erased so completely that not even bones would remain.

In this moment of utter desperation, Ethan lifted his gaze to the night sky for what felt like the first time in his life.

The stars glittered like scattered diamonds in the dark sky, and he prayed with every fiber of his being... for just one chance.

'Somebody... God... I have never done anything wrong in my whole life. Always worked hard, never hurt innocent people, always helped the poor, and always treated people with kindness and respect. Then, WHY?! Why was it always me who suffered the most? Why do all those who hurt me live lives of luxury and comfort while I'm left with nothing? Why couldn't I get another chance?'

The urge to scream built within him like a volcano about to erupt, yet the inability to even draw a proper breath suppressed everything, leaving him with only the silent rage boiling in his veins.

As his vision began to fade and his mind drifted back through memories of his past—his family's smiling faces, his friends' laughter, his dreams of what could have been, the betrayal that shattered everything, the brutal attack, and those traitors' satisfied expressions—he was eventually consumed by regret.

Regret for being a naive, righteous fool who had wasted his life loving and caring for these filthy betrayers who never deserved his loyalty.

Regret for not being able to kill them all with his own hands, to make them feel even a fraction of the agony they had inflicted upon him.

Regret for never fulfilling the dream he once cherished of traveling the world and building a happy married life with someone who truly loved him.

Regret upon regret. Endless, unending, crushing him with their weight.

'Alas. So what if I regret it now? There's no medicine for regret in this world. It's the end.'

The poison had already spread through his veins like wildfire, and he had lost too much blood to survive.

Even before the wild animals he could hear crawling out from the forest pounced on him, Ethan slowly closed his eyes as his consciousness faded into darkness.

He died.

But the eternal void and despair he had expected after death... never came.

Instead—

When Ethan's consciousness returned, what greeted him was the familiar luxurious office he once owned long ago.

The scent of expensive leather and polished wood filled the air.

One moment he had been dying in the forest, the next, he was here.

His hands instinctively flew to his chest, finding no wound, no blood, only the expensive fabric of his tailored suit, perfectly intact.

"Ethan! Forcing someone is not good. Veronica simply does not love you! That so-called business marriage of yours is nothing more than shackles binding her freedom. Today, we are determined to break off this engagement!"

The voice broke Ethan's confusion, and his gaze shifted to the center of the room.

There stood a young man wearing a cheap, patched-up t-shirt and faded jeans, standing tall with his chin slightly raised, his eyes revealing a rebellious arrogance.

In this opulent space that symbolized wealth and power at every turn, his hooligan-like attire was completely out of place, like a stain on silk.

Yet he appeared not to care at all, even stepping forward half a step in provocation.

Turning away from him, Ethan's gaze shifted to the woman standing beside the man.

A beauty with a temperament as cold as frost, wearing a well-tailored, pure white professional suit that wrapped perfectly around her body's curves.

She too had an arrogant look on her face, as if looking down at Ethan, as if he was someone beneath her.

Noticing his gaze on her, she sneered disdainfully.

"Damien is right. Ethan, you're an arrogant, evil man. I don't love you at all. I want to be free, so I'm breaking up our engagement today!"

Those words made her stance self-evident.

Seeing these two people, Damien and Veronica, in front of him, who had orchestrated his downfall, drained away his family's wealth, his reputation, and his very life, leaving him with nothing before finally killing him in that forest, Ethan's blood rushed to his head, and his fists clenched so tight his knuckles turned white.

An uncontrollable urge to kill them, to make them suffer for every ounce of agony they had inflicted upon him, surged in Ethan's heart.

But before he could act on this impulse, a cold, mechanical voice echoed in his consciousness, pulling him back to his senses.

[Villain System is Online]

A translucent blue screen appeared at the corner of his vision, followed by a torrent of information that flooded his mind, clearing up all questions and doubts he had about the current situation and his past.

'So that's how it is,' Ethan thought as realization dawned upon him, and suddenly all the puzzle pieces clicked into place.

All those times when things had inexplicably gone wrong for him while miraculously working out for his enemies, all of that wasn't a coincidence.

It turned out that, in the grand scheme of this world's destiny, he was merely a villain, a stepping stone for protagonists like Damien and others. His wealth, his status, his very existence were all meant to be stripped away to fuel their rise to greatness.

That Divine Doctor who descended from the mountain with impossible medical knowledge, the Son-in-Law who turned out to be a secret billionaire hiding in plain sight, the Lord of Assassins who began with seven marriage contracts, and all the others who had stood against him… they were all protagonists like this Damien, blessed by the world itself and protected by an invisible force of luck that bent reality to their will.

'Hahaha!'

Suddenly, Ethan burst into wild, maniacal laughter in his mind, filled with rage and malice.

How utterly foolish he had been, struggling against what he had believed were mere coincidences, constantly questioning his own sanity and worth in his previous life.

Luckily, the Villain System pulled his soul from the brink of oblivion after his death and granted him this second chance by bringing him back in time.

Back to the past before everything was taken away from him, before the torture began, before his loved ones were slaughtered, before he was cast out from his family like an unwanted stray.

At this moment, he was still Ethan Ashford, the eldest son of the prestigious Ashford family, and—more importantly—secretly the sole heir of the great Valerius family.

One was a top-tier noble family with more than a century of influence, and the other was an absolute behemoth whose roots and branches covered the world like a vast, interconnected network of power.

With inheritance rights to such a massive empire at his fingertips, he was a man of unimaginable wealth and power, in every conceivable sense of the word.

The beauty before him was his fiancée, Veronica Harrington, the current president of the Harrington family—a moderately wealthy family with whom the Ashford family had arranged a marriage alliance since childhood.

As for the young man in cheap clothes spouting such arrogant nonsense... his name was Damien Blackwood, a man seemingly blessed by luck itself, and, according to the system, he was a protagonist.

Watching these two standing together triggered a wave of memories, and he remembered this same scene that he had experienced in his previous life.

He remembered clearly that it was today—this very day—that Veronica had first come to his office with Damien to break their engagement.

Although she had claimed she wanted to dissolve their arrangement, the truth was that she merely wanted to extort more money from him.

In his previous life, he had been such a fool, blinded by what he believed was love, desperate not to lose her, so he had begged her not to break the engagement and promised to accept all her demands.

Which had marked the beginning of his downfall, as Veronica's demands grew progressively more absurd with time.

She would siphon his money and resources, then turn them over to this Damien, who would grow stronger with each infusion of Ethan's wealth, ultimately becoming the instrument of Ethan's complete and utter destruction.

But not anymore.

Not in this life.

Ethan wouldn't repeat the same mistakes.

This time, Veronica Harrington, Damien Blackwood, and all those protagonists would be the ones to suffer and pay with interest for every evil they had committed against him.

And he, Ethan Ashford, would be the one writing their end!