Killed by the Hero. Reincarnated for Revenge... with a Lust System

Morning filtered through the heavy draperies, a pale gleam sliding along the white marble columns. The chamber where I awoke smelled of opulence: thick rugs, ivory curtains embroidered with gold, a bed too vast even for a king and his lovers. I still had sweat and the scent of the previous night on my skin, a perfume of blood and lust, and yet… the counterfeit peace of that room almost gave me the illusion of normality.

I rose, my body heavy, and walked toward the balcony. The cold marble floor made my bare feet shiver. When I drew back the heavy curtains, the light exploded. Before me, the capital spread out, immense, its white walls bristling with towers like teeth set against the sky. The city still seemed motionless, petrified by my victory. That morning I stood at the summit of a world I had wrested at the price of blood. And yet my heart beat with a strange heaviness.

A rustle of cloth. Bare footsteps, slow, flowing through the silence. I did not need to turn: I knew it was her.

Sae.

She joined me at the balcony, naked, not trying to hide what she was. Her pale skin, almost luminous under the sun, still gleamed with a fine dew. Her white hair cascaded down her back, brushing her loins and firm buttocks. Her hips curved with that subtle grace, neither too wide nor too narrow, but shaped to bear life and lust. Her breasts, heavy and high, rose with each slow breath, pink nipples erect in the morning chill. Her smooth thighs, of an unreal pallor, met in the intimate shadow the light caressed too greedily. Every detail of her was a provocation, but more than that: a reminder. She was not only a lover. She was my Queen. My shadow. The one who always stood at my side when I felt I might lose myself.

She placed her hand on the stone railing, her fingers brushing mine. Her silver eyes sought mine, grave but tender.

"You have achieved so much in so little time," she said in a low voice. "We are heading in the right direction, Sora."

I took a slow breath, my eyes still lost in the white horizon. Then I turned my head toward her. Her naked beauty, offered without artifice, tugged at my heart in a way I would never confess to anyone but her.

"And yet… we still have so much to do."

I took her hands. My calloused palms pressed against her delicate skin, and I squeezed tightly, as if I feared she would disappear if I let go.

"Thank you for being here for me, Sae. Through all this, I lose myself. I feel every day that I lose whatever little humanity I have left."

Her eyes softened. She leaned close so the warmth of her bare body pressed against my skin, her breasts lightly crushing my chest.

"I know I have no choice," I murmured. "No matter my methods, I must do what must be done with the system I have. I must be worthy of being the cruelest tyrant if I want to unify this demonic continent before Aedan arrives."

I fell silent, breath raw. Her fingers pressed mine gently.

"You hope to do good despite everything," she said. "And you do, Sora. You behave as a tyrant toward those who oppose you. But those who join you… you make their lives better, simpler. You are cruel, yes, but for your people, you are a just sovereign. They live better since your arrival."

I closed my eyes for a moment, throat tight.

"I try to do what I can. Maybe to redeem myself…"

She placed her lips on my cheek, a tender, almost maternal kiss.

"Your people fear you as much as they love you. And that is what makes you the best sovereign. But do not forget… this is only the beginning. The hardest part remains. Kaelina, to start with. Her ball is not an invitation from the heart."

I nodded slowly.

"Yes. If it lasts ten days, it is not for nothing. The West and the South will likely be represented. She wants to find a meeting point."

Sae tightened her grip on my hands.

"And it is there that you will have to strike, as your plans indicate."

I lifted my eyes to the horizon. The white towers cut the sky like blades. My dark reflection formed in their too-pure stones.

"Exactly," I whispered. "The future of the world will be decided in those ten days."

"There is no cause for worry," she said, voice calm. Eyes cold, but certain. "The second reason for this war against the East was a success. You have been able to amass enough points for that item, and enough experience to level up and unlock a new skill."

I turned my head. Sae smiled, but it was not the frivolous smile of a lover. It was the smile of someone who knows the accounts, the costs and returns — the curve of a well-run plan. Her exposed skin caught the balcony light: the white clavicle drawn like an edge, the high, firm breasts that seemed to refuse the very idea of sagging, the soft line of a waist flaring into hips made to hold a realm as much as a bed. Her offered thighs, guarded only by the breath of fabric borrowed from the sheets, reminded me why I chose this path: for these bodies that would follow me, and for the power they gave me.

She placed her hand against mine, her cold fingers contrasting with the warmth of my palm.

"You leveled up, do you feel it?" she added.

I felt it like the sensation of a blade entering: precise, irrebuttable. My mental screen clicked, revealing the familiar interface that pulsed like a heart. Numbers rolled by, sharp, cruel and wonderful. I swallowed, a taste of iron and earth in my mouth.

[Status]

Name: Sora Veldross

Race: Human

Class: Strategist -> War Strategist

Level: 51 (+15)

STRENGTH: 42

ENDURANCE: 44

SPEED: 63

INTELLIGENCE: 243 (+75)

PERCEPTION: 40

CHARM: 81 (+45)

SEXUAL EXPERTISE: 40

Stat points to allocate: 0

Skills:

[Battlefield Tactician] – depending on your intelligence stat grants a general boost to all units counted as yours.

[Iron Cohesion] – Each unit under your command gains increased resistance to panic, broken morale, fear or seduction effects. Bonus doubled if you are physically present on the battlefield.

+ [Chain of Command] – Your lieutenants act as relays and automatically transmit your buffs to the units they lead. Effectiveness increases according to their loyalty and intimate bond with you.

The rise had been brutal. Moving from the Strategist tier to the War Strategist status had torn voices from my chest: a mix of excitement and something that resembled fear. Fifty had given me mass — the mass of numbers, the mass of options. Each level offered +5 intelligence and now +3 free points; I had poured those into charm. The ten-day banquet — the centerpiece — would be a field of influence. The more women I charmed there, the firmer my position would be on the day. War was not won by blades alone, but with bodies, alliances and hearts bent at the right distance.

Sae pressed her chest against my back and breathed, a gesture that threaded me like a needle through flesh.

"The Chain of Command skill changes everything," she murmured. "Even if you are on the other side of the continent, your army remains under your breath. It's a war of relays: you at the top, we the vectors."

I felt that familiar sting in my throat: pride, but also that guilt we carry like an old wound. To delegate was to think about afterwards. About victory that would not be only a sequence of bodies felled but a habitable empire. About the winter where my men would have food, about a city we would irrigate, the roads we would open. My intelligence had grown, my charm too — tools. Weapons cleaner than the sword, more enduring than fear.

"As time goes on," I said softly, "I focus more on intelligence and charm," I admitted plainly. "In the future, I may not even fight in the front lines. You, my women, will fight in my stead. Your hands, your blades, your minds… they will be worth more than my weary arms."

Sae turned her head and looked at me, her silver eyes shining with an emotion I never quite managed to read through. She put a softness into it that would have melted a rock.

"Your bond and your buffs are meant to make us the strongest women in the world," she said. "After all, you make us more than your lovers: you make us weapons."

There was a tender, dangerous silence. Behind the pragmatic façade, I caught a shadow of regret on her features — quick as a drowned butterfly. A regret that taught me more about her than any confession.

"Once the Kaenira region is conquered, I will have to bind myself to several other women," I pronounced. "Make them all stronger through this skill… increase our army along with my allies."

Sae nodded, her fingers sliding beneath my palm to squeeze the promise as much as the evidence.

"That will be for the best," she replied. "But…" she let the sentence tremble, "I see a little regret in your eyes."

I could not resist. I buried my face in the offered nape, inhaling the salty scent of her skin, tasting the fervor that remained. She loved — yes — and I knew it then, not because she said it, but because her hand trembled when she searched for mine. And for the first time in moons, I accepted a weakness — the desire, after all the blood and calculations, to fall asleep at her side for the rest of my days.

"Once everything is finished," I murmured, voice tight, "I hope to retire. Just you and me. Nothing but the sound of the wind and your hands. Maybe I want that because I need it. Maybe because I love you."

Sae smiled, and that smile toppled a wall I had carefully kept raised around myself. She leaned in, her lips finding mine — a kiss that was not a battle but a chosen surrender. Her tongue, warm, shy at first, then demanding, reminded me that behind every frank strategy there was a man who loved and who feared. I answered: not with the brutality of a warbed but with the patience of a man who knows that tomorrow he will decide the fate of a hundred thousand lives.

The capital sprawled beneath the void, white and motionless, as if awaiting our verdict. The numbers in my mind purred, ready to be redistributed into orders, plans, alliances. But for now, I was there, my hands linked to those of a woman who accepted to share her strength. That was enough. It was all I wanted to be, before the world began burning again.