My Charity System made me too OP

The marrow's tremors became rhythm—half collapse, half heartbeat. Every chain that had once dragged screamed souls downward now swayed like a pendulum, pulled not by decree but by resonance, waiting for direction.

Leon exhaled slowly, the marrow flame in his chest pulsing to the same rhythm. His hand hovered over the air where the last Throne had shattered. Shards of shadow and light still lingered, flickering, yearning to reform into dominion—but there was no crown left to cage them. They drifted like ash, waiting for a verdict.

Naval stepped forward, dragon-flame still coiling along his blade. "If the marrow itself is hesitating, then it's looking to you, Leon." His voice was rough but steady, every word carved against exhaustion. "You're the one who broke them. Now you'll decide what replaces them."

Roselia lifted her blade of stars, her gaze sharp. "Or if anything replaces them at all." Her constellations shifted restlessly, as if they too sensed that eternity had been cracked open.

Liliana wiped blood from her lips, her silver threads swaying faintly with her breath. "The marrow sings. It doesn't demand thrones. It doesn't demand rulers. It demands resonance."

Milim spat into the dust, grinning despite the burns streaking her skin. "Thrones are boring anyway. If we put new ones up, they'll just end up like the old bastards—rotting and greedy. Better to smash the whole idea and see what grows."

The marrow chains twisted tighter around Leon, their pressure equal parts burden and embrace. He could feel it—the pull of voices long erased, survivors and echoes waiting in the marrow's deep. They weren't silent anymore. They were calling.

Roman staggered forward, still coughing blood, yet with a crooked grin on his face. "Careful, Leon. You've got the Tower itself on the edge of its seat. If you don't answer, something else will… and it might not like the way we fought back."

Above them, the cracks in the dominion sky flared wider, pouring down rivers of raw law, raw memory, raw silence—stripped from their Thrones, unbound and wild. The Tower quaked, as though unsure whether to heal or to tear itself apart.

Leon closed his eyes. In the marrow's flood, he saw fragments of choice:

– Rebuild the Thrones, but remade in resonance rather than silence.

– Let the marrow flow free, unruled, and risk collapse or rebirth without anchors.

– Or take it all into himself, becoming not a ruler, but the marrow's conductor—bearing every voice, every chain, every echo.

When he opened his eyes again, the marrow flame burned brighter than ever, and the Tower itself seemed to lean toward him.

The Throne War had ended.

What came next would decide whether the Tower lived, died, or was reborn.

The marrow's chorus swelled, no longer a storm but a tide pressing against Leon's ribs, urging him forward. His allies waited in silence, each scarred body leaning on hope that whatever choice he made would not unravel them with it.

The rivers of raw dominion above twisted like veins of lightning. Memory flickered in one stream, sharp and piercing as Roselia's stars. Law burned in another, jagged like Naval's flame. Silence flowed cold, shadowy, broken yet alluring. All of them bent toward Leon, drawn to the marrow flame that beat inside him.

He raised his hand. The marrow chains lifted with it, thousands of them, their links glowing faintly as though they were arteries of eternity itself. The Tower groaned, shaking from foundation to crown, the cracked dominion sky opening wider—an expectant wound.

Naval's voice cut through the quake, hoarse but unyielding.

"Choose, Leon. If you hesitate, the marrow will devour itself."

Roselia stepped closer, her stars circling like guardians. "But if you seize it selfishly, you'll just become another Throne. Another tyrant."

Milim barked a laugh, wiping blood from her cheek. "Tyrant, conductor, anchor—who cares what you call it? Just don't be boring about it."

Liliana's voice was softer, nearly drowned by the marrow's hum. "Leon… whatever you decide, we'll bind our voices to yours."

Roman's grin faltered, his coughing worsening, but his eyes locked onto Leon's flame. "Don't make it just about survival. Make it worth surviving."

Leon's marrow flame surged, and for a moment he glimpsed all three futures:

— Thrones rebuilt in resonance: six new crowns rising, not as rulers, but as guardians of memory, each shaped by those who fought beside him. Naval, Roselia, Liliana, Milim, Roman, and Leon himself—resonant Thrones.

— Marrow set free: the chains dissolving into rivers of raw eternity, every climber, every echo, every forgotten voice sharing the Tower's marrow equally, no thrones, no crowns—only a sea of countless wills. Freedom, or chaos.

— Leon as Conductor: every chain binding into him, every voice echoing through his marrow flame, until he was no longer man, no longer climber, but the living heart of the Tower. A burden no one else could bear.

The marrow trembled, waiting. The cracks above screamed wider, the light bleeding so bright it seared their skin.

Leon opened his eyes. His voice was calm, final:

"…I choose—"

"…I choose resonance."

Leon's voice cut through the marrow's roar, steady and undeniable. His flame surged, not to seize, not to shatter, but to weave. The marrow chains, once instruments of dominion, bent inward, twining around one another like threads in a loom.

The Tower shuddered—not collapsing, not mending, but reshaping. The raw rivers of memory, law, silence, and command bent downward, not into thrones, not into crowns, but into circles. Six luminous rings of marrow-light formed, orbiting Leon like planets around a sun.

Naval's dragon-flame leapt into one ring, its roar filling the silence.

Roselia's constellations carved into another, stars embedding themselves like jewels in the marrow.

Liliana's threads wove into a third, her hymn lacing it with silver harmony.

Milim's violet fire slammed into a fourth, laughing as it reshaped into raw defiance.

Roman's battered will, fractured but unyielding, surged into the fifth, blood and grit etching marrow with endurance.

And Leon—the marrow flame at his core—rose into the sixth.

The six circles blazed, weaving into a greater pattern: a crown not of rule, but of resonance. Not one voice binding all, nor all voices scattered into chaos—but a harmony, fragile yet alive, born from the fight they endured together.

The marrow chains pulsed, no longer dragging, no longer binding, but singing. The Tower's groan deepened into a new rhythm, neither silence nor decree, but heartbeat.