My Charity System made me too OP

The Arbiter's shard flared, its voidfire needles vibrating like struck strings. For a moment, the formless tide pressed harder, as if testing the truth of Leon's defiance. But the marrow flame did not collapse. It sang louder—discordant yet unyielding—forcing the Origin Pulse to break into rivulets of pale ash that scattered across the battlefield like dead verdicts.

The Arbiter Below tilted its helm, unreadable. Its voice struck like stone tablets cracking.

"Assertion… recorded. But the ledger has more than one page. Second measure: Absolute Return."

The battlefield inverted. The marrow chains bent backward, time and causality folding in on themselves. Wounds reopened on Naval's body, blood spraying from strikes he had already endured. Milim's fist shattered again, the bones breaking as if her earlier clash had just replayed. Roselia gasped, her shield fracturing in the same pattern it had against Vaer'Zhul's nightmare chains.

Leon felt it worst of all—the marrow flame itself trying to collapse inward, dragged back toward its first spark, unraveling years of echoes into silence. His breath hitched. His hands trembled. His very will threatened to fold.

But then Naval drove his blade into the marrow stone, gritting his teeth against the reversal. "If this is return—then I'll return my strength to him!" His bloodlit flame surged, feeding into Leon's marrow, anchoring it.

Milim roared, violet fire bursting outward as she forced her bones back into place with sheer fury. "Try reversing me twice, you smug relic!"

Roselia, panting through the cracks of her shield, raised it high once more. "Then let memory answer return with recursion." Her constellations spun faster, each fracture closing by feeding into the next, loops of light that refused to end.

Leon seized their defiance, dragging it into his marrow flame. He gritted his teeth, thrust his chains outward, and inverted the Arbiter's measure.

"You want return? Then take mine. Return to the will that forged us!"

The marrow flame recoiled—not inward, but forward, bursting through the Arbiter's collapsing tide. The voidfire needles bent, wavered, and snapped, scattering like broken scales.

For the first time, the Arbiter Below staggered a step back, the shard in its hand flickering as if caught between rulings.

Its voice rolled lower, heavier.

"Objection… sustained. Third measure: Karmic Loop."

The marrow battlefield shivered. Chains of voidfire snaked out, weaving circles around Leon and his allies. Every strike they had made, every word they had spoken, every wound endured or dealt—was dragged into orbit. Each memory spun into a perfect circle of punishment, ready to rebound upon them.

Naval's face went pale as he saw his bloodlit slashes coiled into a loop.

Milim's grin sharpened despite the danger.

Roselia's stars dimmed, trembling as past failures bled into orbit.

And Leon… clenched his fists as his marrow flame rang in protest. Because he knew—this was the measure that cut deepest.

The voidfire loops tightened, luminous circles grinding like gears of inevitability. Each spun faster, dragging moments out of Leon's team and replaying them with merciless clarity.

Naval's blade strikes reappeared as phantoms—slashing at him from every angle, every cut he had ever made against his enemies now exacted against his own flesh. His armor cracked, blood sprayed. He bit down on his cry, forcing his feet to hold.

Milim's violet fire burst back in wild, destructive waves—the same devastation she had hurled at the Thrones now surged against her, searing her skin, peeling at her wings. She laughed even as she burned. "So that's my punishment? To be hit by myself? Pathetic!"

Roselia staggered worst of all. Her constellations replayed failures—stars dimming, shields breaking, the cries of allies she couldn't protect. The loops struck her heart harder than her body, every falter of light she had ever endured chaining her in remorse. Tears welled, and her stars flickered dangerously low.

And Leon—he felt it all at once. His marrow flame dragged through the chains of his own echoes: the pain of Fracture Requiem tearing him apart, the cost of Absolute Return snapping his spirit, the burden of Karmic Loop itself crushing him with his own past verdicts. Every victory tasted like ash, every choice curved back like a blade against his throat.

The Arbiter's helm tilted.

"Karmic Loop is no weapon. It is balance. If your resonance cannot hold against its own history, then it is nothing but delusion."

The loops tightened, glowing hotter. Naval's strikes multiplied, Milim's fires surged larger, Roselia's broken constellations pressed closer to her chest. Leon dropped to one knee, marrow chains rattling, almost splitting under the weight of their own echoes.

But then—Liliana's voice cut through, quiet yet resolute. She had not fought, not struck, not burned. Her threads wound through the marrow, trembling but intact.

"Karmic Loop isn't just punishment," she whispered, weaving her threads into the loops themselves. "It's reflection. Memory returned to its source. If you let it break you, it owns you. But if you accept it…" Her eyes glimmered, her lips trembling into a fragile smile. "…then it becomes harmony."

Her threads stitched into Naval's rebounding blades, softening their edge. They wove through Milim's consuming fire, reshaping it into wings instead of chains. They wrapped around Roselia's trembling stars, binding cracks into new constellations.

Leon felt the marrow flame steady as Liliana's voice joined it. He stood, trembling but unbroken, his chains ringing louder. He looked up at the Arbiter, his words sharp, certain:

"Karmic Loop doesn't undo us. It completes us. Every cut, every failure, every fire—we carry them forward, not as punishment, but as resonance."

The loops, once choking, shifted. The phantoms bled into echoes, no longer rebounding but orbiting—a constellation of scars, blazing instead of binding. Naval's blade roared with the strength of his past fights. Milim's wings unfurled, not of fire alone but of every battle she had ever raged. Roselia's stars steadied, her tears falling as new light bloomed in her constellation.

The marrow flame surged, and Leon tore the loops apart—not by rejection, but by claiming them.

The Arbiter Below staggered again, its shard flickering wildly, scales on its helm tilting under the strain.

"Resolution… acknowledged." Its voice cracked for the first time. Then the helm tilted lower, heavier. "Final measure: Fracture Requiem."

The marrow battlefield screamed as every chain in existence shattered at once, fragments spinning into a requiem that sought not to judge, not to punish—but to end.