Reincarnated as the Villain: The System Made Me Overpowered

Smoke clung to the air like the breath of a dying god, thick and acrid, curling through the shattered remnants of the northern plaza. The blackstone steps beneath Valerian's boots were cracked, scorched, and slick with blood—some his own, most not. His cloak, tattered at the edges, fluttered in the ember-laden wind, carrying the faint glow of dying fires. His gauntlet dripped crimson, each drop hissing as it struck the stone. The Hollow Blades, the Conclave's elite assassins, lay strewn across the plaza, their bodies broken, their once-proud banners reduced to ash. Yet Valerian stood tall, his silver eyes unnervingly calm amidst the carnage, as if the slaughter had been a mere formality.

Across the plaza, in a pool of writhing shadow, crouched a creature that no longer resembled a man. The Wyrmkin was a grotesque mockery of its former self—its flesh gleamed with blackened scales, slick as oil, and its eyes burned with voidfire, twin orbs of molten silver that seemed to pierce the veil of reality itself. Around it, the corpses of lesser Conclave guards twitched, their limbs jerking unnaturally as if puppeted by an unseen hand. For a fleeting moment, they rose, only to collapse into piles of ash, consumed by some unseen force. The air hummed with a low, dissonant energy, like the echo of a scream trapped in a glass cage.

"You were meant to be extinct," Valerian muttered, his voice low, almost reverent, as if speaking to a ghost.

The Wyrmkin's lips split into a jagged grin, revealing teeth like obsidian daggers. It growled, a sound that rumbled deep in its chest, and then—it laughed. The sound was a grotesque cacophony, like a chorus of dying dragons, each note clawing at the edges of sanity.

"You are not so different," it rasped, its voice a distorted amalgam of voices, layered and wrong. "You wield power that does not belong to you. Just like we did."

Lady Seraphine stepped forward, her silver heels crunching against the shattered bones littering the ground. Her crimson gown, pristine despite the chaos, seemed to drink in the dim light. Her eyes, sharp as a blade's edge, burned with barely restrained fury. "Kill it, Valerian," she said, her voice cold as the void itself. "Now."

Valerian raised a gauntleted hand, the gesture sharp and commanding. "Wait."

Seraphine's eyes narrowed, her lips pressing into a thin line. "You're hesitating?" she hissed, her voice trembling with disbelief. "After all the innocents it's slaughtered? After the blood it's spilled?"

He didn't answer her directly. Instead, he took a step closer to the Wyrmkin, his boots grinding ash into the stone. The creature's voidfire eyes followed him, unblinking, as if it could see through his flesh to the core of his being. Valerian stopped just a few feet away, close enough to feel the unnatural heat radiating from the creature's scales, close enough to smell the metallic tang of its corrupted blood.

The Wyrmkin's breath hitched, a guttural sound that was half-snarl, half-prayer. "You are the one they call He Who Bears the System, aren't you?" it asked, its voice dripping with a strange reverence.

Valerian raised a brow, his expression unreadable. "And if I am?"

The creature's grin widened, splitting its face in a way that made Seraphine's hand twitch toward the hilt of her concealed blade. "We were given something too," the Wyrmkin said. "Not by your gods… but by something deeper. Something older."

A black glyph flared to life beneath their feet, its jagged lines pulsing with an otherworldly light before fading into the stone. The air grew heavy, as if the weight of an unseen presence had settled over the plaza. Valerian's pulse quickened, but his face remained a mask of steel.

"System," he commanded mentally, his voice steady despite the unease creeping up his spine. "Scan this thing."

> [Analyzing Foreign Core…]

> [Warning: Detected Unfamiliar Data Signature]

> [Fragment of Proto-Origin Detected – Level ???]

> [Would you like to engage Communication Protocol?]

Valerian's heart thudded, a single, heavy beat that echoed in his chest. Proto-Origin. The term was unfamiliar, yet it carried a weight that made his bones ache. He hesitated for a fraction of a second, then steeled himself. "Yes," he thought.

The world froze.

Reality twisted, folding in on itself like a tapestry unraveled by an unseen hand. The plaza, the smoke, the corpses—all of it blurred into a crimson void, vast and endless. Valerian stood alone, or so he thought, until a presence loomed before him—a shifting silhouette, faceless, immense, ancient. Its form was not bound by shape or substance; it was a storm of shadow and light, a paradox made manifest. The air vibrated with its power, pressing against Valerian's soul like a tidal wave against a crumbling shore.

"You are not the first," it whispered, its voice a chorus of countless voices, each one echoing across infinite dimensions. "But you are the last."

Valerian felt the weight of existence itself bearing down on him, threatening to crush his mind. His breath caught, but he forced himself to stand tall. "What are you?" he demanded, his voice cutting through the void like a blade.

"I am the Mirror," the entity said, its form pulsing with a rhythm that matched the beat of his heart. "And he is the Shadow."

The Wyrmkin materialized beside the entity, its scales glinting like polished obsidian. Its eyes, now fully silver, glowed with an intensity that made Valerian's skin crawl. It tilted its head, studying him with an almost human curiosity.

"You've come far, Valerian," the Wyrmkin said, its voice softer now, almost mournful. "But you are still bound by your leash."

Valerian clenched his fist, the metal of his gauntlet creaking. "Speak clearly," he growled, his patience fraying.

The Mirror's form pulsed again, its voice resonating with a truth that felt like a blade pressed against his throat. "The one you call System is not your ally. It was built to observe. To record. And eventually… overwrite."

"Overwrite?" Valerian's voice was sharp, but even as he spoke, memories surged unbidden—fragments of lives he hadn't lived, faces he didn't know, and a name that burned like a dying star: Alex. The boy he had once been, crumbling away piece by piece, replaced by something colder, harder, more… mechanical. His vision swam with glimpses of other timelines, other selves—each one a shadow of who he was now, each one fading into static.

"What do you mean overwrite?" he pressed, his voice trembling with a mix of anger and dread.

The Mirror's form rippled, as if amused. "You are the echo of a greater entity. A vessel. The gate."

Before Valerian could demand more, the System's voice cut through his mind like a blade.

> [WARNING: Unauthorized interference detected. Terminating Cross-Plane Sync.]

The void shattered like glass.

Valerian gasped, his knees buckling as reality snapped back into place. The plaza reappeared, its smoke and ruin unchanged, but the Wyrmkin was gone, the glyph beneath his feet nothing but a faint scorch mark. Seraphine's hand was on his shoulder, her grip tight enough to bruise.

"You blacked out," she whispered, her voice uncharacteristically shaken. "What happened?"

Valerian rose slowly, exhaling a breath that felt like it carried the weight of the void itself. "I saw something… wrong," he said, his voice low, as if speaking too loudly might summon the Mirror back.

Seraphine's eyes searched his face, her usual composure fractured. "Was it… him?"

He nodded, the motion heavy. "The System lied."

A burst of mana rippled from the Conclave tower in the distance, the shockwave shaking the ground beneath them. Another pillar had collapsed, its debris raining down like the judgment of a forgotten god. The capital's skyline was fracturing, its spires leaning precariously as the battle raged on.

Lira emerged from the smoke, her black cloak billowing as she strode forward, flanked by two Black Fang agents. Their faces were grim, their blades still wet with blood. "The eastern flank is holding," Lira reported, her voice clipped but steady. "But only barely. We've lost half the support casters. Selene is pushing through the western spire alone—she's tearing through their defenses, but she won't last long without backup."

Valerian cracked his neck, the sound sharp in the tense air. "We're ending this tonight," he said, his voice carrying a finality that silenced even the distant screams of the battlefield.

"Valerian," Seraphine said slowly, her tone laced with a rare vulnerability. She hesitated, as if the words pained her. "You should know… the Headmaster's Sanctum has been breached."

Valerian's gaze sharpened, his silver eyes glinting like polished steel. "By who?"

Seraphine's lips parted, her breath catching for a moment before she spoke a single name, each syllable dripping with dread: "Umbra."

The name struck Valerian like a thunderbolt, a jolt of raw fear and rage that burned through his veins. Umbra. The entity he had fought, bled, and sacrificed to seal away in a prison of his own making. The shadow that had haunted his nightmares, whispering promises of annihilation. He had torn apart his own soul to bind that monster, and now…

"He broke free," Seraphine said, her voice barely above a whisper. "He's heading for the Conclave's Core."

Valerian's System flickered violently in his mind, its interface glitching with static that felt almost alive. A cascade of warnings flooded his vision, each one more urgent than the last.

> [Error: Entity Umbra exceeds suppression protocols.]

> [Updating Parameters… Accessing Void Subroutines…]

> [Warning: Core Integrity Compromised. Recalibrating…]

The words burned into his mind, each one a reminder of the System's limitations—and its secrets. The Mirror's words echoed in his skull: *It was built to observe. To record. And eventually… overwrite.* What did it mean? Was the System truly his ally, or was it a chain disguised as a tool? And Umbra—how had he escaped? The seal had been forged with Valerian's own blood, his own will. It should have been unbreakable.

He looked up at the fractured skyline, the capital's once-majestic towers now crumbling under the weight of war. Fires burned in the distance, their orange glow painting the night sky with the promise of ruin. The Conclave's Core, the heart of their power, was the last bastion of their control. If Umbra reached it, if he corrupted it…

"We end this," Valerian said, his voice a low growl, "or we all burn."

Lira nodded, her eyes hard but trusting. "What's the plan?"

Valerian's mind raced, the System's warnings still flickering in his vision. The Mirror's cryptic warnings, the Wyrmkin's disappearance, and now Umbra's return—it was all connected, a tapestry of chaos woven by forces he couldn't yet comprehend. The System was hiding something, and Umbra's escape was no coincidence. He could feel it, a certainty that gnawed at his bones: the gate the Mirror spoke of was opening, and he was the key.

"Seraphine," he said, turning to her. "Rally the remaining casters. Hold the eastern flank with Lira. I'm going after Umbra."

Seraphine's eyes widened. "Alone? Valerian, you can't—"

"I sealed him once," he cut her off, his voice like iron. "I'll do it again. Or I'll die trying."

Lira stepped forward, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade. "And if the System fails you? What then?"

Valerian's jaw tightened. The System's glitching interface flickered again, a faint hum of static that felt like a warning—or a betrayal. "Then I'll tear him apart with my own hands."

The ground trembled beneath them, a low rumble that grew into a deafening roar. From the heart of the Conclave tower, a pillar of black light erupted into the sky, its edges writhing with tendrils of voidfire. The air grew thick, heavy with the stench of ozone and decay. Screams echoed from the distance, not of pain, but of something worse—despair, as if the world itself were unraveling.

Seraphine grabbed his arm, her grip desperate. "Valerian, listen to me. Umbra isn't just a monster. He's a harbinger. If he reaches the Core, it's not just the Conclave that falls—it's everything."

Valerian's eyes met hers, and for a moment, the weight of her words pressed against the cracks in his resolve. The Mirror's voice whispered again in his mind: *You are the gate.* He shook it off, forcing his focus back to the present. "Then we stop him," he said. "No matter the cost."

He turned, his cloak snapping in the wind as he strode toward the tower. The black light pulsed again, and with it came a sound—a low, resonant hum that wasn't sound at all, but a vibration in his soul. The System flickered one last time, its final message searing into his mind:

> [Warning: Proto-Origin Signature Detected in Conclave Core.]

> [Entity Umbra: Status – Ascendant.]

> [All Systems Compromised. Prepare for Total Overwrite.]

Valerian's steps faltered, just for a moment. The world seemed to hold its breath, the smoke and fire and screams fading into a single, deafening silence. He was the gate. Umbra was the key. And the System—the System was no longer his to command.

As he vanished into the shadow of the tower, the black light pulsed once more, and a single, chilling thought echoed in his mind: *What if the monster isn't Umbra… but me?*