A handsome crimson haired young man sat in the middle of a luxurious bedroom sitting down cross-legged, the curtains were closed and the locks were bolted several times.
Caius slowly opened his eyes and sighed.
“I hate it in this place.”
The words felt heavy.
It had been exactly seven days since the incident.
Seven days since the blinding glare of headlights, the screech of rubber on wet asphalt and the crushing impact of a speeding truck had violently evicted his soul from his modern mundane life.
When he had first opened his eyes and seen the ornate, vaulted ceilings and the archaic, gold-threaded tapestries of this room, a brief fleeting spark of joy had ignited in his chest.
Reincarnation…
It was the ultimate fantasy.
He had always wanted to leave the suffocating monotony of his old world behind, to step into a realm of magic, absolute power, and endless horizons but alas, he would rather it be anywhere but here.
This was not some generic, happy-go-lucky fantasy world where a benevolent goddess handed him a legendary sword and a pat on the back.
This was Ur…
A brutal primeval supercontinent saturated in blood and divine authority and worse, it was a world he knew very well.
It was the world of [God Reborn].
In his past life, [God Reborn] had been a massive genre-defining hit video game.
It was a masterpiece that had dominated the charts, dragging millions of players into its incredibly dense lore.
On the surface, it played like a classic, high-budget fantasy RPG.
You took control of a blond-haired young man, the last surviving heir of a fallen, righteous noble house.
The first half of the game was a masterpiece of world-building and progression.
You explored ancient ruins, leveled up your divine magic, and engaged in a beautifully crafted dating simulator mechanic.
The core objective seemed obvious: seduce the phenomenally powerful heroines of the continent, gather their militaristic clans under your banner, and rebuild your fallen house to its former glory.
It was standard addictive power-fantasy bait.
…Until Chapter 50.
Caius shuddered, his crimson hair falling over his eyes as he recalled the psychological horror of the game’s midpoint twist.
The game violently switched genres.
The righteous, blond-haired Protagonist was not a human hero fighting for justice…
He was the fully awakened psychopathic reincarnation of Helion, the God of Light.
The dating simulator mechanics?
The romance?
The emotional bonding?
It was all a calculated grooming process.
The heroines were the highest-tier “Blessed” of their respective gods.
They were the perfect untainted conduits of divine authority.
Once their affection meters maxed out and their divine contracts peaked, the Protagonist didn’t marry them.
He slaughtered them.
He violently sacrificed them on golden altars to devour the authorities of their patron gods, using their blood to fuel his ascension past the normal pantheon to achieve ultimate unquestionable supremacy.
It was a sick twisted masterpiece of a game and in this sick, twisted masterpiece, Caius Draxos was not a bystander.
He was the Main Villain.
‘Of all the people to possess,’ Caius thought bitterly, rubbing his temples as a dull ache throbbed behind his eyes.
‘I had to become the Great Heretic.
In the lore of [God Reborn], Caius Draxos was the ultimate final boss.
He was the only entity on the entire continent of Ur who possessed a hidden power capable of permanently stopping the Protagonist but reaching that power required the original Caius to completely snap.
Driven mad by his own inadequacy and the crushing expectations of his family, the original Caius was destined to abandon the 13 Major Gods, embrace the ultimate taboo, and sign a contract with a primordial Devil.
He would become the Heretic King, destined to wage a catastrophic, apocalyptic war against the reincarnated God of Light at the climax of the story.
And, inevitably, because it was a video game, the Protagonist would strike him down in a flash of blinding, righteous glory leaving Caius’s corpse to rot in the ruins of his own ambitions.
“Screw that,” Caius muttered to the empty room.
“I’m not dying for some blond lunatic’s ascension.”
To survive this nightmare, his path was agonizingly clear.
He had to completely rewrite the whole game…
He could not afford to wait around and let the Protagonist gather his sacrificial lambs.
He needed to strike first.
He needed to rip the board to pieces.
If the Protagonist needed the heroines to ascend, then Caius had to get the heroines over to his side.
He had to steal them, secure their loyalties, and pull them away from the slaughterhouse that awaited them.
If Caius could bring them under his wing, he wouldn’t just be saving their lives; he would be equipping himself with an impenetrable political and military shield -but there was a massive, humiliating issue with that grand strategy.