SSS Gacha Master: I Can Only Gacha Bikini Warriors

Chapter 74: 74. The Villain Cried, I Philosophized, and Then My Buffer Declared War

"My soulmate died because of the ultimate ritual," Corvus said.

He didn’t scream it. He didn’t weep.

He said it with the hollow, terrifying flatness of a man reciting a grocery list, the kind of tone used when a tragedy has been relived so many thousands of times in the dark of night that the words have worn smooth, losing their edge but gaining a permanent, heavy weight.

"She was the one who warned me," he continued, his eyes fixed on a point somewhere far beyond the plateau, perhaps staring at a ghost only he could see. "She begged me to stop."

"She said the risks were a madness we couldn’t afford."

"She said we were strong enough just as we were... that being ’enough’ was a gift, not a cage."

A heavy, suffocating silence fell over the clearing, broken only by the violent, rhythmic pulsing of the ritual circle.

"She was right," Corvus whispered, and for the first time, a flicker of raw, unadulterated agony pierced his mask. "Gods, she was so right. But I was arrogant."

"I was convinced that the system was a lie and that my will was the only truth."

"So, I forced her... I forced her to synchronize with the ritual, to push past the limits, to reach for a heaven that wasn’t meant for us."

"And she died. She died in my arms, her body literally tearing itself apart from the inside out because of the very thing I had asked her to do."

"She died because of my ambition."

Beside Lucian, Serenia made a small, choked sound, a soft, broken noise that wasn’t quite a sob but carried the weight of a thousand mourned lives. Even the indomitable goddess was shaken by the sheer, casual brutality of his grief. The sheer, casual brutality of his grief shook even the indomitable goddess.

"So, I made a choice," Corvus said, his voice beginning to rise, the manic, jagged energy returning to his tone, though it now sat atop the grief like a layer of shimmering, poisonous ice. "If the system is going to build walls to keep us small, then I will tear the walls down! If I can summon the Calamity, if I can harness a force that predates the very concept of "levels" and "limits," then the rules change!"

"No more Gacha restrictions! No more artificial ceilings! No more masters standing helplessly by, watching their warriors be slaughtered because the system’s design is a flawed, suffocating prison!"

He threw his arms wide, the violet light from the ritual lashing out like whips, cracking against the ground and sending shards of obsidian flying. "She deserved a world without walls!"

"She deserved a reality that didn’t have a cap on her potential!"

"She deserved better than the broken thing I gave her!"

"And if I can’t give her that world... then I will burn this one down to build it for everyone else!"

Lucian stood motionless, the wind whipping his hair, his heart hammering a frantic rhythm against his ribs. He looked at Corvus, but he didn’t just see a monster; he saw a warning.

He looked back at his party: Glacielle’s trembling hands, Marshal’s grim resolve, and Octavia’s restless shadows.

He thought of the bonds they had forged in blood and fire over these past weeks.

He thought of the terrifying, beautiful weight of their lives, and the sheer, agonizing possibility of losing them because he, too, might one day decide that ’safe’ wasn’t enough.

He took a breath, the scent of ozone and death filling his lungs, and stepped forward.

"I’m sorry about her, Corvus," Lucian said, his voice ringing out with a clarity that cut through the roar of the Calamity. "Genuinely..."

"I can see the hole she left in you."

"I understand the hunger to fix it... to reach for something more because the pain of ’enough’ is too much to bear."

Corvus went still, his violet eyes narrowing, waiting for validation, waiting for the rookie to finally understand the madness.

"But you’re wrong," Lucian said, his grip tightening on his weapon until his knuckles turned white. "This isn’t the answer."

"You aren’t breaking the walls, Corvus."

"You’re just destroying the house to prove the ceiling is too low."

"Killing a thousand people to summon a god of destruction isn’t giving the world a better future... it’s stealing the only one they have left."

Corvus didn’t snap. He didn’t roar. Instead, he let out a laugh, a dry, hollow sound that rattled in his chest like dead leaves in a tomb.

It was a laugh that possessed a terrifying, twisted sense of humor, the sound of a man who had found the ultimate punchline to a cosmic joke.

"You’re so incredibly young, Lucian," Corvus said, his voice dripping with a patronizing, jagged pity. "You speak of ’stealing futures’ as if you’ve ever had to fight for yours."

"You think these bonds are unbreakable?"

"You think this system is your friend?" He took a predatory step forward, the obsidian stones beneath his boots cracking under the sheer pressure of his aura. "Wait until your warriors start to shatter in your hands."

"Wait until the system demands a sacrifice so grotesque, so absolute, that you realize ’safe’ is just another word for ’stagnant.’"

"Wait until you’re standing at that wall, staring at the infinite potential on the other side, realizing you’re trapped in a cage of your own limitations."

"Then... then come back and tell me this madness wasn’t justified!"

The air grew heavy, the atmospheric pressure spiking so sharply that Lucian felt the blood thrumming painfully in his ears.

Then, Serenia moved.

She didn’t just step forward; she glided, a golden specter cutting through the violet miasma. The light radiating from her staff had undergone a violent transformation.

It was no longer the soft, nurturing glow used to maintain the Divine Sanctuary; it had condensed into a singular, blinding lance of solar fury, focused and lethal, humming with a frequency that made the very air vibrate with the threat of incineration.

"I have watched entire civilizations crumble into ash," she said.

The honey-sweet, teasing quality of her voice, the voice that usually brought a smile to even the darkest of moments, was gone. In its place was a voice that sounded centuries old, a voice that had seen the birth and death of stars and had decided, finally, to speak without the need for mercy.

"I have loved Masters across three hundred years of shifting tides."

"I have held them as their life force flickered out, and I have kept my oath to protect the survivors who came after."

"And in all those centuries, Corvus..."

She leveled her staff at him, the tip glowing with a heat so intense it began to liquefy the stone at her feet.

"...I have never used my grief as a whetstone to sharpen a blade meant to slaughter the innocent."

Corvus’s eyes snapped to hers, the violet madness in them flickering with a sudden, sharp recognition. "You think you can lecture me?"

"You know nothing of the weight I carry! You know nothing of—"

"I know everything about it!" Serenia cut him off, her voice a thunderclap that silenced even the screaming ritual. "Because two hundred years ago, a man died in my arms, too!"

"He died because he was too weak, or perhaps because I wasn’t strong enough to hold the world together for him."

"It would have been so much easier to let the darkness win!"

"It would have been so much simpler to burn this entire wretched world to the ground just to stop the ache in my chest!"

The staff in her hands was unnervingly steady, a pillar of divine light amidst the chaotic violet storm. "What you are doing here, Corvus, isn’t a revolution! It isn’t justice!"

"It’s the tantrum of a man who learned how to hate the universe because he couldn’t stand the reflection of his own failure in the mirror!"

"You aren’t breaking the walls; you’re just trying to bury your guilt under a mountain of corpses."

A low, guttural hiss escaped Corvus’s teeth. The purple veins in his armor didn’t just flare; they erupted, lashing out like necrotic whips that tore chunks of stone from the ground.

The corruption in his eyes boiled, turning a deep, bruised black.

"You dare?" Corvus spat, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and wounded pride. "The great Serenia, the paragon of light!"

"The last time the records spoke of you, you were kneeling before a tyrant king, playing the part of a loyal hound!"

"You were a tool of the status quo!"

"At least I am trying to break the cycle!"

"At least I am trying to change something!"