The Masked Virtuoso - Chapter 31: The Echoes of Reckoning

The brash Li Chengfeng makes a living through trickery with his clueless but loyal servant, Xiaobao. One day, the love of his life is murdered, making him a suspect, and he meets a demon who suspects he is the reincarnation of a traitorous immortal.

Ye Xiao was a superior cultivator in his previous life. The three factions of the realm kill millions of people every time they attempt to seize cultivation resources. Wealthy towns turn to wastelands in just a single night. They cover up their crime with an assertion that the towns were suffering from pestilence and disasters.

They forcibly hold all the resources for cultivation, monopolize all valuable practice materials, and keep outsiders from cultivating so that only their three factions could cultivate in the realm. Ye Xiao declared war against the three factions in retaliation for their actions. He fought alone and ended up dying in vain. However, he is reborn into the mortal body of a 16-year-old boy. He will use the powers he cultivated in his last life and slaughter his way back into the Realm. The story begins!

- Description from Novelupdates

In the celestial empire, during the ninth year of the Mandate of Heaven,Chaos reigns across the land, and the people suffer.The royal governance collapses, and western barbarians with their pantheon of gods invade.New warlords arise, claiming territories; the Taiping rebels wreak havoc, leading to widespread misery.Calamities like floods, droughts, earthquakes, sandstorms, tornadoes, acid rain, blood moons, and meteor falls occur in succession.Countless demons roam, strange beings thrive, spirits mingle with the inexplicable, and mysterious phenomena arise.In these dark and tumultuous times, Tao Qian opens his eyes to find himself about to be beheaded at the vegetable market...

Five years ago, humanity’s strongest Tower Climber was betrayed at the peak of his conquest.Rael Arden, known only by his codename Phantom, was the silent genius who cleared impossible floors, crushed monsters with forbidden magic, and shaped the rules of Tower exploration. No one had ever seen his real face—yet his legend was feared across the world.But at the Tower’s summit, the teammates he carried to glory stabbed him in the back. For power. For godhood. For fear of what he might become.They thought he died.They were wrong.Reincarnated in secret, Rael awakens in a modern world that’s on the edge of collapse. Dungeons bleed into cities. Monsters evolve. The Tower is no longer just a gate—it’s infecting the world. And the very ones who betrayed him now rule from the shadows, hiding behind titles, guilds, and lies.But Rael isn’t alone. His soul split across hidden clone bodies, each designed to infiltrate, gather information, and prepare for war. As each clone reawakens, his power grows—and so does his rage.With him are three women tied to his fate:Selene, the shadow rogue who never betrayed him.Lyra, a curious researcher drawn to the legend of the Phantom.Aeris, the sword saint who still mourns his death… and may not be as loyal to the enemy as she seems.Now, Rael hunts the seven betrayers who destroyed his past.One by one, they will fall.But revenge is just the beginning.Because deep within the Tower, something else is waking—an ancient force that even Rael feared. And this time, the world may not survive unless the Phantom reigns again.