The Phantom's Gambit - Chapter 89: My turn to rule

After losing his parents to an accident, Haruto is thrust into a state of depression. Realizing he never had the power to change things, he eventually took his own life. Before moving on, he’s selected by beings greater than his understanding to balance out a world suddenly facing peril. The world of Mordell, where demon-like creatures and beasts roam, and Guilds of ability users called Warlords are the force to combat these creatures. Armed with the power to change things, he has the choice. Continue living in despair or accept his second chance and become a true Warlord.

# endoftheyearJi Yuanyuan was the type of person who would ruin a nicely dealt hand. She could have led a carefree life under her family and ex-husband’s protection. Alas, for the sake of a scum named Zhao Tianhua, she caused her mother to die an aggrieved death, her eldest brother to die in a foreign land, and her second brother to be run over by a car and had his head disembodied. She herself even died from childbirth in a shabby house at the countryside, and her baby was strangled to death by Zhao Tianhua. It was right before her death that she learned that her quiet ex-husband almost went mad searching for her.Ji Yuanyuan was reborn back into the 90s era with extreme luck and a mysterious spatial ability. Since then, Ji Yuanyuan would find money on the ground, boars would run into trees on their own if she was lost in the wild, and her investments would all be successful… When the b*stard scum, Zhao Tianhua approached her again, Ji Yuanyuan kicked him away and latched onto her ex-husband’s leg instead. “Sir, please protect me.”

“Now you see?” she shouted in a mix of annoyance and disappointment. “You can't outsmart Scrients! They're the most intelligent beings across the two realms.”“You're right,” I muttered, averting my gaze with a heavy sigh. “I made a mistake. I was too arrogant to think that a mere human like me could fool them.”—BOOM!!“Heik! Wh-What was that?”“Hmm? I'm not sure. Maybe you should go and ask the most intelligent beings across the two realms. Oh wait, you can't. I killed them all.”______My name is Samael Kaizer Theosbane.On the last day of high school, I got into a fight with a kid I used to bully.It was a stupid, pointless scuffle, and in the middle of it, I tripped and hit my head on a rock.That’s when the memories came flooding in - the memories of another life, of a different world.Suddenly, everything made a twisted kind of sense. I realized two things.First, I was in a game I used to play in my past life.Second, I was a villain. A villain!Not the cool and mysterious kind, either.No, my destiny was to be manipulated and die a dog's death!I was the worst type of cliché: an ungrateful, privileged, insufferable young master. The sort you'd find in those poorly written fantasy stories.The kind everyone hates — a snobby brat from a powerful noble family who thinks he owns the world just because he was born with a silver spoon lodged in his mouth.You know the type. The one the hero beats to a pulp to prove his worth.Yeah, I was that guy.And the hero? The hero was the kid I’d been bullying all this time. The same one I got into a fight with.He was the supposed savior of this damned world.A world teetering on the edge of destruction, beset by wars, calamities, and a grim future that only I knew.And at the end of it all, the final antagonist of the game, the undefeatable boss… the Spirit King, was waiting.But could I even make it to the end?Could I conquer a game where defeat was the only certainty?A game that was now my reality!“Ah, fuck it.”I had no idea if I could, but I sure as hell was going to try.Extorting extras, manipulating main characters, twisting the story to my advantage, stealing the hero’s cheat items, killing villains before they could become threats - nothing was beneath me.Would the main characters be affected? Who cares!Would the story change? Even better!All I cared about was me—my survival, my life, my choices.“I will live this life with no regrets.”…But as I soon discovered, fate was not easily changed.And the price of altering one's destiny was steep.