CHAPTER 186: RETURNING

Because what followed wasn’t legend.

It was a revelation.

Ethan stood calmly, staring at the tower—taller than mountains, veiled in storms.

And now?

It shook under his gaze.

Raising his right hand slowly, Ethan pointed a single finger at its foundation. A small glow flickered into life, the color of dying stars—silver, but more than silver. A pure essence of collapse and rebirth. A singularity waiting to happen.

"You’re no longer needed in this world," Ethan said. His voice wasn’t loud, but it echoed across the continent. "You wretch... do you want to come out, or should I destroy this whole place?"

His tone held no arrogance. Only certainty.

And silence answered him.

But silence was not defiance.

It was fear.

...

Ethan didn’t wait. The orb on his fingertip began to swell, spinning impossibly fast, its edges blurring as even light itself was pulled into it. People watching from afar screamed, fainted, wept—some simply fell to the ground and never rose again.

None of them could comprehend it.

Their minds collapsed under the weight of a presence that should not exist.

A presence that didn’t belong to this reality.

The orb grew to the size of a melon.

"Three..." Ethan whispered.

The tower trembled.

"Two..."

Reality cracked. Trees miles away withered to ash. Rivers reversed. The sky dimmed.

And then—

A sound.

A flutter.

Like wind through feathers.

A figure stepped out of the tower wall, walking, not emerging through a door, but simply peeling through space as if it were cloth.

It stood before Ethan.

White.

Utterly white.

Its form was impossible to define. Humanoid, yes, but not quite right. Limbs too long, joints too fluid. Two wings extended from its back—not feathery, but made of pure light, vibrating at frequencies that turned the air around them into ripples.

Its face was smooth. No eyes, no nose, only a mouth that didn’t move when it spoke.

"You... you should not exist," the creature said. Its voice came from everywhere and nowhere, like wind howling through a canyon.

Ethan dropped his hand.

"So you showed yourself, huh?"

The creature tilted its head slightly. For the first time in its long existence, it felt something alien, fear.

"You were meant to be food," the being whispered.

It was not lying. Ethan could feel it—now that he possessed the CHAOS Talent, the truth was laid bare before him.

The tower had never been a tool of ascension.

It had been a farm.

Each challenger that entered, each battle fought, each drop of pain, of triumph, of desperation—they were all recorded. All stored. A year. A decade. A thousand years. The tower grew fat on souls and their struggle.

All for this thing in front of him.

"Who are you?" the white creature asked. The wings behind it trembled. The light dimmed slightly.

Ethan didn’t answer with a name.

He didn’t need to.

"I’m your death," he said.

The silver orb rose once more, hovering beside him now like a tiny moon of annihilation.

The creature stepped back, the first sign of fear it had ever shown in millennia.

"Wait—listen," it began. "You don’t understand the balance you’re upsetting. I am the Vessel. I regulate the realm. I—"

Ethan raised his hand.

"You eat souls."

"I maintain order! Without the tower, without me—"

"You manipulate order. You’ve caged it. Warped it."

"I am a necessity," the creature hissed.

Ethan shook his head.

The orb flew from his hand.

The creature screamed—not a mortal sound, not even spiritual. It was conceptual. The air fractured, the mountains split open, the sky turned upside down for a moment.

It raised both wings, a barrier of light forming, thicker than cities.

The orb touched it.

And for a fraction of a second—

The world paused.

Then... it collapses.

The light wall disintegrated like paper. The wings dissolved into shards. The creature didn’t explode. It didn’t fall. It was simply erased—one atom at a time, its very identity, its essence, consumed by Chaos.

Ethan stood still.

The dust settled.

There was no crater. No scar.

Because Chaos did not destroy.

It unmade.

No energy left behind. No remnant.

Only silence.

The tower groaned, then crumbled—slowly, gracefully—like an ancient warrior laying down for the last time. Its light faded from the top floor to the bottom. Symbols cracked. Runes dimmed.

Then...

Gone.

A tower that had ruled the lives of billions.

Erased.

Not a brick remained.

Only Ethan.

The people, those who could still look at him without falling into despair, gazed with hollow reverence.

Only Ethan remained.

The tower was gone. Its weight on the world had vanished, like a chain lifted after countless lifetimes. But in its absence, the world—this fabricated prison built to nourish the parasite Ethan had just destroyed—began to collapse.

The skies fractured like glass.

The oceans twisted, boiling into steam, then freezing in the same instant.

Mountains inverted. Forests folded inward.

Reality, held together by the tower’s framework, could no longer maintain itself.

And yet, Ethan stood unmoved.

He raised his hand, and his power surged—not with fire, not with thunder, but with an overwhelming silence. It expanded like breath drawn across the entire world.

A single will.

A single intention.

Return.

The energy moved like a wave—gentle, warm, impossibly vast. Every living being touched by it—humans, elves, orcs, spirits—felt no fear, no pain.

Only release.

Their bodies shimmered, their souls igniting like distant stars, and then... they vanished.

Not erased.

Transported.

To their homes. Their original worlds. Their proper realities—long forgotten, lost in time.

The creatures who had known only battle, survival, and the endless floor-grind... they remembered. They remembered who they once were, where they came from, and with tears in their eyes, they returned to those places.

Families reunited. Kingdoms restored. Lifelines reset.

Ethan had no need for gratitude.

He didn’t ask for thanks.

This was never about mercy.

The false world around him collapsed further, time warping and crumbling like fragile ash. But Ethan remained untouched, a singularity of thought amidst chaos.

He didn’t try to save the world, nor did he try to fix it.

All alone inside this world, he raised his hands once more, and everyone who had died in that world rose. Including Seraphina and Magnus.

Seraphina and Magnus both stared at their hands in shock; they remembered their death well. But somehow they were alive once again?

How could that be possible?

Before they could understand, they basked in light and just like the others. They disappeared from the world they were trying to escape from; they no longer needed to risk their lives for the false hope of returning.

With everybody, whether human or animal gone from this world. Ethan stood there, staring at the sky as it broke into pieces that fell. Staring at the clouds as they released their contained water. He stared as the mountains collapsed and the ground broke.

He had done what he believed was right. He had restored order to a world created to make chaos. And, it felt ironic.

Very ironic.

To save a chaotic world with the talent of chaos. It was truly laughable.

Ethan turned his gaze towards Rambo beside him. The young dragon was a fearsome beast from birth, yet their companionship for the past years had made him even more so.

"Rambo...do you want to return to your old world?"

Rambo was just like everyone else, trapped by the system of this world. Despite his SSS-rank talent. He was like everyone else...trapped.

Rambo stared at his master, feeling conflicted.

After a short while, he nodded.

"I would want to. Yes, master. However, I would love to stay with you too. If you want me, I will stay."

The dragon was clearly conflicted. To say that he had forgotten his family just because his master had fought many battles with him was foolish.

His mother, who had birthed him, still existed in the dragon realm. The woman who had bore him in hardship, fed him from young and made sure he grew up safe and sound in the dragon realm.

His father worked hard for their family. Just because he was a dragon with a powerful talent didn’t mean he didn’t struggle like the rest. It doesn’t mean he doesn’t have feelings like the rest.

Ethan smiled before patting the dragon’s head and saying.

"Alright, friend. It was nice meeting you."

Without much talking, he transported his only friend in this crumbling world towards his home.

Ethan understood Rambo’s feelings completely.

Just like how he wouldn’t return with Rambo to the dragon realm. Rambo wouldn’t do that either.

Rambo’s choice wasn’t a betrayal at all. It was completely natural and somewhat relieving.

It made Ethan feel like his companion wasn’t a machine. His companion had his own choices and feelings.

Ethan now officially stood in the crumbling world all alone. With nobody else.

With seconds left before the first sanctuary turned to nothing but a dying planet.

Ethan’s body vanished.

Just like everybody else. He had returned.