My Charity System made me too OP

At the twilight hour—when the black sun tilted on its unnatural axis and painted the land in hues of deep crimson—a voice boomed across the horizon.

It wasn't speech. It was pressure.

A heavy sound that bent the laws of the floor itself.

Then a figure appeared.

She strode forward not with speed, but with inevitability. Like a blade drawn before war.

A tall woman cloaked in obsidian ribbons and glowing silver armor, her hair long and braided with threads of starlight. Behind her trailed seven circular sigils, each spinning with cosmic gravity—each a throne core. She walked alone, but the land gave her space as though afraid to offend her.

Roselia narrowed her eyes. "I know that aura. That's—"

"The Seventh Throne," Liliana whispered. "Throne of Extinction. Her name is Lady Vaelia."

Milim tilted her head. "She looks serious."

Leon didn't move.

Instead, he watched the woman as she halted fifty meters from the steps of the Echo Citadel. The very air between them shimmered with residual pulses of power. Her presence alone threatened to crack the newly formed foundations of his domain.

Then she spoke, and her voice was like chimes over a storm.

"You seek to rise without kneeling. To build without bleeding. To challenge without first surviving."

She raised a hand, and one of the seven spinning sigils behind her expanded into a fractal construct—a spire of extinction-class energy forming above it.

"This is not rebellion. It is arrogance."

Roman's coat fluttered. "We've been here two hours and already someone wants to kill us."

"Correction," Roselia murmured. "That woman can kill us."

Leon finally stepped forward, feet igniting with controlled reverb. "You came all this way. Are you here to warn, or to kneel?"

The sky cracked like glass.

Vaelia's gaze sharpened, and her throne rings pulsed. A test, then—a strike not of territory, but of will.

"Prove you deserve the noise you make."

Her finger flicked forward.

A line of extinction light sliced toward Leon—space folded, gravity reversed, and time fractured along its edge.

But Leon didn't flinch.

He stepped forward—and the Shell Reverb answered.

Tripart Echo ignited, then Absolute Return, then the forbidden fragment of Fracture Requiem. He rewrote the incoming force. Not deflecting it, not overpowering it—

—canceling it entirely.

The air fell still.

Then Leon's voice cut through.

"I do not ask for a throne."

"I am the throne."

A wave of Shell Pulse exploded outward—not as an attack, but a declaration. His aura imprinted across the zone, reinforcing the Echo Citadel's claim.

Lady Vaelia's expression didn't change.

But she smiled.

Just slightly.

"Then survive, Leon Flamebreaker. We'll see how long your echo lasts."

She turned—and in a blur of inversion light, she was gone.

The pressure lifted, but the challenge remained.

Naval let out a breath he'd clearly been holding. "So… we just got evaluated by the most efficient killer on this layer."

Roselia nodded. "And we passed."

Leon stood in silence for a long time, then whispered:

"Then the war has truly begun."

Three days later.

The land surrounding the Echo Citadel had shifted. What was once a blank expanse of lifeless stone and airless sky now carried pulse-lines of power. Resonance veins had formed in the soil, carrying faint rhythms of Shell Pulse, Shell Reverb, and Karmic Loop.

And someone else had noticed.

From the west came thunder—not from the sky, but from marching.

Armored boots struck in sync. Runes glowed like bloodlines etched into the land. A crimson standard flared against the black sun's dim backdrop, its symbol unmistakable—

The Sigil of Ironsaint Dominion.

A war faction ruled by brute ideology and ranked conquest. Each warrior baptized in warfire, trained in echo-rending strikes, and built for siege warfare across shifting thrones.

At the front was their warlord.

Tharos Kain.

Ranked 12th among the active throne-holders.

A former Reverb Judge turned Dominion breaker.

And worse—

He once served under the same master who trained Leon.

From atop the Citadel's highest balcony, Leon watched the army form their triangle formation: siege units rear, anchor-tanks middle, elite Reverb Blades forward.

Naval peered through a scrying scope. "They've got about seventy elites. Not counting the Echobinders in the rear. You sure you don't want to parley?"

Leon didn't respond.

He was watching Tharos.

The man hadn't drawn a weapon. He didn't need to.

Every step he took hummed with Counterforce. A resonance that rejected all ambient pressure—Shell Reverb mastery estimated at 89%, according to Liliana's scans.

"I remember him," Leon finally said. "He was the one who refused the Fourth Layer. Said 'Absolute Return' was cowardice."

Roman scoffed. "Yeah, well, this coward has a fortress now. He's got a sword."

Leon nodded slowly.

Then turned to his team.

"We hold the gate. No retreat. No formalities."

"We show them what happens when you attack an Echo Throne."

The Battle of the First Echo Gate Begins

It started with silence.

Then came the first move.

A crimson orb streaked through the sky, pulsing with anti-resonant energy meant to cancel all Shell-based barriers.

It struck—

—but was absorbed.

Milim had already triggered a Karmic Split, redirecting the orb's effect into a dimensional loop that launched it back into the attackers' siege line, obliterating two echo tanks in a burst of irony.

"Cute trick," Roselia muttered, already hovering in aerial stance. "My turn."

She lifted both hands—

—and thirteen gold-etched Reverb Arrows shot out in a spread pattern, each homing in on opposing Blades. They dodged, but too late to notice that each arrow left behind a lingering echo, which shattered a moment later and tore their formation apart.

From the chaos, Tharos finally entered.

His steps didn't quicken. He simply appeared in front of the Echo Citadel's gate, swinging a palm once—and nearly breaking open the outer resonance layer.

Leon appeared in front of him.

No fanfare.

Just the clash of Shell Pulse versus Counterforce.

Tharos grinned. "You've grown, Flamebreaker."

Leon's answer was a Tripart Echo, condensed into a fist.

They clashed.

Once.

The ground fractured beneath them. Space warped. Everyone within a hundred meters was knocked back.

Leon slid back slightly.

Tharos didn't move.

But he bled.

A line of crimson rolled down his lip.

"...You've really grown."

Then he roared, and the entire battlefield screamed.

Meanwhile, Liliana and Naval were holding the right flank. Naval had deployed a Force Conductor Grid, trapping enemies in a maze of shifting gravity paths, while Liliana moved like a blur of reflected energy, turning every attack she dodged into a retaliatory burst of Shell Reverb.

On the left flank, Milim and Roselia fought in perfect sync.

Roselia summoned Aether Flames to scatter enemy advance units, while Milim used a Karmic Loop Trap to ensnare their strongest Reverb Blade, locking his fate to Roselia's.

He exploded a second later.

The Echo Citadel held.

But Tharos was not finished.

He reached behind his back—

—and pulled out his throne's weapon:

"Ashrend Echoblade."

A greatsword built not to cut bodies, but to erase timelines of their motion. It vibrated at a frequency that ignored defense and shattered positioning.

Leon narrowed his eyes.

Then activated Absolute Return.

"Come then, Warlord. Let's end the first war with a proper echo."