Reborn as the Archmage's Rival - Chapter 1: The Last Rewrite

Ruins stretched across the landscape in the apocalypse after the nuclear war.

In 2036, humankind steps foot on Mars for the first time.

When the system warned the world that it was coming a week in advance, Alex couldn’t have been more excited. In college for a degree he didn’t care about to get a job he didn’t want, the promise of a world where magic and challenge awaited — even at the potential cost of death — was the best news he possibly could have imagined. Alex was ready for a new life. He ready for his only friend to shove him through a portal into hell the moment the apocalypse started. Instead of getting to punt rabbits and farm wolves, Alex finds himself stranded in a warped world where even the bugs are stronger than he is. Even with a summoner class that gains the powers of its monsters, most people would have died. Alex didn’t get the memo. He might have liked challenge a little bit too much. Where others saw certain death, he found something else. Opportunity.

I’m an imperial uncle; his imperial majesty’s uncle.

Once, someone with nothing better to do took a comprehensive survey of the current dynasty, and summed up the imperial court’s three great cancers.

Wang Qin leads in corruption; the treasury is never full.

Yun Tang favours a few, forming cabals; leading to corruption in our politics.

Prince Huai plays with power, and serves as the head of a hundred poisons — thus causing instability to the throne.

When they talk about the most venomous of vipers, the wicked one who plays with power, the biggest cancer of them all, they’re talking about me: this insignificant prince, Prince Huai, Chengjun.

I can only say that I feel rather hapless in the face of these theories.

In truth, I have been ever dutiful, ever devoted, devoid of intention to monopolise power, and possess even less of a heart to covet the throne. In the entire imperial court, I dare say there is no loyal subject more loyal than I.

But, most tragically, in all the realm, the matter of my being a loyal subject is something that not many would believe.

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