Very Pure and Ambiguous: The Prequel - Volume 1 - Chapter 153 – Wait, Almsgiver

He was about to join the beta test on the newest VR games, Second World.

In a world where everyone is a slave, someone is born who cannot be controlled. At the same time, an unstoppable villain rises on a quest for revenge. But the truth is darker than he ever imagined, and now he must face an unbeatable enemy — including himself.***Bruno was a young man born on Earth, the son of an influential modern Emperor. Despite having everything money could buy and receiving the best and most rigorous training to succeed his father, he chose the opposite path, defying his family’s ruthless rule.The price of his innocence? A merciless death and the complete erasure of his existence by the deity controlling his fate. On Earth, the law of the powerful was absolute; a slave could never rebel.But then, he wakes up again.He’s reborn in a world of cultivation, where freedom was promised to those strong enough to claim it. Now, he could soar like a free bird and carve his own destiny... or so he thought.The harsh reality of this new world soon showed him how insignificant he still was. He realized he had only changed masters.The freedom he sought was an illusion. The heavenly laws treated everyone as servants, and their rules were unbreakable. Bruno learned this bitter truth after losing everything that made him happy due to an unjust rule.But who was he to question?Hopeless, Bruno died... and was reborn as Alm, an unstoppable villain. With a soul poisoned by pain and vengeance, he sowed chaos across the universe. Planets were destroyed, countless lives taken, and his name became synonymous with terror.A hero rose to oppose him, wielding a sacred sword of hope. People from all corners of the universe united against Alm, raising their voices and weapons to stop the villain who defied the heavens.But Alm was no longer just fighting for revenge. He was challenging the heavenly laws that sought to control him, fighting fate and all living beings.And against all odds... the sacred sword shattered. The alliance of the entire universe was defeated.The villain won!Now, Alm found himself alone in the empty void of a dead universe, facing his own inner demons. Who could be more ruthless to him than himself?“What have I done?”At that moment, the doors of truth opened to him.Everyone was a puppet of a supreme figure, an entity that manipulated minds and even the heavenly laws.“I will find you, no matter where you are!”Thus, the last emissary of the true Heaven’s Will awakened. Alm, who once only relied on his sheer will and rage, now had a system to guide him. But his opponent was an immortal existence, above even the heavens.The villain who destroyed an entire universe now faced a new beginning. He discovered that the universe he devastated was just a tiny grain of sand in an infinite cosmos, where countless other universes existed.And so begins the legendary tale of the villain’s rise... and the Sacred Round God? A strange Duality of Shadows existed within one person.But this time, he wouldn’t be alone.***To clear up any potential confusion or frustration, here are some key points about the story. I’ll avoid major spoilers, but a few things will be revealed.You might find this concerning at first, but just check the book cover—it shows the main character and his only partner. She first appears at 10 years old, but rest assured, there’s no inappropriate content or early romance.At around 13, SHE starts developing feelings for the protagonist, but he doesn’t respond until she’s an adult. With her determined personality, she tries to seduce him at 17/18, but it doesn’t work. Their relationship only happens much later.The book has nods to other works, with my own spin on them, and focuses on avoiding elements I find problematic in other stories.Lastly, the beautiful book cover was commissioned and created by HDIArt.

Setsuna Shū is a magical girl with temporal magic that allows her to go back to the past whenever she performs a certain action. She works as a magical girl, hunting monsters and helping people… or at least, that’s what she lets everyone believe. In truth, she made a contract with a demon so she could return to the past and rewrite the future.Her real reason for turning back time is to save her “sister.” As a child, she had no parents, relatives, or friends. When she was finally adopted, her sister became her entire world — and for her sake, Setsuna wouldn’t hesitate to sacrifice the world itself. She gave up her original gender, her past “existence,” and even parts of her freedom in a demonic contract, all for the sake of saving her sister and taking revenge on the monsters that hurt her.But… is that really all there is to it? Or is Setsuna, in the end, partially responsible for everything that happened?

In 2026, the world froze over in an apocalyptic ice age.Dean Winters, a man struggling to survive, is betrayed by his lover, his best friend, and the very group he kept alive. Left to die alone in the frozen wasteland, his life came to a bitter end.But death does not claim him. Instead, it hurls him back to a time before the apocalypse began, with every memory intact and a mysterious superpower known as Tyrant’s Ledger. The first of its kind to awaken among humanity, it allows him to perceive numerical values that reveal whether a person is hostile or friendly, and whether an object, location, or resource is spoiled, corrupted, or lethally dangerous.This time, with his newfound power, Dean won’t just survive. He will crush anyone who stands in his way, gather the powerful under his banner, take revenge on those who betrayed him, and rise from the snow as a true Winter Tyrant.