Ascension Of The Villain-Chapter 315: Overwritten

Once the truth settled in, it brought with it a strange pressure.

Vyan was the Vyan of this timeline now. No duplicates, no doubles lurking just around the corner waiting to start a paradox.

The merge had already happened, folding him into the fabric of the past like he'd always belonged. The balance of the world really hated the idea of two Vyans tinkering around, especially one who had the intention to change an already written fate.

Either way, one thing was clear: he had to live this day again.

Thankfully, it wasn't a day of complete failure.

Was it chaotic? Sure.

Was it tiring? Definitely.

But in the grand scheme of things, it had ended in their favor.

He had won. He had brought justice for his family. He had revealed the truth of the previous emperor. He had welcomed Althea on the throne as the new empress.

Things definitely went wrong. There were variables. They had gotten severely hurt. But everything turned out fine in the end. That was what mattered.

But this time, he was the variable. He knew every other variable that played out this day. So, why should he let it happen again? Why should he let himself and his allies get hurt when he could spare it?

So, the first step was to get rid of Sienna—the main variable of his plan.

She wasn't supposed to be here. She should've been long gone by now—abducted by his hired mages, out of the way, replaced by an imposter. That stage actress was just meant to smile and nod for the sake of the Empire's carefully painted illusion of unity.

But the mages had underestimated her.

They didn't factor in just how slippery and violent Sienna could be when cornered. She'd broken free, clawed her way out of their grasp, and made it here. freewebnσvel.cøm

And her presence had rippled everything.

She was the reason Iyana slammed into the wall. The reason Clyde—under her damn mind control—had turned on them. She was why Althea's bones crushed. Why Vyan bled almost to death. Why Iyana had no choice but to kill Jade herself—taking a curse that should've landed squarely on his back.

Except, of course, Vyan had never planned on being cursed in the first place.

He wasn't here to rewrite fate. He was here to reinforce it.

So, he let the day unfold the way it had before. He played his part—calm, calculated, untouchable. Only this time, he handled the mess no one else had noticed.

As soon as Sienna stepped away from the crowd, lingering just out of view in the corner of the hall, Vyan followed.

No sound. No words. Just a whisper of movement and the flicker of runes midair.

The restraining spell hit her fast—tight, silencing, inescapable. She staggered, bound by invisible threads of magic, eyes wide and furious as he dragged her into the shadows.

Last time, he hadn't even casted a restraining spell on her, assuming she was just an imposter. A very careless mistake on his part, he'd admit it.

"You—how did you know it was me?" Sienna hissed, fighting against the force curling around her limbs. "How could you tell it wasn't the imposter?" The real Sienna had made sure to play the role of the nervous stage actor in a crowd of nobles to fool Vyan and Clyde, so how did he get to know? It was impossible.

Vyan didn't answer. He didn't need to. There was no use giving her a moment of satisfaction.

She struggled harder, voice rising, but it didn't last.

With a sharp flick of his fingers, a sleeping spell wove over her like mist. Her body slumped, the rage in her eyes fading into the void of unconsciousness.

He didn't kill her. Not yet.

Ending her now would've undone the spell she cast on Easton, and whatever chaos followed that was a door he wasn't willing to open. He couldn't foresee what direction Easton would swing once he was in a sane mind, but it definitely wasn't going to be in their favor.

So Sienna would sleep. For now. Bound and tucked away from the story the world would remember. And in time, she'd be captured and slaughtered by Vyan's people. Because he had made sure to send a message to Freya about her being here through their communication artifact.

Vyan adjusted his cuffs, exhaled once, and stepped back into the glittering lights of the Grand Hall.

The hall buzzed with the same tension it had in the past. On one hand, history was repeating itself, yes, but on the other hand, it wasn't.

A lot of things were already different.

His ace up the sleeves—his unmatched destructive magic—was gone. He had no great advantage over Jade. He had traded it away, offering up the very thing that made him untouchable, for a single, fragile chance to rewrite the past.

It had been a one-shot deal, an irreversible bargain made with time itself.

Therefore, everything had to fall perfectly into place. There would be no second do-over. No reset button. If he failed this time… it would be the end.

In the previous timeline, he'd told Clyde to stay out of it. That it was his fight. His blood debt. The vengeance for his family. But now? Now he knew better. He knew he couldn't take on Jade alone anymore. He was well aware of his capabilities and Jade's as well.

He needed support this time.

So, once Clyde had lived off the high of being publicly proposed, Vyan turned to him and said, quietly but without hesitation, "I'll need you beside me when I take on Jade."

There was no shame in it. There never had been.

Clyde's response had been immediate. No questions, no doubts. Just a firm nod and a quiet, "You've got me." That was all the answer Vyan needed.

Then came the performance—the dramatic coup reveal, the public reckoning, declaring Althea as the rightful empress, exposing Edgar and Jade's crimes in the harsh light of truth, calling for justice with a voice that didn't shake. Every part of it felt like déjà vu laced with dread.

The words burned less this time, not because the pain was any smaller, but because he had said them before.

It was exhausting. Tedious. But necessary.

This was his timeline now. He was the only Vyan here. He had to build it right. He had to play his part. No shortcuts. No loose ends. He had to make it so solid that even time couldn't unravel it.

And when the battle played out like it had once before—same players, same stakes—he could change things up. Because at the end, what mattered was the outcome, which should end up with his enemies locked or dead.

Iyana was locked in a fierce fight with Wyatt, just like before. Only this time, there was no surprise interference from Sienna.

Sienna, the snake in the grass last time, was already out of play. That single change meant no one was controlling Easton. So he just sat on his knees, his limbs tied with the restraining spell, an unused weapon with no one pulling the trigger.

Althea didn't have to defend herself this time from him. There was no confrontation between the siblings. She stayed back and focused solely on healing. Her hands glowed steady as she cast spells to mend the injuries of the others.

There were considerably more injuries on Vyan's part this time. Thanks to his destructive magic, he had been practically untouchable last time till Clyde's tornado took him off-guard and wrecked his body.

Still, even without those powers, Vyan held his ground. He was still the strongest mage of this empire. Clyde fought beside him, just as fiercely.

Jade hadn't changed—still dangerous, still confident, still certain she couldn't lose. Because she had the safety net of knowing that whoever dealt the final blow was destined for misery only.

But she didn't expect this version of Vyan. One who had already lived through the ending once. One who came prepared.

The moment came. The strike that could've ended her.

But Vyan didn't take it.

Instead, he summoned something else. A box. It looked ancient and well-crafted, like it didn't belong in this time at all.

Before Jade could react, his raw mana warped around her and forced her in. And the spells did the rest.

Not just one spell. Multiple. One over the other. Just to be safe.

One second she was there. The next, she was gone, trapped in airtight silence, locked inside the box like a cursed relic. With the number of powerful sealing spells placed on it, nobody except an S-tier mage could bring her out of it.

Clyde came up beside him, breathing hard, eyeing the box. "Why did you do that?" he asked, confused. "Did you want to put her on the public guillotine that bad?"

"No, not really."

Vyan's gaze stayed on the sealed box, his mind replaying every page he'd studied, time spent bent over spellbooks before deciding to throw himself back in time. These were the sealing spells he had been looking for back then.

He had known there had to be another way. There had to be a version of this where nobody else paid the price.

Who knew who would get the curse if she were to be put on the guillotine? The executioner who slayed her head? The empress who would order it? Or Vyan who orchestrated it all?

He didn't say all that. He just replied calmly, "Because if she died, whoever killed her would've been cursed. That person might be put to eternal sleep. So, it's better to just seal her away forever and bury her so deep within the ground that this box never sees the light of the day ever again."

"What the—" Clyde was slightly shocked at the information, then he looked at Vyan with wide eyes as if his friend had grown two heads. "But wait, how the hell do you know that?"

That's when it started.

The pressure.

It wasn't physical, but Vyan felt it. Something was pulling at him, like a hook catching beneath his ribs and tugging backward.

The balance of time and fate wasn't happy. Maybe the price of his destructive magic wasn't enough for everything he had altered. He had changed too much, pushed too far, stopped not just one but two deaths, reshaped the sequence of events more than it could tolerate.

It was telling him: get the hell out before you overwrite more things.