My Charity System made me too OP-Chapter 416: Null Void V

Floor 508 – The Remnant Core

They moved in formation now. No fancy teleportation, no dragon roars above. Just the quiet rhythm of armored boots on fractured stone. Torchlight from enchanted lamps flickered against walls made of fused elemental cores—evidence that this place hadn’t been built, but bled into existence.

The floor trembled with every step.

This was no ordinary structure. It was a scar the Tower tried to forget.

Aris walked just behind Leon, eyes alert, blades ready. "We’re in the heart of something the Tower tried to bury. You feel it?"

Leon nodded. "More than that. It’s... watching."

The corridor opened into a wide atrium—circular, with four broken pillars and a center platform covered in a dark, veined crystal. It pulsed faintly, each beat like a dying heartbeat. There were remnants of throne fragments, ancient shattered gear, and faded banners—none of which matched any known element.

Kael scanned the room. "This isn’t architecture. It’s... psychic formation. A reality echo."

That’s when the voice came.

Not one.

Several.

Dozens.

"You wear the Crown. But your mind is still whole."

"You walk without fear. You should be afraid."

"Your name is Leon. It won’t be for long."

They weren’t hearing hallucinations.

They were hearing memories.

From deep within the Remnant Entity.

Roselia stepped forward. "How many voices is that?"

Kael whispered, "All of them. Every failed King who tried to take the Crown and left something behind."

And then...

It appeared.

Or rather, formed.

The crystal in the center of the room rose—unfolding like a shell cracking apart. From inside came a shape—vaguely humanoid, but fractured. Six arms. No face. Dozens of shifting elemental cores embedded into a body that pulsed with unsteady energy. Chains of thought stretched out from it, linking memories, twisting versions of the past into living attacks.

Leon stepped forward alone.

No summon.

No backup.

Just him.

The Remnant’s voice echoed again.

"You wear the six. But do you understand them?"

The creature lunged.

It moved like memory—unpredictable, nonlinear. One moment it struck with flame. The next, it collapsed time around Leon’s movement, trying to make him stumble on his own future.

But Leon didn’t stumble.

He surged forward, letting the Void guide his body, while Earth held his feet, Wind sharpened his reflexes, and Lightning flowed along his nerves. Water cooled his senses. Fire fueled his will.

Each step—precise.

Each counter—measured.

When the Remnant’s void-laced blade came down, Leon didn’t block.

He shifted through it.

Not with speed. With timing.

And then he struck back.

Not with force.

But with certainty.

A punch—one imbued with all six elements—landed against the Remnant’s chest. Not to destroy.

But to resonate.

The crystal core shuddered.

For a moment... the voices stopped.

Then the Remnant let out a soundless gasp, and the room changed.

The battlefield twisted into an illusion of the final moments of each fallen King—every failure, every betrayal, every loss.

Leon walked through them.

Not mocking.

Not judging.

But seeing.

Remembering.

He reached the core again.

And this time, when he struck, it wasn’t to kill.

He opened his hand—and absorbed it.

The Tower screamed.

Not aloud—but through its walls, through its data, through its systems. The Remnant wasn’t meant to be saved.

But Leon had claimed it.

The chains shattered.

The memory echoes dispersed.

And as the core dissolved, a new symbol burned into Leon’s palm:

[Legacy Reconciled: Echo Crown Fragment Acquired]

• Grants Leon access to memory-form constructs from fallen Kings.

• Unlocked Passive: Anchor of Self – Immune to disorientation, memory distortion, and psychic redirection.

The room fell silent.

Varessa stepped forward, stunned. "You... saved it?"

Leon stood, breathing slowly. "No. I accepted it."

Kael looked at him. "And now?"

Leon looked toward the rising platform that had just activated in the center of the Remnant.

"We go up."

The platform ascended slower than usual.

As it passed through the void tunnel connecting Floor 508 to 509, the air became cold—not in temperature, but in meaning. Something was watching. Not a presence, but a concept. A will so vast it didn’t look at them—it considered them.

The elevator stopped.

No doors opened.

Instead, reality simply peeled away—revealing a room suspended in infinite white space. A flat black floor. No walls. No horizon.

In the center, a single chair.

And behind it, a figure made of light and metal, with four arms folded and a head shaped like a perfect circle of obsidian, without face, without eyes.

A voice spoke—but it came from inside Leon’s mind.

"Ascender 509 registered. Access override: Architect-Class."

Kael immediately stiffened. "That’s an Architect."

Roselia narrowed her eyes. "The ones who built the upper Tower levels."

Aris muttered, "So we finally reached their attention."

The Architect stood.

Its voice sounded like reality reciting lines it had been forced to memorize.

"You have climbed beyond the 500th floor with the Crown Circuit fully engaged.

You have bypassed three blockades, absorbed two failed legacies, and awakened the Echo Core.

That makes you a statistical threat."

Leon stepped forward. "You’re not here to fight."

"No," the Architect replied. "I am here to present a choice."

It raised one hand.

And the world changed.

The white void shifted, revealing dozens—no, hundreds—of versions of the Tower. Each one broken in different ways. Towers collapsed by internal wars. Towers that had no Crowns. Towers that ended in spirals or became prisons. Towers that burned their Kings from the inside out.

Leon watched them all.

The Architect continued.

"The Tower was not designed to be climbed.

It was designed to filter. To test. To refine potential.

You were never meant to reach this level.

No one was."

Leon’s jaw clenched.

"But I did."

"And that," the Architect said, "is the problem."

The world shifted again.

Now it showed images of Leon’s past—moments twisted, distorted. Times when he could’ve died. Friends he could’ve abandoned. Paths he never took.

Then it showed his team—Kael, Aris, Roselia, Roman, Naval, Milim—each one in a different possible future. Some dead. Some broken. Some corrupted by the very Tower they ascended.

The Architect stepped closer.

Updat𝓮d from freew𝒆bnovel(.)com