Grand Return System

A Hundred Years of Resentment

Even the wind became distant.

"Ever since I was born, I have been the center of attention. Among my peers, I have never tasted defeat. At the Eternal Principle Summit, I, who was the center of attention, had a chance of winning."

Gareth’s fingers tightened.

The memory clearly remained vivid even after all these years.

He could still remember the cheers.

The gazes.

The expectations.

Back then, he had believed the world belonged to him.

He had believed that his path would continue upward without end.

But then—

Leon’s Teacher had appeared.

"However, I didn’t expect your teacher, Cultivator Zeon, to soar into the sky and defeat me with the might of a celestial. From then on, he suppressed me for hundreds of years, making me unable to raise my head."

His voice became bitter.

The smile disappeared from his face.

"For hundreds of years, I watched him rise higher and higher."

Gareth’s red eyes flickered.

"From then on, no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t surpass him. I was depressed my entire life. People often talk about how stunning your teacher, Cultivator Zeon, is, but they never mention us failures."

The final words were almost a whisper.

For a moment, the terrifying presence surrounding him seemed to weaken.

Not because his strength had fallen.

But because his memories had dragged him backward through time.

Back to the Eternal Principle Summit.

Back to the moment his pride was shattered.

Back to the day when one person had risen above everyone else.

At this point, Gareth’s face darkened.

His eyes were a little lonely.

His heart ached.

In that era, only Cultivator Zeon was shining alone, and they could only serve as foil.

--------------------------

Once upon a time, Gareth had also been proud.

There had been a time when his name carried weight wherever cultivators gathered. When people spoke of the younger generation and the geniuses of his era, his name had stood among the brightest.

He had been confident.

He had been ambitious.

And, most importantly, he had once believed that his future was limitless.

However, ever since Zeon, that cultivation maniac, had appeared, something inside Gareth had slowly withered.

At first, he had fought harder.

Then he had tried to catch up.

After that, he had tried to surpass him.

But the distance between them only seemed to grow.

Eventually, Gareth fell silent.

The once-famous genius gradually disappeared from the center of the world’s attention. The legends that belonged to him became fewer and fewer, buried beneath the overwhelming brilliance of Zeon.

The wind swept across the battlefield.

Black mist continued to coil around Gareth’s body, while the pressure of his newly elevated cultivation spread through the sky.

Leon watched him quietly.

He could understand the grievance buried within Gareth’s heart.

In that era, Zeon had undoubtedly been the most dazzling existence.

He had been like a sun hanging above the heavens.

Everyone could see him.

Everyone remembered him.

And when one person shone too brightly, everyone standing nearby inevitably became a shadow.

The world remembered the first.

Very few people cared about the second.

And even fewer remembered those who had once stood beside them.

That was the cruel reality of cultivation.

Talent alone was not enough.

Sometimes, even extraordinary talent could be buried beneath someone else’s brilliance.

Gareth’s resentment had therefore accumulated over hundreds of years.

It was no longer merely jealousy.

It had become a wound that never healed.

Leon narrowed his purple eyes.

The wind brushed through his long, shoulder-length black hair, causing several strands to flutter across his face. His midnight robes moved softly around his body, the thin amethyst embroidery shimmering beneath the strange light filling the sky.

His voice remained calm.

"So, you found the strange aura and refined it, sacrificing the lives of millions for the darkness?"

The moment those words fell, the atmosphere became heavy.

There was no anger in Leon’s voice.

That made it even colder.

He wasn’t asking because he didn’t know.

He was asking because he wanted to hear the answer from Gareth himself.

Selena stood among the Celestis Academy students below.

Her silver-white hair moved gently in the wind.

Her blue eyes remained fixed on the figure in the sky.

Her hands slowly tightened at her sides.

Her parents had died during that chaos.

Countless innocent people had died with them.

Villages had been destroyed.

Cities had fallen.

Beasts from the depths of the uninhabited region had poured into the Fallen Leaf Domain like a tide of death.

The tragedy that had carved itself into her heart and refused to fade.

For months, she had carried that hatred.

For months, she had searched.

And now, the person responsible was standing directly before her.

Gareth laughed.

"Haha..."

His laughter echoed across the sky.

There was no regret in it.

Only a strange mixture of bitterness, madness, and the satisfaction of finally being able to reveal a secret that he had carried for so long.

"That’s right."

His eyes narrowed.

"I, who was depressed back then, thought that my life was destined to end here. I didn’t expect to discover a shocking secret by chance."

The black aura around him twisted violently.

"In the depths of the uninhabited region, connected to the other side of another domain, this magical power seeped out from the black river. This is an extremely powerful force. I spent a hundred years and finally broke a crack in the barrier."

Leon’s expression changed slightly.

His eyes sharpened.

He was the one who broke that crack?

For a moment, even the surrounding wind seemed to grow quieter.

Leon had once discovered the existence of this strange power in the depths of the uninhabited region.

At the time, he had not understood where it came from.

He had only known that something was wrong.

Now, Gareth had finally revealed the truth.

The strange aura had not simply appeared by chance.

Someone had deliberately opened a path for it.

Gareth continued slowly.

"Ever since I discovered this magical power, I began to think about how to absorb it."