My Charity System made me too OP

Milim hit the ground rolling, fire already gathering at her fingertips before her boots even found traction.

She leapt to her feet, spinning into a fighting stance—breath ragged, eyes burning with energy.

"Alright, Tower. I don't know what you've got planned for me, but I'm not in the mood for a slow lecture!"

The space around her was bizarre.

No floors. No sky.

Just a storm.

A chaotic, swirling maelstrom, stretching forever in every direction. Lightning danced in slow motion. Winds screamed like wolves. The clouds were black, red, and burning blue.

At the center of it all: a pulsing sphere of energy, hovering like a heart suspended in the void.

Milim squinted.

She knew that energy.

It was hers.

A voice rolled from above, like thunder grinding through bone.

"You are fury given flesh. Rage, barely restrained. You carry the battle forward—but you are not its master."

Milim laughed. "Rude. But fair."

The energy pulsed once.

Suddenly, from the swirling storm, they came—dozens of versions of herself.

Not illusions.

Not shadows.

But past echoes.

Every battle.

Every rampage.

Every breakdown she'd had since Floor 1.

Each version was wild, unchained. Their eyes glowed with madness. Teeth bared. Weapons raised.

The Tower wasn't going to fight her.

It was going to make her fight herself.

Milim jumped as the first two echoes rushed her—one from Floor 86, the other from Floor 114.

She remembered both vividly.

The first was from the day she'd lost control and injured Roman in training.

The second—when she'd nearly brought down an entire Ascender base, enraged after Naval had been wounded.

She fought with grit, not grace—dodging the first, grabbing the second by the arm and flipping it into the storm.

But they didn't vanish.

They came back.

Faster.

More furious.

The ground beneath her exploded as the entire storm responded to her emotions—feeding off her anger.

She was making it worse.

"Damn it!"

She panted. Her body stung with cuts, sparks bleeding from her knuckles.

And yet… deep down, she smiled.

"If this is me… then I'm not running."

She unleashed everything.

Shell Pulse. Wild strikes. Flame kicks. She screamed and laughed and cried as she tore through her own chaos.

But it never stopped.

Each time she destroyed one echo, another rose. Sometimes as a berserker. Sometimes as a child, trembling and alone. Sometimes as a girl clutching a broken weapon, begging not to fight.

That one stopped her cold.

Milim froze.

The child form looked up at her.

"You left me behind."

The chaos paused.

She was alone again—this time in a vast, empty crater of silence. Only the child version remained.

Milim knelt.

"I didn't know what to do back then. So I… got angry."

"You kept getting angry," the child whispered. "Because if you felt anything else, you'd break."

Milim clenched her fists, then slowly opened them.

"Then let's break."

The storm surged—but she didn't rise.

She simply pulled the child into a hug.

And accepted everything.

Her rage. Her loneliness. Her fear.

Her strength.

And her weakness.

The moment she did, the storm around them quieted.

The wind became music.

The lightning, warmth.

[Emotional Synchronization Achieved.]

[Milim has accepted her true self.]

[Sovereign Trial Complete.]

The child faded, smiling.

And in her place appeared a flaming spear, wrapped in red and gold threads of emotional resonance.

Milim took it in hand, and her entire form burst into radiant light.

Hair lifted.

Armor reforged into a blazing royal pattern.

Eyes—still fiery, but no longer wild.

[Sovereign Form Awakened: Wrathstar Valkyrie – Tier VIII (Emotion Domain)]

She twirled the spear once, sending a wave of calm fire through the air.

"I don't have to tame the storm. I am the eye of it."

Far above, as Leon stepped through the Sovereign Hall's first corridor, a new pulse surged up his spine.

Another had succeeded.

He exhaled.

"Milim… welcome."

Roman stepped onto the platform, and the air changed instantly.

Not pressure. Not heat.

Paranoia.

A crawling sense that eyes were watching from the dark.

The space around him looked like a war table—vast, circular, with stone-tiled floors and an infinite number of chairs around a central map. On the board were towers, troops, kingdoms—miniature projections of campaigns long gone.

He recognized them all.

Campaigns he'd fought.

Plans he'd broken.

Leaders he'd betrayed.

Roman didn't flinch.

Instead, he muttered, "So the Tower wants me to face the part of me I already accepted."

"Not accepted," a cold voice replied. "Just buried."

A dozen figures stepped forward from the shadows.

Not monsters.

People.

Leaders from his past.

Commanders.

Allies.

Even a version of himself—in Sovereign robes.

Each one bore a sigil. Each one had once trusted him.

Each one had been betrayed.

One by one, the illusions spoke.

"You predicted we would fail… and let us walk into the ambush."

"You knew the odds. You chose the outcome—not us."

"You sacrificed the many to save the few."

"You never trusted us to stand by you."

Roman didn't deny it.

He walked forward, gloved hands behind his back.

"I made every call because I had to. Not because I wanted to."

One illusion stepped forward—his former General, Jera Malthin. A tactical legend. The woman who gave Roman his first command.

Her face twisted with pain.

"Then answer me, Roman. When you fall, who will make the call for you?"

Silence.

Because that was the truth, wasn't it?

He had built every strategy assuming he'd be the one standing.

He never trained others to replace him. Never let them close enough.

Because if someone else held the knife… they might use it.

The war table shifted.

Now, it wasn't maps.

It was his team.

Leon.

Roselia.

Milim.

Liliana.

Naval.

Each of them seated at the table. Each one glowing faintly—real, but echoes.

They waited.

Leon looked up.

"Roman. We've followed your plans into fire. We've trusted you in the shadows. So why won't you trust us to do the same?"

Roman stared at the projection. His lips moved before he thought.

"Because if I let go… and you fall… I don't know if I can keep going."

The air tightened.

And then the illusion shattered.