My Charity System made me too OP

The first thing Aris noticed was the air.

It was warm. Sweet.

Filled with birdsong that wasn't real.

The Harmonic Garden was famous in Ascender records as a "recovery floor"—a safe zone between brutal climbs. It mimicked a gentle forest clearing, complete with flowering trees, reflective pools, and ambient music playing from unseen instruments.

But there was something off.

The birds didn't sing in variation.

They repeated.

Looped.

Exactly every twelve seconds.

It wasn't harmony.

It was control.

She stepped cautiously into the clearing. Her repaired baton hung at her hip, wrapped in new rhythm thread Sereth had given her—black wire that hummed faintly when she moved.

The Sovereign mark was still hidden under a bandage. Just in case.

"This is too peaceful," she muttered.

Then the system chimed.

[Warning: Identity Mismatch Detected]

[Registered Sovereign Mark – Unauthorized]

[Initiating Stability Enforcement Protocol 4-A]

A hiss of steam came from the treeline.

And six figures emerged.

Clad in silver-white armor, robes woven with glyphs of the Ascension Guild. Their faces were hidden behind mirrored helms.

One of them raised a hand.

"Aris Vale," the leader said. "You are in violation of Tower Code. Unauthorized bearer of a Sovereign Mark. Your climb is terminated."

Aris raised an eyebrow.

"Wow. No warning trial? No big speech about justice?"

"We are not here to judge," the man said.

"Only to delete."

The grass beneath him disappeared.

No burn. No smoke.

Just erased.

Aris didn't run.

She stepped forward instead, eyes narrowed.

Her baton clicked loose from her belt.

"So, what—Sovereigns rewrite the rules, and you all panic?"

"Sovereign power must be regulated," another said.

"You mean controlled."

"Do not resist."

"No promises."

The first bolt came fast.

But her training had taken hold.

She pivoted to the side, rhythm-flashing into a tight spin, redirecting the kinetic pulse with her baton mid-twist.

CRACK

The glyph beneath her flared.

Shell Pulse responded—not through theory, but raw instinct.

She activated her first Combat Echo Form.

[Shell Reverb: Flickstep Displacement – Type 1 Initiate Form]

She vanished. Reappeared behind one of them.

And struck his back with the baton—shifting his tempo just slightly.

"Wait—!"

Too late.

His own armor moved half a beat too soon, cracking inward from his own energy backlash.

He fell.

Five left.

They circled.

"She has a working Shell Core."

"Impossible. Her records are blank."

"Adjust formation. Use Iso-Tempo Netting."

Aris didn't wait.

She attacked.

They were trained.

But they were predictable.

Aris's strength wasn't form.

It was rhythm-chaos.

She weaved between them like a skipped beat in a perfect composition. The baton pulsed against armor, redirecting strikes, borrowing tempo, and releasing it in counterflows.

One tried to box her in with a Tempo Net field.

She shattered it with a wild pulse from her gauntlet—half-broken again, but still alive with resonance.

Another tried to bind her with sync-sigils.

She reversed the flow with a back-kick into the glyphline—making the sigils shatter like glass.

By the end, four lay unconscious.

The leader stood alone.

He removed his helmet.

His face was tired. Old. Eyes gray like stone worn smooth by failure.

"You don't understand what you've done."

Aris pointed the baton at him.

"I didn't do anything."

"That's the problem. You're not meant to be here."

"Then why does the Tower keep opening?"

He didn't answer.

He reached for his final invocation glyph.

"Don't."

"I must."

"Then I will too."

She struck the ground.

The Sovereign mark flared—bright and bold.

"Let them see."

Far above, on Floor 307, a glyph lit up in Leon's sanctum.

Roselia was the first to read it.

"She's not hiding anymore."

Leon looked up from the map he was carving.

"Good."

"She's in danger."

"No," he corrected.

"She's defining herself."

Roman nodded. "Still want to wait?"

Leon's eyes flared faint gold.

"No. It's time someone visited Floor 4."

He turned.

"Send Milim."

Smoke drifted from shattered glyph lines. The air pulsed faintly with residual tempo cracks—small bursts of pressure where the Ascension Guild enforcers had once stood.

Aris leaned against a stone archway, sweat-soaked and swaying. The last blow had cost her more than she wanted to admit. Her baton was still intact, but her gauntlet was now sparking with a high-pitched whine. Another overload was coming.

"Well," she muttered, coughing blood into her sleeve, "that went great."

The Sovereign mark on her palm was still glowing.

She didn't care anymore.

"Let them come."

The Tower responded in kind.

A breeze shifted through the clearing.

Then—laughter.

Not mocking. Not cruel.

Just… amused.

"Okay, okay, okay—I gotta admit," said a girl's voice from above, "you're way more interesting than the last dozen climbers I watched nearly piss themselves at Floor 2."

Aris looked up—eyes widening.

Because someone was sitting on the air itself.

Casually.

Kicking her legs, grinning like she owned the sky.

Short silver-pink hair tied in messy twin-knots. Combat boots with tempo boosters welded directly to the soles. A cropped jacket covered in Sovereign sigils that moved like they were alive. And around her waist?

A metronome charm—shaped like a broken heart.

Milim.

The Mad Tempo Sovereign.

Milim dropped from the air like a skipping beat, landing inches from Aris without so much as a sound.

Her grin widened.

"Hey there, little Rhythm Wrecker."

"...what?" Aris rasped.

"That's what I'm calling you now," Milim said cheerfully. "You broke a bounty team's tempo sequence using a cobbled baton and stubborn rage. That earns you a nickname."

Aris raised the sparking baton weakly.

"You here to finish the job?"

Milim blinked.

Then burst out laughing again.

"Pfft—no! What am I, an enforcer? I'd get bored halfway through killing you. Besides…"

She tapped the Sovereign mark glowing on Aris's hand.

"Leon already marked you. That makes you kin. Well—cousin-level, at least."

"Kin," Aris echoed.

"Which means I'm here to ask you a very important question."

Milim stepped back. Snapped her fingers.

A glyph ignited in mid-air—pink and silver.

It projected a stairway. But not upward.

Sideways.

"You wanna come see what we built on Floor 307?"

Aris blinked.

"What?"

"Invitation. Real one."

"You're not testing me first?"

Milim grinned.

"Girl, you just turned five certified Guild agents into a percussion ensemble. You passed."