Chapter 9: The Academy of Broken Heroes
The golden light didn't just sit on Lin Feng's skin; it burrowed. It felt like a thousand warm needles stitching themselves into his pores, a permanent biological brand of "Goodness" that made his very stomach churn.
[**SYSTEM NOTIFICATION: HERO STATUS STABILIZED.**]
[**CURRENT KARMA: 100% PURIFIED.**]
[**NEW OBJECTIVE: ENROLL IN THE 'VALOR ASCENDANCY ACADEMY'.**]
Lin Feng stared at the message floating in his vision, his eyes bloodshot. He was still in the White Room, but the walls were no longer steel. They had transformed into ivory-veined marble. The sterile smell of lilies had been replaced by the scent of old parchment and burning incense—the classic atmosphere of a "Hero's Training Ground."
"Enrolled?" Lin Feng's voice was a rasp. "I've destroyed a dozen academies like this. I've burned their libraries and executed their headmasters. And now you want me to sit in a desk?"
The door opened. It wasn't Su Qingxue. It was a man wearing a blindfold and a robe embroidered with constellations. He carried a staff that hummed with the same sickeningly pure energy that now radiated from Lin Feng's chest.
"Student Lin Feng," the man said, his voice like grinding stones. "I am Sage Hektor. I am here to teach you the first lesson of a Hero: Sacrifice."
Lin Feng stood up, his fists clenching. He felt the 'Hero's Halo' flare behind his head, a bright, shimmering disc that made him look like a saint. "I know everything about sacrifice, old man. I've sacrificed entire civilizations for a Rank-S mana core."
"That is the sacrifice of a monster," Hektor said, stepping closer. "A Hero does not sacrifice others. A Hero sacrifices his own desires. His own peace. His own... identity."
Hektor tapped his staff on the floor.
The marble room dissolved. Lin Feng found himself standing in the middle of a crowded plaza. It was beautiful—terrifyingly so. Children ran with kites that looked like phoenixes, and the air was filled with the song of a thousand crystalline chimes.
"Where is this?" Lin Feng demanded, his hand instinctively reaching for a dagger that was no longer there.
"This is your 'Internal Sanctum'," Hektor explained. "Su Qingxue has linked your Neuro-Link to a simulated reality. Every person you see here represents a life you took in your previous 999 incarnations. They are ghosts given form by her System."
Lin Feng looked around. A woman passed him, carrying a basket of bread. He recognized her. Life 442. He had poisoned her well to test a new toxin. A child tugged at his robe. Life 12. He had used that boy as a human shield against a Paladin.
They weren't screaming. They were smiling.
"They don't remember," Lin Feng whispered, a cold sweat breaking out on his neck.
"They don't," Hektor agreed. "But you do. And the Neuro-Link ensures that every time one of them smiles at you, you feel a spike of 'Heroic Joy.' And every time you think of harming them, you feel the 'Villain's Agony'."
A girl with braided hair walked up to Lin Feng and handed him a small, blue flower.
The moment his fingers touched the petals, a jolt of pure, unadulterated ecstasy shot through his spine. It was a high more powerful than any drug, a flood of serotonin so intense it made his knees buckle.
[**PHYSIOLOGICAL ALERT: EXTREME DOPAMINE SURGE.**]
[**REASON: PERFORMING A SELFLESS ACT.**]
"Stop it!" Lin Feng screamed, throwing the flower down.
The moment the flower hit the dirt, the ecstasy turned into a crushing, agonizing depression. It felt as if his soul was being dragged through shards of glass. His heart rate plummeted, and a suffocating weight settled on his chest.
"This is your training," Hektor said, his voice echoing from the sky. "You are conditioned to be kind. If you are a Hero, you feel heaven. If you are a Villain, you feel hell. Physically. Chemically. Inescapably."
Lin Feng panted, crawling on the ground to pick up the blue flower. As soon as he held it again, the pain vanished, replaced by that sickening, artificial bliss. He hated it. He hated the flower, he hated Hektor, and he hated the woman who was watching all of this from her throne.
"I'll break the simulation," Lin Feng hissed, looking for a glitch. "I've hacked Systems before."
"You cannot hack a heart that is no longer yours," Hektor replied. "The Heroine has merged her 'Regret' with your 'Armor.' You are the engine of her redemption."
Suddenly, the plaza changed. The sky turned a bruised purple, and the smiling ghosts began to melt into shadows. Su Qingxue stepped out of the darkness, her violet eyes glowing with a dark, regal hunger. She was no longer wearing the white robe; she wore black plate armor that seemed to drink the light.
"How do you like your classmates, Feng'er?" she asked, her voice vibrating through the Neuro-Link.
"You're sick, Qingxue," Lin Feng spat, still clutching the blue flower like a lifeline to avoid the pain. "You've turned my victims into my drug dealers."
"I've turned them into your motivation," she corrected, walking toward him. Every step she took caused the shadows of his victims to groan in unison. "I am going to attack this city, Lin Feng. I am going to play the Villain. I am going to slaughter every single one of these 'ghosts' you see."
Lin Feng's eyes widened. "Why? They're just simulations."
"Because if I kill them, you will feel their death through the link," she whispered, leaning down until her cold breath hit his ear. "Every scream will be a migraine. Every drop of blood I spill will feel like a literal hole being bored into your skull. Unless... you stop me."
"I won't play your game," Lin Feng growled.
"Then you will die a thousand deaths without ever leaving this chair," she said.
She turned and raised her hand. A bolt of violet lightning struck the fountain in the center of the plaza. The water turned to blood. The woman with the bread basket screamed as her clothes caught fire.
Lin Feng collapsed.
It felt as if his own skin was blistering. He clutched his throat, gasping for air. The Neuro-Link was translating the simulated woman's pain directly into his nervous system.
[**WARNING: EMPATHIC OVERLOAD.**]
[**HOST HEART RATE: 190 BPM.**]
[**PAIN THRESHOLD: 94% REACHED.**]
"Save her, Hero!" Su Qingxue laughed, her voice a cruel melody. "Save her and the pain stops! Be the man the world wants you to be!"
Lin Feng tried to crawl away, but the agony followed him. Every time a simulated person died in the background, a new "wound" opened in his mind. He saw a child trampled by a shadow-beast, and his own ribs felt as if they were snapping one by one.
"I... am... a... Villain!" Lin Feng roared, blood leaking from his nose.
"Then suffer like one!" Su Qingxue countered, her hand glowing with the power to erase the city.
Lin Feng looked at the woman in the fire. He knew she wasn't real. He knew this was a trap. But his body didn't know. His nerves didn't care about logic. To his brain, he was being burned alive.
With a scream of pure frustration, Lin Feng stood up. The 'Hero's Halo' behind him exploded in golden light. A sword made of pure, solidified light manifested in his hand—the 'Blade of Providence.'
"I'll kill you!" Lin Feng shouted, charging at Su Qingxue.
He swung the blade. It was a perfect strike, aimed at her neck. It was the move of a master assassin.
*SHIIIIING.*
The blade didn't cut her. The moment the edge touched her skin, the 'Hero's Luck' intervened. The sword turned into a flurry of harmless butterfly wings.
"The Hero cannot harm the Villain until the 'Final Battle'," Su Qingxue mocked, catching a golden butterfly in her hand. "And we are only at the beginning of the term."
She leaned forward and kissed him.
The Neuro-Link surged. The 'Heroic Joy' of the kiss fought against the 'Empathic Pain' of the burning city. It was a cacophony of sensation—his brain was being pulled in two directions, his synapses firing so fast they began to smell like ozone.
"You are going to learn to love me, Lin Feng," she whispered against his lips. "Even if I have to burn a million simulated souls to make your heart beat for me."
She pulled back and snapped her fingers.
The simulation ended.
Lin Feng was back in the ivory-veined room. He was strapped into a chair he didn't remember sitting in. His body was soaked in sweat, and his hands were shaking uncontrollably.
Sage Hektor stood over him, holding a tablet.
"Grade for Lesson One: B-minus," the Sage said. "You saved the woman, but you did it with hatred in your heart. We must work on your sincerity."
"Kill me," Lin Feng wheezed. "Just... delete the save file. End the life."
"A Hero does not seek the easy way out," Hektor said, clicking a button on the tablet.
Suddenly, a screen appeared on the wall. It was a live feed of the real world.
Lin Feng saw his own body—his physical body—lying in a medical pod in Su Qingxue's secret base. He looked peaceful, glowing with a soft gold light. But standing over his body was Su Qingxue, and she wasn't alone.
She was holding a small, glowing vial.
"Is that... my soul?" Lin Feng asked, his voice trembling.
"No," Su Qingxue said, looking directly into the camera as if she could see him through the simulation. "This is the 'Villain Core' I ripped out of you during the Role Reversal. I've been analyzing it, Feng'er. I found something interesting."
She held the vial up to the light. Inside, a tiny, dark spark flickered.
"This spark is the only reason you were able to transmigate 999 times," she explained. "It's a 'Seed of Chaos.' And as long as it exists, there's a chance you could become a Villain again. And I can't have that."
She opened the vial and drank the dark spark.
Lin Feng felt a coldness spread from his stomach to his toes. It wasn't simulated pain. It was a void.
"What did you do?" he whispered.
Su Qingxue's skin began to ripple with black veins. Her eyes turned completely dark, the violet disappearing into an endless abyss. She let out a breath of black smoke.
"I didn't just take your role, Lin Feng," she said, her voice now a chorus of a thousand demons. "I took your past. I am now the one who committed all your crimes. The world remembers *me* as the one who burned the villages. The world remembers *me* as the one who betrayed the kings."
[**SYSTEM EMERGENCY:**]
[**HISTORY IS BEING REWRITTEN.**]
[**LIN FENG RECORD: 100% BLAMELESS.**]
[**SU QINGXUE RECORD: 100% ANTAGONIST.**]
"You're erasing yourself?" Lin Feng asked, stunned. "You'll be the most hated being in the multiverse."
"I don't care about the world," she said, a single tear of black ichor falling down her cheek. "But here is the twist, my love. Since I have your 'Villain Core,' and you have my 'Heroic Halo'... our lives are now inverted. If I am defeated... you don't win."
She smiled, a jagged, broken expression.
"If the Hero kills the Villain, the story ends. And if the story ends, the 'Protagonists' vanish. If you defeat me, Lin Feng... you will cease to exist. You won't die. You will be 'Deleted' from history. No reincarnation. No afterlife. Just non-existence."
Lin Feng's heart stopped for a literal second.
"So," she whispered, leaning into the camera. "Your final lesson at the Academy is this: You must protect me. You must ensure the Villain never loses. Because the moment I fall... you disappear forever."
[**NEW WORLD QUEST: PROTECT THE VILLAINESS.**]
[**REWARD: CONTINUED EXISTENCE.**]
[**FAILURE: TOTAL ERASURE.**]
Lin Feng looked at the 'Blade of Providence' in his hand. It was glowing brighter than ever, humming with the urge to slay evil. His body was screaming at him to kill the woman on the screen. His 'Heroic' instincts were demanding justice.
But if he listened to his body, he would vanish.
"Cliffhanger, isn't it?" Su Qingxue's voice echoed through the room.
She reached out and turned off the screen.
The room went pitch black.
"Welcome to your new life, Hero," Sage Hektor's voice whispered in the dark. "Class begins in five minutes. Try not to vanish."
Lin Feng sat in the dark, his golden aura the only light in the void. He felt his own 'Heroic Luck' trying to guide his hand to his own throat again, but the 'Plot Armor' locked his muscles.
He was a man forced to be a savior, tasked with protecting the monster he hated most, trapped in a body that wouldn't let him die and a world that wouldn't let him lose.
He felt a hand touch his shoulder in the dark. It was cold. It felt like his own hand, but it wasn't.
"Don't worry, Feng'er," a voice whispered—a voice that sounded exactly like his own Villainous voice from Life 1. "I'll help you kill her. Even if it costs us everything."
Lin Feng turned, but there was no one there.
Only a mirror.
And in the mirror, his reflection wasn't glowing. It was smiling. It was the smile of the 999th Villain, and it was holding a knife to the 'Hero's' throat.
[**DING!**]
[**CHAPTER 9 COMPLETE.**]
[**REMARK: THE HERO'S GREATEST ENEMY IS HIS OWN REFLECTION.**]