Chapter 119: World Breaker Core

Cassian stared at the television screen with a cold, unyielding expression.

The broadcast had officially ended, but the final blood-red message remained etched into his mind:

THE CRIMSON RECKONING HAS BEGUN.

Dense, suffocating Death mana leaked from his body, spreading through the living room like an invisible, freezing tide.

The temperature plunged as the oppressive energy gathered around him, and a faint, sharp cracking sound emerged from the floor beneath his boots.

His piercing blue eyes remained fixed on the darkened display.

Among the 350,000 seized locations displayed during the broadcast map was Stellar Academy.

Ruby’s school.

For a terrifying moment, the world around Cassian seemed to fall completely silent.

Then, his killing intent erupted.

The Death mana surrounding him surged violently, and the faint cracks beneath his feet widened across the floor.

Shadows deepened in the corners of the room as the atmospheric pressure grew heavy enough to make breathing agonizingly difficult.

Cassian’s fingers curled into tight fists, his knuckles turning stark white.

He had already lost his daughter once in his previous life. That haunting memory had plagued him for so long, becoming the sole driving force behind his absolute determination to grow stronger in this timeline.

And now, after regressing and receiving the power to alter his destiny, someone had dared to target Ruby.

His Ruby.

The daughter he had sworn never to neglect again.

For a brief, volatile second, the rational part of his mind struggled to contain the murderous impulses surging through him as he prepared to instantly vanish toward the school.

”Calm down, Cassian.”

A soft, warm hand settled gently onto his tense shoulder.

Cassian turned his head slightly and found his mother standing beside him. Seraphina’s blue eyes met his, her expression entirely serene despite the suffocating Death mana flooding the living room.

”Don’t worry,” she murmured smoothly. “The Overseer is with her. Ruby is safe.”

Cassian stared at her for several long seconds, his chest heaving.

Then, he slowly exhaled a long, ragged breath.

The Death mana receded back into his body, its crushing weight gradually diminishing until the room returned to normal.

The jagged cracks in the floor remained, but the terrifying pressure vanished. Luckily, Cassian possessed noticeable control over his mana compared to his return from the Lords domain, ensuring it didn’t leak outward to threaten the entire city.

He lowered his head briefly, steadying his pulse.

‘Right. Louis is with her.’

The Overseer was a Tier V Ascendant Lord. Against ordinary Evolvers, the absolute difference in power was so astronomical that it hardly warranted a second thought.

Even if the attackers had deployed hundreds of mercenaries, Louis was more than capable of obliterating them while keeping Ruby pristine.

That single logical realization allowed Cassian to fully regain his composure.

He turned back toward his mother. “You knew something was going to happen, didn’t you?”

Seraphina didn’t bother denying it. She gave a single, quiet nod.

”I had noticed unusual movements around Ruby’s school for some time,” she explained, her voice composed. “Unfamiliar individuals were lingering in the surrounding districts, and several subtle incidents raised my suspicions.”

Her expression remained unruffled. “I intended to investigate the matter personally today. However, when the Overseer arrived, I decided to delegate the task to him instead.”

Cassian listened in silence before giving a slight nod. “I see.”

Her explanation was entirely logical. Seraphina had always been fiercely protective of Ruby, and given her hidden power, it was hardly surprising that she monitored the academy.

If she had noticed suspicious activity, using Louis as an unsuspecting shield to clean it up was a brilliant domestic move.

At least, that was the conclusion he accepted on the surface.

Internally, however, his analytical thoughts took a far sharper turn.

‘This didn’t happen in my previous life.’

He remembered the historical timeline of his first life with absolute clarity. The Astral Dominion had suffered countless regional crises throughout its history, but nothing resembling this specific planetary event had occurred during this era.

The Crimson Reckoning had never been mentioned in the news back then. There had been no massive, simultaneous hostage crisis across hundreds of thousands of civilian locations, nor any organized terror network that had publicly challenged the Dominion in this manner.

Something had fundamentally shifted.

Another butterfly effect.

Cassian’s regression had already altered numerous key events. His choices had created rippling consequences, affecting individuals and circumstances far beyond his immediate sight.

Yet this particular deviation was fascinating.

He could already piece together how his actions had inadvertently triggered it.

His uncontrolled Death mana had originally drawn Louis directly to his apartment.

Because the Overseer had arrived on Roca, Seraphina had entrusted Ruby’s school pickup to him rather than personally investigating the suspicious activity at the academy.

And Louis, going to Stellar Academy in her place, had walked right into the middle of the ambush.

Whatever had transpired at the school, it was clear the situation had escalated far beyond what Seraphina had initially anticipated.

Cassian looked at his mother again, a strange, profound thought crossing his mind.

‘Just how powerful are you really?’

The fact that he had never heard of the Crimson Reckoning in his past life meant one of two things: either Seraphina had casually and single-handedly wiped out the entire terror organization in the original timeline before it could make headlines, or she had quietly contained the threat herself.

Considering how effortlessly she had suppressed Louis’s spiritual probe, that supreme confidence was far from baseless.

Yet the Crimson Reckoning had successfully seized over 350,000 locations across Planet Roca today.

Even if each site held only a small squad of Evolvers, the total hostiles numbered in the millions.

Coordinating an operation of that magnitude required astronomical resources, high-level intelligence, and flawless logistics.

Stopping a planetary invasion of that scale single-handedly would be an absurd feat.

Cassian’s expression grew complex.

‘My mother is ridiculously overpowered.’

He knew she was extraordinary, but it seemed he had drastically understated the true extent of her existence.

Before he could explore that train of thought any further, Seraphina’s expression suddenly shifted.

Her blue eyes narrowed sharply.

The faint, amused warmth that usually lingered in her features completely vanished, replaced by a cold, grave solemnity that instantly put Cassian on high alert.

”…It can’t be,” she whispered softly.

Cassian turned toward her, his body tensing. “What is it?”

Seraphina didn’t answer immediately. Her gaze shifted toward the silent television, though the broadcast had long since ended.

For several terrifying seconds, she remained completely motionless, as though listening to a distant frequency far beyond the physical room.

Then, she spoke, her voice dropping an octave.

”They activated a Worldbreaker Core.”

Cassian froze in his tracks.

For the first time since the crisis began, his dark composure genuinely shattered. His blue eyes widened in sheer disbelief.

”What?!”

A Worldbreaker Core was no ordinary explosive. It was a dark, forbidden planetary siege weapon designed to trigger an irreversible, catastrophic chain reaction within a world’s core, destabilizing its gravitational matrix until the entire planet detonated from within.

Depending on the core model and planetary composition, the resulting explosion would vaporize the world entirely, leaving behind nothing more than a lifeless field of asteroid debris.

Such weapons were heavily outlawed across the entire Astral Dominion. Their possession and activation were classified as ultimate existential threats, and even high-tier galactic civilizations hesitated to manufacture them.

Yet the Crimson Reckoning had somehow smuggled and armed one directly on Planet Roca.

Cassian stared at his mother, his pulse hammering against his ribs.

‘Are they completely out of their minds?!’

Taking civilian hostages was one thing; making political demands for retribution was another.

But activating a Worldbreaker Core meant hundreds of millions, if not billions, of innocent lives were about to be erased in an instant.

And his daughter was on this planet.

The Death mana around him began to boil once more, threat surging in his veins.

Yet before his killing intent could take over, Cassian forced his sharp mind back into absolute focus.

Panic was useless. Emotional outbursts solved nothing.

Cassian locked eyes directly with Seraphina, his voice cutting through the heavy air with razor-sharp precision.

”How much time do we have?”

….

Author’s Note: The weekly goals are still on, but I wanted to talk to you guys real quick. I’ve been dropping 3 chapters a day since the start of this month. I know that might not seem like much compared to full-time authors who drop 4–5, but as a student, it’s been a crazy grind. Balancing classes, endless homework, unfinished projects, and unread slides on top of writing and editing every day is a lot!