The Villainess Enjoys Her Seventh Life as a Free-Spirited Bride (hostage) in a Former Enemy Country - Chapter 16: How to win the (future) Emperor

Kai’s life was small—coffee-stained mornings, cracked recipes, and a system in his head that tweaked toasters and dough like it was nothing. Then the sky shattered. Aliens—Skraiths, jagged and brutal—invaded, tearing his city apart with green-glowing weapons and relentless claws. Superhumans rose to fight back, fire and lightning blazing through the chaos, but Kai’s world crumbled with them.Hiding in his apartment, Kai stumbles on blood—human and alien, smeared on his wall after a superhuman battle. His system, once just a tinker’s tool, awakens, offering him a choice: mimic their powers, temporary and wild, through the blood itself. Desperate, he takes it—stealing pyrokinesis, then electrokinesis, then kinetic energy, each power burning through him, fading fast. But it’s not enough. Armed with a humming Skraith weapon and a body tougher from alien blood, Kai joins a ragtag crew of enhanced fighters—Liv, Rylan, Jace, and Tucker—scraping to survive in a warzone where every shadow hides death.As Skraiths swarm and the city burns, Kai’s system pushes him deeper, analyzing, integrating, crafting minor enhancements—durability, strength, sparks of power that could make him a target or a savior. Government factions, rogue scientists, and the aliens themselves start sniffing around, drawn to his strange tech and blood-stolen abilities. By the time Kai crafts his first super-powered enhancement—an artificial strength boost—he’s no longer just a tinkerer. He’s on the edge of something bigger, something dangerous, where blood and sparks could forge a hero—or break him entirely.In a world unraveling, Kai’s fight for survival becomes a desperate race to master his system, outrun the Skraiths, and confront the truth: the power he’s chasing might destroy him—or remake the world.

Arthur was a weak and cowardly boy who lacked the power to protect anyone—a truth brutally demonstrated when his parents were massacred while defending him during a Gate outbreak. As the sole survivor, Arthur spent weeks believing his life was over. When intense chest pains began, he assumed he'd been infected with corruption by the void creature that killed his parents and was merely waiting for death.What Arthur didn't expect was that these sensations actually signaled his Realm Core forming. In two months' time, he would be forcefully transported to the next realm and awaken new powers, becoming one of the world-renowned “Chosen” who protect humanity from Gate outbreaks. Now Arthur must rise through the heights of power, climbing each of the seven realms in hopes of saving his world... or does he?

In the realm of immortal cultivation, Lu Changsheng traversed as a peasant youth, overlooked by a celestial sect. Yet, endowed with the Multitude Progeny System, he could earn rewards by propagating his lineage, nurturing offspring.Thus, Lu Changsheng began his journey by marrying into a cultivation family, embarking on a path of intrigue, networking, and fostering descendants to expand his family’s cultivation legacy.As the cycles of time passed and epochs changed, countless supreme beings in the realms of immortality, formidable figures in the demonic path, revered saints among the demon races, and peerless beauties rose and fell, fading into the river of years.Only Changsheng’s family endured, immutable through the ages, perpetually existing, towering atop the path of immortality, sharing longevity with the heavens and earth, radiating brilliance akin to the sun and moon.

Genius, antisocial, solitary, intractable , maniacal.

At the turn of every era, it is he who raises the flag of the rebel cross.

Winners take it all, losers take the fall.

He who brings order to a chaotic world, assembles talents and masterminds.

He who hides among the crowd, yet stands on the top of the world.

— The one and only, him.

- Description from Novelupdates