The Reincarnated Villain Can Break the Fourth Wall!

[A god empress?]

The dragon's voice echoed, ancient and unfathomable. [How dare you intrude upon my consciousness and disturb my sacred sleep?]

Its serpentine head lifted through a sky of stars, coiling through infinite space.

Among all things, even Immortal Kings were dust to it. From its gaze, only Immortal Emperors and Saints were worth noting—and even then, barely.

But now… this presence—

It was different.

Descending through the heavens of the spirit realm came a woman.

Clad in a robe of divine crimson, woven with immortal threads of Phoenix Silk and Celestial Gold, her attire shimmered with runes of war, each one echoing the cry of ten thousand slain generals.

Across her brow rested a crown of Blacksteel Flame, shaped like twin wings of a primordial phoenix, adorned with seven blood-red spirit pearls—each once belonging to a slain Demon King.

Upon her wrists: God-Dragon bangles, black as void, humming with sealed thunder.

Her hair—jet black, flowing like a waterfall of night.

Her eyes—blood-red, the shade of ancient battlefields soaked for centuries.

She walked without stepping, floating upon lotus petals of warlight, each footfall shaking the surrounding void with the echo of conquest.

This was not Xiao Hei, the brat in the ring-world.

This was the War God Empress of Ten Thousand Worlds.

_____

The dragon narrowed its eyes.

[You... You have reversed time's flow and returned to your own beginning.]

His tone was no longer derisive.

It was wary.

Xiao Hei's lips curved faintly.

Her voice was low and serene, like a melody spoken over the bones of ancient kings.

"So the Void still retains clarity, even in slumber. Not bad."

Her aura gently pressed forward.

The very spirit sea shivered.

[Hmph. I was once an Eternal Sovereign.] The dragon's voice rumbled, prideful. [My eyes pierce illusion and time alike. You cannot deceive me.]

She chuckled.

"Yes. You were a Sovereign. Now look at you. A broken beast hiding inside the spirit sea of a half-baked brat."

Before he could respond, she raised her hand—

And her Empress Aura descended.

An invisible palm struck the dragon's forehead.

Thunder roared. The void trembled.

It was not damage—it was dominion.

Even here, powerless as she was outside, her spirit could still command awe.

___

The Void Thunder Dragon did not retaliate.

Because she was right.

He had not descended here of his own will.

He had fled—through timelines, across diverging destinies—to escape the blades of another Sovereign.

He had chosen Su Xiaobai's body as a hiding place.

But now…

Now he was being asked for a favor?

____

[What do you seek, Empress?]

His tone had shifted—no longer angered, but cautious.

Xiao Hei gestured lightly.

A single flick of her red-sleeved arm, and she pointed below.

"I require your assistance. Hide this boy from Heaven's gaze."

Silence stretched.

[...He is already doomed.]

[Why waste effort shielding one whom the Heavens have marked?]

Her eyes narrowed.

"Who said I wish to save him?"

There was fury behind her words.

Her hands trembled—briefly.

Then calmed.

From within her robes, she pulled out a scroll.

Bound in black underworld silk, its seal burned with golden infernal script that no living mortal could inscribe.

She let it drift into the dragon's sight.

As it unfurled, it let out a pulse of netherlight, and the temperature of the spirit sea dropped.

The dragon's eyes widened.

[This… This reeks of the Underworld…]

Then his pupils shrank.

He saw the name written within.

"AZRAKAI—!!"

The name alone shattered a thousand forbidden seals in the air.

Immediately, he shut his eyes, withdrew his aura, and pressed his claws into the void to seal the space again.

To speak that name openly was to court death.

[How… how did you acquire this?]

Xiao Hei's voice was calm.

"I did not. The Lord of the Underworld traced me. Across the timelines, beyond the will of Heaven."

"He planted a minion—hidden, buried deep in the folds of fate—to deliver it to me..."

Her voice softened for a breath.

A memory. A sorrow.

Then, it hardened again.

"What is written within… may free your friend from the shackles of Heaven."

"Or at the very least… protect his legacy."

The dragon was silent.

Contemplating.

Watching.

____

[...I shall consider your request.]

Then he frowned again.

[But why? If you detest him… why protect him?]

Xiao Hei looked away.

The blood-red glow of her eyes shimmered with ancient storms.

"…That is not your concern."

And with that, she vanished—her warlotus petals dispersing into red motes, her presence retreating back into slumber.

[A/N: The Void Thunder Dragon would later describe the experience as "being insulted, bitch-slapped, blackmailed, and ordered around by a barefoot empress in half a breath."

He would never admit that it was the most exciting thing to happen to him in several thousand eons.]

______

Once Xiao Hei returned to the ring-world, her divine aura faded into silence.

Her fluttering red robe dissolved into motes of divine flame...

The war crown faded. Her terrifying aura—enough to silence holy beasts—vanished as if it had never existed.

The celestial battle regalia that adorned her vanished like mist before morning sun, leaving behind the slender figure of a girl draped in a simple red dress—barefoot, pouting slightly, and looking extremely annoyed at existence itself.

She yawned. Loudly.

Then flopped face-first onto the soft jade grass of the endless green fields.

This inner ring world was vast, but monotonous—an open sky that never changed, plain rolling hills, and mountains that looked like they had given up trying to be interesting.

"Boring."

She mumbled into the ground.

___

But her thoughts would not rest.

She was still surprised—deeply—that Su Xiaobai possessed the Void Thunder Dragon in his sea of conciousness.

In her previous life, she had searched his secrets to the bone. Torn through every relic, every world he stepped in. Not once had this being ever appeared.

So why now? Why this life?

And then it clicked.

Void Thunder Dragon existed outside of time and space. It didn't simply move through timelines—it was in all timelines at once.

Its presence in one meant its presence in all.

But only once awakened did its will choose which version to acknowledge.

And in this life… it had acknowledged her.

That also meant—it had witnessed the original.

It knew the past life.

It had seen Xiao Hei, not as a child, but as the fully realized God Empress, standing atop armies of gods, challenging the Four Heavens, her banner planted in the skies of annihilated realms.

And now?

It saw her as this—a girl, in a ring, munching snacks, arguing with herself, sleeping half the day like a lazy spirit cat.

Truly pitiful.

____

Elsewhere, in the space between moments, the Void Thunder Dragon coiled through silence.

A creature of paradox—existing beyond time, tethered to every timeline simultaneously. His awareness flickered through the river of fate, tracing this Xiao Hei's path.

And the truth revealed itself clearly:

In the original flow of time, she should be nothing more than a young girl, barely awakened, following Su Xiaobai with childish stubbornness.

But now?

She was far more than she should be.

A sovereign force wearing the shell of a girl.

The dragon had already deduced what had happened.

With its vision unbound by chronology, it recognized:

She had chased herself backward—using the Dao of Time—to return to her own origin, forced back along the River of Time by an unfulfilled will so potent, it bent causality itself.

And yet, the Heavenly Laws did not permit such things lightly.

She was not an Eternal Sovereign.

That rank—unshackled from time and existence—belonged to the dragon.

She was a God Empress. Glorious, yes. Supreme, yes.

Yet... A few levels beneath the highest tier of true existence. Even with her unfathomable might, she was still subject to the laws of the reality she once ruled.

He, on the other hand, existed beyond those bindings.

If he had not been injured—crippled during a battle that tore through a hundred timelines—then perhaps that confrontation moments ago would have ended very differently.