I tend to play devil's advocate for manga, and I usually dislike it when people talk shit about a story for making choices they wouldn't have made. However, in the case of this story, I can't really ignore how mediocre it has become. Sure, it was never fantastic, but it had the makings of something dumb and fun, and hell, it was for a while. Now, I don't know.

Cain is just too perfect. He's incredibly powerful, yet humble, not a trace of arrogance or pride to be found. He's a natural-born leader and has no bias in his leadership. He's evenhanded when talking to those he should naturally find strange or even antagonistic, and empathetic to those he doesn't know. None of these things are bad in and of themselves, but the fact that he doesn't have a single flaw makes him boring. Normally, the way to combat this is simple... Just give your main character a flaw. But that doesn't have to be the only way; you can have a flawless Mary Sue and still have an interesting story. You just have to make sure that the world or story does the heavy lifting for the conflict, because there has to be conflict. It's basic storytelling.

In this, the conflict feels so weak. The Evil God hates him and is gonna do Evil God shit. Okay? So far, all he's done is get his ass kicked. I get that we're in the rising action, and the BBEG will get stronger in the future, but we already know where that ends. Cain will be stronger. He doesn't have to be more clever, more underhanded, or even use the magical power of friendship. He is just gonna struggle, maybe have another training arc, and then win. It's not even fun in a trashy kind of way, like with Anos Voldigold, because it's written straight. No twists or anything, it's as stereotypical power fantasy isekai slop as you can get.

And this is coming from me. I love trashy power fantasy stories, I'm a fucking trash goblin. I rummage around in the shit and bathe in slop like a pig in mud. I have, I can't stress this enough, terrible taste. And yet, even I'm getting bored that everyone in this story either wants to fuck or fawn over Cain, and the people who don't are all just evil bastards with no deeper motivations other than greed or base violence. And you know what? Doing a story straight like this can work, just not for 70 goddamn chapters. Apparently I've found my upper limit before I crave some variety.

I guess my overall opinion is that this story just isn't enough. Its action has gotten boring, its romance was never that interesting, and its characters have gone stale. I'll give the story this, though. It's character designs, while not particularly inspired, are done very well. That's about it.

Unfortunately, I was made to cut a few paragraphs due to the character limit. This jist is: If you like this, awesome. I talk a lot, but my opinion is just that. I'm done with this story, but I hope you can continue to enjoy it.

One week to both get eye treatment and recover is crazy. I love this series but I hope he extends that break a little. At the very least, I can't imagine many people would drop this story over a month long hiatus. I've waited longer for worse.

Dude, it's getting bad. The amount of times I see comments bitching about a plot hole or contrivance that never happened is staggering. Like, I'm half convinced that over 30% of the people on this site aren't literate. I understand that a slip-up can happen, people misread shit sometimes and that's fine, but I see it way too often.

Thanks

Where is this in the light novel?

Sir Ball Basher himself

You seem like an absolute delight to be around

I'm aware of the concept, but I prefer when stuff like this is explained. If it had been stated that he had brown eyes, or if it was shown from the perspective of someone else that his eyes were a different color. Hell, I would love if it was shown that other people have similarly strange eyes. I feel that any of those solutions would work more for my suspension of disbelief. In Demon Slayer it's explicitly said that the breathing styles are all just weapon techniques, so the viewer can infer that the flashy effects have to be artistic interpretation. That is not the case for this work. Not that it needs to be, or that it makes this a worse story, but it does itch at the back of my mind a bit.

Also, I feel it needs to be said that It is never directly stated that others can't see his eye color, so it's equally possible that they're just not regarded as strange in the post-system world. I don't want to attribute to artistic liberty what could just be a lore reason that hasn't been stated. Honestly, that feels like a weird thing to assume about any magic heavy fantasy story. When there are so many possible explanations related to the supernatural, assuming that the author is just exaggerating for effect doesn't come first to mind.

I haven't read it yet, but figured I'd give you a heads up considering it just dropped like forty chapters and was completed.

I don't know if I'd quite agree with that. The MC here is explicitly pretty evil. He has purely self serving motivations and damns everyone that gets in his way. Just because you have a goal that matters to you doesn't excuse treating people like meat puppets to dispose of whenever you please. If there was a child standing with a sword raised in his direction, he wouldn't hesitate to murder them, he just doesn't value human life, and based on the panels, quite enjoys toying with people and murdering them. Even if he was doing everything for purely practical reasons and didn't gain any perverse joy from killing, he would still be a horrendous person. Again, he is explicitly evil.

That's all fine, of course. I like this story and it's refreshing to see a character be a bastard so unrepentantly, but don't get it twisted, this mf is a villain. A demon from nightmares. He ain't an anti-hero or anything else even mildly good natured. If there was a category worse than villain he would be it.

Damn, he didn't even take more than like a couple weeks to avenge his master in real time. Speedran that shit

I know I should just suspend my disbelief, but the one thing that really gets me is just how distinctive the MC's eyes are. Like, they are bright red and slitted, how has no one put together who he is yet. Is there a glamor on them or something? I don't know why this bothers me so much, it's literally about a human coming back from hell after ten millennia to each kimchi stew, but I can't get over it.

Can't wait for the next chapter when Welton Senior cuts his bullshit time travel power, and then Krion time travels before that, and then-

I'm a bit stupid

Yo, does anyone know why all the images in the comments are blurred now? How tf do you turn that off?

Wow, this somehow made this convoluted mess of a storyline even less meaningful. What was the point in setting up the Abyss mage as a sympathetic character?

I don't have perfect memory, and I don't want to read this train wreck again, so forgive me if I get some of this wrong. In the flashbacks (we're ignoring the future bits for a second), the information we're given portrays him as a shady and feared dark mage. If I recall correctly, it doesn't give us a reason why. It's ambiguous. Then, we get to see his character.

He's a dedicated researcher, a pragmatic man, and as we can see in the future, at least slightly empathetic to Erina's passing. In the past, he comes off, to me at least, as a truly morally gray character. Honestly, besides his rep he doesn't even seem that bad.

In the last chapter, we see that in a fit of grief, Alfeas burns his decades of research. This paints the scene as a tragic and terrible mistake. The Abyss mage tries bargaining, saying that while this experiment failed, it could truly help save a ton of people. This reinforces that his character has ultimately positive intentions, and further portrays him as a sympathetic character. Now, I'm not saying this is bad, far from it, if fact. Him blatantly lying to his fellow researchers face could further reinforce his power hungry and malicious character... if there was any fucking set up at all.

It almost feels as if the author was like, "I've shown him being in the evil in the present, so that means that I don't have to give him a reason in the past." Like, what? We know why he's evil in the future, he was betrayed and seeks vengeance, but what is his motivation in the past? Was he power hungry? Then show that in the past before the big reveal.. Or at the very least mildly allude to it. Hell, even in the future it's not really shown that he has any designs on taking over the world, it's just shown that he's a bitter old man that feels betrayed, and that he will do anything to get his vengeance.

I feel a different reveal would have worked better. Like, maybe if the whole time he wanted to accrue magical knowledge and assimilate it into his mind? We know that he's a mage and a fiercely dedicated researcher, of course he would want that. It makes sense. Why the fuck does he want to take over the world? It feels out of character. It all just feels so cheap. Like the author couldn't think of a proper ending, and just went with this instead. Still, I won't call it objectively bad like I insinuated in the beginning. I will call it fucking stupid, though.

Okay, I'm done ranting. Sorry if this feels disjointed, I had to heavily cut this down so it would only be six paragraphs. It was originally like thirteen much thicker paragraphs. Goddamn character limit, lol.

Could you even change your name if you ever wanted to stop being downvoted? Or are you just permanently stuck at -999 because it's unchangeable?

You know, I don't know if I would have preferred if he was actually just a pedophile. It would at least make a modicum more sense than... this. First of all, how was it established she had the intelligence of a ten year old? What does that even really mean? What does that have to do with pain tolerance? And wouldn't the fact that she's mentally a ten year old be more important than her pain tolerance? Who cares if she can handle the pain if she's a child, they shouldn't be sleeping together in the first place. Honestly, I thought the plot twist was going to be that she was just a normal, albeit naïve, young woman. This? I couldn't have seen this coming in a million years.

The only real problem I had with with Alfeas at first was that he pursued someone who supposedly had the intelligence of a ten year old, but I just kind of assumed it was bad writing and he had an actual reason court her. After this? I'm more convinced that he actually believed the rumors around her intelligence and married her anyway. Why else go through with this dumb fucking experiment? What, was he going to tell everyone afterwards that he had worked with an outlaw mage to flash his brain into his wife's? No, he did this because he actually thought she had a child's mind.

This chapter somehow, fucking somehow, made this plotline creepier, more nonsensical, and more contrived than it already was. Fuck being suspended, my disbelief has been shredded at the atomic level.

I'm just saying... Called it. Dr. Disrespect ass motherfucker. Even if she doesn't have the mind of a ten year old, the fact that he's still going after her when he thinks that is the case is mega weird. There is a potential case of him wanting to just be friends, but based on the amount of blushing, I doubt it.