In short, the story is complete bullsh*t with little plot that is surprisingly only redeemable in its rom-com, slice of life, and combat aspects. Vikir shares the similar traits of a typical Japanese isekai edgy protagonist: he has effectively no emotions, is overpowered as f*ck even being in his pre-teens, and gets all the girls. This begs the question for me, what was the point of writing this kind of story in the first place? The world building on the surface isn’t unique in magical medieval fantasy land, but the depth of it is unimaginable. The 7 main families Leviathan (poison), Don Quixote (heroism), Usher (assassination), Baskerville (warfare), Quo Vadis (faith), Morgue (magic), and Bourgeois (money) are from different aspects of folklore and mythology that it is surprising to see them mesh together in a world so well. Additionally, factors like the Ballak tribes, monsters in the deep forest, and the prison in the deep add a lot of nuance to an otherwise very shallow world.

Yet the author makes easily deductible plot points (the 8th demon being Camus Morgue for instance instead of Snake Morgue, Sadi really being Ouruburuous, etc) while being able to show that they are to make really good twists (the principal turns out to be the 5th demon, while in the 5th demon’s lair, the ceiling above the 1st floor was where he really was, and the 1st demon had split into two into the evil 1st prince and Piggy, the 2nd prince, etc). So it just seems that the author was really lazy in making some plot points yet strong in others, which makes for a wildly inconsistent story line.

If there was the point in why such a story was conceived, the best answer I could give is “because the author wanted to write down their imagination”. If the point of the story was a way to show how the emotionless can regain their emotions or how precious such things are, the story should’ve stopped the moment Vikir hit the 8th fang swordsmanship, or the 10th swordsmanship should’ve been about emotions. Yet he reaches that point about halfway into the story, leaving me little to believe that was the point of the story. In particular, the virtual and the prison arc were the most slogging to read, and I frequently had to skip a chapter because I could not give a damn about the story itself.

Also, why is everyone but Vikir portrayed as dumb as shit, I feel like either the characters that are truly smart don’t get enough limelight or portrayed as much (with the exception of the head jailer and the former Sadi head) and the side characters just feel like filler to me most of the time. Vikir seems to discover something almost every single time, and don’t get me started on Dolores, it really took her 300+ chapters from the orphanage incident to realize that Vikir was the night hound? Like she even got a artifact that lets her peer into the person’s true face, and refuses to use it twice despite it stating her curiosity for Vikir, well it could be understood as her faith towards the Night Hound but still, it’s f*cking ridiculous to me as a reader. ‘

Overall, I liked the novel, I liked the harem, I liked Tudor, Piggy, Osiris, etc but me liking Hugo was a huge surprise for me in the end. Yet it has many major flaws, and I really wished the author stopped its style of wuxia/xianxia writing to have these ‘young masters’ act so superior and ultimately getting their face caved in, like it’s fine the first time, but once it comes up twice or thrice, it has overstayed its welcome especially within the light novel scene. Would I recommend anyone reading this? If you like revenge p*rn, action, and good worldbuilding sure, but the plot is like the ocean, you have to go along with the flow no matter where it takes you and the author seems to like overwriting a bit too much. Also I hate that all the romance was effectively shoved in 5-6 after story chapters and I really wished that more romance chapters was a thing, since the female cast all were superb in general in terms of character development, and I loved the happy ending most of all.

In the end, he go back to original world and his wives followed. They cannot go back to the parallel (the one MC is in the entire story) because the door is closed and the dude who can open it is dead. Anyway, dead people resurrected and they have a happily ever after)

Such as the trio. After the jail arc, they only appeared when they want to go to mc's base and then the next is the cutie niece! She just appeared during the time when MC made a deal with damian to summon juliet's soul and the side story where they bring back to life. I was actually hoping to see more of interaction between the two. Especially when she grow up *sigh*

Hinting about Piggy and giving a insignificant boost to the main character. The author could have write something better but no he wanted to have a Dungeon/Virtual Arc, I know Solo Leveling is popular but a whole Arc/Volume for such an insignificant arc. It is fortunate that the next two arcs, The Prison and The War are intense and interesting. Also if you are wandering, yes, he will have a harem in the end. It is not told only implied after "They" followed him.

his father, Hugo

Hugo's painted as this overwhelmingly strong, near emotionless and brutal character that doesn't care about his children and only values people who have great talent. An intimidating character that actually poses a threat to our MC since he is the head of his house and can move some of the most powerful people on the continent however he wishes, plus he is the ultimate authority the MC cannot escape and who's orders he has to obey until he can find a way to somehow break away from his family. This was what interested me in the first place, since the MC loathes his father and wants revenge against him for wrongfully killing him/ruining his life but at the same time he has to obey this man's words and pretend to be a good, talented son for him again after he regresses. The MC continually getting stronger and barely hiding his seething hatred while Hugo, the head of house, could kill him at any time should he become suspicious sounded like a fresh and interesting premise. Intrigue and scheming + action scenes would be pretty tense in such a setting, no?

So tell me why the author choose to make Hugo do a complete 180 personalty wise the second MC brings back his lost niece and suddenly he's this soft, doting grandfather that would do anything for this little girl. Even the MC was flabbergasted when this happened in the novel and sure, it would've been kinda funny if it was a gag or something but since Hugo is supposed to be this imposing evil the MC cannot possibly defeat it just ruins any kind of tension that may have been established before. Now, since the MC brought her back to him, Hugo's suddenly nicer to him and listens to the MC's opinions + seems to care for him, it just made the whole plot until now feel cheap.

This is a revenge story, if I have to remind you. A revenge story that lost its main antagonist some 150 chapters in.

Instead of the threatening, unfeeling Hugo as the final-boss we now get some other generic 'wants to ruin the world because plot'-cult or something and I find that pretty disappointing.

where she gets possessed by a demon (I think? Been a while since I've read it, sorry) because of cultivation even despite her talent. I thought that could be something interesting.

the saint

Was there really a point as to why he had to go to school? Not really. He just goes to school during the day and hunts demons at night, but he doesn't get anything out of going to school except friends and angst moments of hiding his identity. He doesn't learn anything at school because he is already beyond so I don't really get the point. He could just spend more time hunting demons if he didn't attend. His family already cleaned up his revival so it's not like he needed to reveal anything or even be public. It's just an arc that allows him to play commoner and surprise the nobles and strong people. Tickles that part of the brain that keeps people reading such novels probably. Professor Sandy was also an unnecessary weirdo perv. I got through it fine.

In a way, the first question you have is... why didn't he prevent such a disastrous thing? The answer is tedious. The tower let's you become stronger and apparently has helped create heroes of the past timeline, just at the expense of people's lives so whatever.

The real problem is that a game system like power scale is introduced and it's just odd. No explanation as to why or how exactly this is a thing now, so just accept it.

Also, this place is the Hell Tree, but it can make its participants stronger once they get out. Why in the world would a demon ever let people out even stronger than when they went in? They're making their enemies stronger for what? It's not worth much except helping MC upgrade from a 7.5 to 8.

There were so many words wasted on how MC would need to keep his identity hidden so he won't be linked to his villain persona later. So what is the f*cking reason for him to confess!? Why be so meticulous if you were gonna reveal it? When he reveals it, it is explicitly so he gets arrested, not even to clear the misunderstanding of why he did the things he did as Night Hound. He clearly has the capability to gather evidence, he could even forge it if necessary, so why not reveal that demons are hiding in human society and trying to weaken them. Just reveal everything already. He didn't even tell the Baskerville family about the demons.

Plus does he even need to reveal? Granted this is the exact moment I decided to drop, but I read spoilers and the reasoning makes no sense to me. He needs some artifact or something (dragon egg?) Buried in the prison. And he thinks... the best way to get it is to become a prisoner and waste years digging and being a fake prison guard at some point? Ridiculous waste of time because apparently the demons still left use that time to become stronger.