Specifically what I am referring to is the male lead will cause countless people to suffer casually. For me this separates into two categories, evil and not evil people. There are Dark mages in this world that are all essentially evil and they eat human flesh to grow stronger, the male lead captures and tortures them for reasons and while I hate it when the author is going into details about forcing them to eat their own feces, at the end of the day I can ignore the section and sum it up in my mind as bad things happening to bad people. I don't think it justifies his behavior, but I can overlook it without much of an issue because it's a story and it's obviously suppose to be bad things happen to bad people.

The big issue that I have is that the male lead is both willing and actively causing countless innocent people/good people to suffer without any hesitation. For some examples:

• • Creates a barrier around a town locking everyone inside, with the area inside being incredibly hot. He would only remove the barrier once a ransom was paid (3 dark mages)

• • When capturing Dark mages in town he causes damage to houses and the town around him, and doesn't fix it despite it being easy for him.

• • When he was angry he interfered with all magic, causing any mage in the air to fall and hurt themselves.

• • Just casually mentioned in the afterthought of his attacks it mentions him causing harm to every nearby area.

• • He strikes the Dark mages with lightning every night, and it's mentioned how he collects the negative emotions of everyone in town due to how disruptive the lightning is. He could easily conceal the lightning if he wished

• • He demands a ransom for not causing damage to the school building he is going to

• • Beats up a guy above a city, where its described that his hits are causing the eardrums of every weak person to rupture

The biggest one that annoyed me was how he acted with Mi Jiu. For context Mi Jiu is one of the 12 constellation leaders who has been described as a good person. There are lines about her caring about the citizens she is suppose to protect, and at least to my memory she hasn't done anything bad. When she was betrayed by her master (who became a Dark mage) the male lead followed her, watched the evil master start to eat her (to gain power), then proceeded to only save her on deaths doorstep because she gave him negative points. Then after saving her he proceeds to tie her up on his torture farm with dark mages and only releases her because she didn't feel negative emotions at being hurt. (Because she believed it would protect the people of the world)

The simple fact that he only released her because she didn't produce negative emotions is what makes it worse. That he is completely willing to torture a good person all for the sake of reducing his points. Points that are simply a score for his class, and having a high number simply means that he was preforming well.

Fundamentally this just really makes me hate the male lead. It just really sours every other aspect of the book for me since he is such a core part of it all. Usually authors either skip over the details or give justifications, this person was evil, or it doesn't mention all of the people suffering due to their actions. This usually keeps a main character likeable, since it's really hard to have a main character who commits horrible actions still be likeable and very very few books I can think of have exceptions to that rule. With this book since its a romance usually I would want the main couple to come together, or enjoy the sweet moments that they have together, but with this book there is always the undertone of the male lead is willing to commit horrible acts. The book has him be a god, so you can try to make the excuse of since he isn't human, but fundamentally for me it just makes the book really hard to enjoy when one of the core main characters is willing to torture a good person for essentially no reason.

If this kind of thing doesn't bother you or you can overlook it then I think the book is a good read. I like pretty much all of this book except for this one aspect, but this aspect is such a big thing that it ruins my enjoyment of the rest of the book.