Lucien’s eyes snapped open, his breath catching sharply in his throat. For a split second, it felt like he hadn’t breathed in ages, and his lungs burned as he dragged in air—once, twice, deeper each time—until the tightness in his chest finally eased.
As his breathing steadied, the tension in his face loosened, only to be replaced by a faint crease of confusion.
Where am I…?
The first thing he registered was the rough, exposed wooden beams stretching across the ceiling above him.
He frowned slightly.
He was lying down.
Lucien tried to sit up, but something held him in place. His brows drew together as he glanced down and froze.
A woman he didn’t recognize was clinging to his right arm, her head resting against his chest as if it were the most natural thing in the world. Her brown hair was tousled, falling messily around her face, and her expression was completely at ease. A faint trace of drool clung to the corner of her lips, softening what might’ve otherwise been a sharper look.
A worn blanket covered part of her body, but not nearly enough to hide the fact that she wasn’t wearing anything underneath.
Lucien’s frown deepened, his mind struggling to catch up.
Who is she…?
He studied her more closely without moving too much, as if afraid of waking her. Her features were distinct, with an angular face, lightly tanned skin dusted with freckles, a straight nose, thin lips, and wavy brown hair framing it all. She didn’t look like she shared his ethnicity at all.
As his gaze lingered, something subtle caught his attention.
A faint reddish hue—barely there—seemed to cling to her, most noticeable around her head, like a thin veil of color beneath the surface. It wasn’t light exactly, nor something he could properly focus on. The moment he tried, it almost slipped out of perception.
His eyes narrowed slightly.
The tint spread downward, threading faintly along her veins, growing thinner and harder to discern the farther it went. If he hadn’t been looking carefully, he would’ve missed it entirely.
A flicker of unease passed through him.
Like an afterthought, he glanced down at himself and realized that he wasn’t wearing anything either.
His expression tightened slightly, a mix of confusion and disbelief settling in as his gaze drifted toward the floor. Clothes—if they could even be called that—were scattered haphazardly across the wooden boards. A pair of leather pants caught his eye, looking stiff and wildly uncomfortable, alongside a wrinkled linen shirt and a pair of worn boots.
Did I just… have sex with her…?
The thought landed awkwardly, bringing with it more questions than answers. His mind began racing, trying to piece together anything—anything at all—but came up empty.
He quickly looked around the room. The antiquated interior, the outdated clothes scattered across the floor, and finally, the woman beside him, whose features didn't match any clear ethnicity from his world. It didn’t take long for the pieces to settle.
…Did I really transmigrate?
There wasn't a trace of excitement on his face, only a faint tightening around his eyes, a quiet, creeping fear.
What the hell did that moon-sighting do to me…?
His gaze flicked between the woman in his arms and the small window across the room. Whatever this place was, he needed to figure it out fast.
Without a word, Lucien carefully lifted the woman off his chest and gently laid her onto the pillow, like he was defusing a bomb. She didn't wake. She only mumbled something in a strange language that, somehow, he understood.
That alone made his stomach tighten.
Lucien pushed the thought aside and slipped out of bed, his bare feet touching the cold wooden floor. He wavered slightly as he stood, the room spinning for a brief moment, his head still feeling heavy and clouded, like it was packed with cotton. He steadied himself with a hand against the wall, jaw tightening as he forced the dizziness down.
After the pain lessened, he started looking around.
The room was small, perhaps four by four meters, with a bed that took up half the space, a rickety wooden table in the corner, and a small window that looked out onto the sky. A cracked mirror hung on the wall, so he walked over to get a better look at himself. The moment he saw his reflection, he let out a quiet sigh.
Damn it… he's better-looking than me.
The face staring back at him was, without question, not his.
Lucien tilted his head slightly, studying it with a faint frown. It was sharper than he expected, with defined cheekbones, a strong jaw, messy black hair, and red eyes. The redness didn't seem to come from irritation, but instead a natural color of blood, with crimson irises that have faint black specks drifting slowly within them.
His expression flattened a little.
Yeah… that’s not a face you trust in a peaceful storyline…
Losing interest, he let out a quiet breath and turned away from the mirror, his attention shifting to the window.
From this height, the view opened up to a cramped district of towering tenements.
The buildings rose eight, maybe ten stories high, packed so tightly together they blurred into one uneven mass. Crude bridges and jutting platforms connected them at odd intervals, while parts of the walls had been broken through to create makeshift passageways. It didn’t feel like separate buildings so much as a single structure that had grown upward out of necessity rather than design.
The lower levels were built from heavy stone, giving them some sense of stability, but everything above looked like it had been added later. Floors stacked unevenly, materials shifting from stone to wood, then to whatever scraps had been available. Some sections leaned at uncomfortable angles, others bulged outward, as if the entire district was straining under its own weight.
Below, the streets were barely more than narrow strips of worn stone, squeezed between the towering walls. Many of them vanished into shadow beneath overhangs and hanging walkways, turning the whole place into something closer to a suffocating maze than a proper city.
He also noticed the same faint reddish hue lingered in the air, thin but pervasive, drifting through the city like a barely visible mist. It was much more abundant here than what he had seen in the woman—several times over—yet still subtle enough that it didn’t obscure anything outright.
What is that supposed to be...?
Lucien rested a hand lightly against the window frame, eyes narrowing as he took it all in.
Farther out, he could just make out sections of a damaged wall encircling the city, broken in places. And to the left, rising far above everything else, stood a massive structure—its height dwarfing the clustered buildings below, looming over the district like it belonged to an entirely different world.
He didn't dwell on it immediately as he lifted his gaze, hoping to see a clear sky. However, his eyes dimmed when he realized he couldn't see anything at all. The clouds, yet again with the same color, were so thick they completely hid the celestial bodies.
If those celestial bodies were the same as the ones he knew, he assumed that this could very well be the same world, only in a distant past.
I still haven’t gotten this guy’s memories. Doesn’t that usually happen right after transmigration? he muttered inwardly, a hint of irritation slipping through.
As if on cue—
"—Ugh!"
A sudden surge of information slammed into his mind.
Lucien’s body jerked as a sharp, splitting pain tore through his head, like an electric current ripping across his thoughts.
[System Initializing…]
He staggered, his hand shooting out to grab the edge of the table. His fingers tightened against the rough wood as his balance faltered, his body feeling like it was being pulled apart in different directions at once.
[Memory Integration in Progress.]
His knees gave out.
Lucien collapsed to the floor with a dull thud, a strained groan escaping him as memories—foreign, overwhelming—crashed into him like a tidal wave.
Fragments flashed through his mind.
A young boy—no older than seven—kneeling beside a bed, sobbing uncontrollably as he clutched the hand of a pale woman who would never move again.
The scene shattered.
A fifteen-year-old stood in its place, hands drenched in blood, staring down at a lifeless body. His expression was empty.
After that came a nineteen-year-old, kneeling on cold stone, a strange mark glowing on his wrist as a masked figure whispered, "You belong to the Covenant now."
The memory fractured again.
A man, twenty-two, stood in the middle of a city engulfed in flames. Buildings collapsed in the distance, screams echoing through the chaos. Above, the sky itself had been torn opening in unnatural patterns that leaked a thick, writhing miasma. From the streets below, people twisted—bodies warping, faces stretching into grotesque shapes, eyes hollow, mouths gaping wide as they crawled forward, no longer human.
The images overlapped, collided, forced themselves into place.
Lucien’s fingers dug into the floor, his breath ragged as his mind struggled to keep up—
Suddenly, it stopped.
[Synchronization Complete.]
[Welcome, Lucien Mordren.]