Chapter 1: Prelude to Ashes — The Duck, the Blood, and the End of Everything
"I'm absolutely fucking this up."
Lucifer McKenzie, with his intense gaze, looked at the mess of information on the screen. His eyes, full of intensity and storm, were fixed on the rubber duck that stood for him in the most unreasonably wild racing game ever made.
He moved his fingers quickly over the buttons, each action sounding like a shout from a plastic toy. The sounds of the racing ducks could be heard throughout the dorm, but Lucifer was not listening. He was living it.
He was in the lead.
But he knew.
He just knew.
He was about to be completely destroyed.
"I'm going to eat shit in 3… 2…—"
Behind him, Frank's duck fired a comically huge missile. It sped through the digital river, leaving behind blue smoke and disaster.
BOOM.
Lucifer's duck burst into cartoon feathers and gave out pitiful honks.
"FUCK!"
Lucifer was about to throw the controller against the wall, but the thought of how much it cost stopped him. His scowl twisted even deeper.
Frank's loud and annoying laughter broke through the thin wall of the hostel like a banshee on drugs.
"Hahahaha! Bow before your goddamn daddy, bitches!"
Lucifer's scowl went thermonuclear.
He'd lost the bet.
So, he was the one who had to pay for everything at the party.
But the worst part? The most heartbreaking, humiliating, and patience-draining part?
Frank was going to enjoy gloating about this for the next seven days.
Lucifer sighed deeply, like a radiator about to give up, and then stretched his fingers before clapping Kelvin on the back.
"Guess we're splitting the bill, bro."
"Blargh…hghghgh…"
Kelvin's face looked like he'd swallowed a small animal and it was trying to claw its way out through his esophagus. He was flushed, sweating, and mumbling like a fevered monk on mushrooms.
Before Lucifer could fully process Kelvin's state of biological collapse, the door slammed open.
Frank entered like a goddamn storm god.
"There's no need to cry, my sons! You cannot defeat the patriarch!"
"What the actual fuck?" Lucifer deadpanned. "You win one game and suddenly you're my fucking father?"
Ignoring Frank's Greek tragedy-level ego, Lucifer turned to Kelvin.
"Oi. Let's bounce."
Kelvin stood with all the grace of a broken marionette. His steps were slow, shuddering. His head hung low. His limbs moved like they were being pulled by invisible, twitchy strings.
"Kelvin…?"
Lucifer's voice dipped low with caution.
Something about his friend's movements was... off. Really off.
"You okay, man?"
He took one step closer.
Kelvin jerked his head up—and Lucifer saw Hell staring back.
His friend's eyes glowed a lurid crimson, unnatural and brimming with hunger. Cracks spidered across his face like dried earth, splitting the skin, leaking dark fluid.
A single word clawed its way into Lucifer's mind.
Zombie.
"Raaaghhhhr!!!"
Kelvin lunged at Lucifer with gnashing teeth and bloodlust in his breath.
Instinct took over.
Lucifer twisted his neck to avoid the bite, barely dodging the rotten chomp aimed at his jugular. But Kelvin tackled him down, straddling him with sickening strength.
"AGHHH—!"
A thick strand of red-black saliva dripped from Kelvin's lips onto Lucifer's cheek, sizzling slightly like acid. The touch burned in a way no fire should.
Lucifer braced for the end—
Until Frank punted Kelvin off like a pro wrestler, sending him crashing into the dresser.
"What the fuck is wrong with you, Kelvin?!"
Frank hauled Lucifer up, breathing hard.
But the answer was obvious.
Kelvin wasn't there anymore.
"GRAAGHH!!"
They both froze.
The screeches weren't just from Kelvin anymore.
They were coming from outside—the courtyard of the dorm. The air vibrated with the sounds of screams, bone-snapping groans, and the wet crunch of flesh being devoured.
Lucifer muttered under his breath, "Zombie fucking apocalypse?"
"Stop reading trash novels, Lucy," Frank growled. "This is real life. That shit doesn't happen here."
Lucifer pointed at Kelvin, who was now lurching to his feet like his joints didn't work properly. One shoulder hung limp and dislocated, yet Kelvin didn't even flinch.
"Tell that to Captain Cannibal over there."
"Fuck this—we run," Lucifer snapped, snapping into motion.
While he didn't have Frank's brute strength or Kelvin's brainiac grades, Lucifer had one thing going for him: speed. He yanked Frank toward the door, slammed it shut, and locked it from the outside, trapping whatever Kelvin had become.
Kelvin bashed against the wood, growling and scratching—but didn't touch the doorknob.
Lucifer's stomach dropped.
That settled it. Real zombies. Because only the profoundly stupid wouldn't turn a knob.
"What now?" Frank panted.
"We check outside. If it's the end of the fucking world, then—"
Lucifer coughed violently.
A sharp, metallic taste flooded his mouth.
He looked down.
His palm was stained with blood. Bright. Red. Blood.
Frank's eyes widened. "Lucifer, your face—"
Lucifer touched his cheek—and recoiled. His skin was flaking off in patches, like sun-scorched paint peeling from a wall.
"No… no no no—was it…?"
His mind flashed back to the drop of saliva that had landed on him. Kelvin's drop.
"Did that shit infect me too—"
He collapsed mid-sentence, vision tilting sideways, as the world around him went dark.
He woke up.
"Urrgh… I feel like I got skull-fucked by a god."
Lucifer sat up, groggy, every muscle aching. Something was… wrong.
The room looked too small.
Or he looked too big.
He stumbled toward the bathroom, each step a dragging weight. When he flicked on the lights and stared into the mirror, his breath caught.
His face was not his own.
Black hair as dark as crows' wings. Cheekbones sharp enough to cut glass. Crimson eyes that shimmered with unnatural hunger. Skin pale and thin like wax paper stretched over bone.
"W-who… the fuck…?"
The boy in the mirror mimicked him.
And then the memories slammed into him like a tsunami.
The dorm.
The duck game.
The laughter.
The blood.
Kelvin's scream.
The bite that never landed.
And the infection that did.
"I died," he whispered. "I fucking died."
So what was this?
A second chance?
Or something worse?
"This body… it's not mine."
But it was his now.
"Did I transmigrate? Is this… another world?"
Breathing raggedly, Lucifer stumbled back to the bed and collapsed.
He felt like absolute shit.
His muscles were weak. His bones ached. He was either suffering from the worst post-mortem hangover in existence or this body was as malnourished as a slave in the underworld.
It took two days of slow recovery, careful observation, and lots of internal screaming before Lucifer accepted the truth:
He had died.
And been reborn into this world.
As someone else.
As Lucifer McKenzie. A lone tenant of a modest apartment, with no family in sight and only one toothbrush to prove his solitude.
According to the documents he found, he was now a student of an institution that sounded like something ripped from a mythological fever dream.
Demigod Academy.
He stared at the acceptance letter again.
"An institution for individuals bearing divine bloodlines, where they are taught to awaken and harness their primordial energies."
Lucifer should've been shocked.
But after seeing his friend zombify and getting infected by apocalypse drool, he was pretty much desensitized.
Demigod Academy.
It shared the exact name of a fictional academy from a fantasy web novel he once binged.
Was it coincidence?
No.
This was that world.
Which meant…
He had the blood of a god.
But which one?
The letter said the truth would reveal itself once his Primordial Blood awakened.
The academy would guide him.
He sighed—and then—
Ding!
A crisp, mechanical chime echoed in his skull.
[Synchronization complete.]
Lucifer grinned darkly.
"Let's raise some hell."