There was nothing.
No sound, no light—only an endless void that felt like it stretched on forever. Then came a flicker of awareness, fragile as a candle's flame in a storm.
And with it, pain.
It was sharp and sudden, like a blade being driven into his skull. Zach gasped, the air scraping against his throat. A groan slipped past his lips before he could stop it.
Every nerve screamed. His muscles burned. His bones felt like it had been shattered into pieces and hastily glued back together.
Then—beneath all that—he felt something else.
A steady vibration. A dull, rhythmic jolt through the floor, in time with a faint rattling of wood.
He was moving.
Or rather—whatever he was in was moving.
His eyes snapped open.
For a moment, the world was a blur of darkness and shadow. Then, gradually, his vision sharpened. His mind began to clear, though the pain clung stubbornly to the edges of his thoughts.
Gritting his teeth, he forced his body to obey, pushing himself upright despite the ache.
He was in a carriage. A fully enclosed one, the inside cramped and reeking of stale sweat and rotting wood. Thin slits in the walls let in narrow beams of light, pale and weak, just enough to paint the silhouettes around him.
He wasn't alone.
Dozens of others were crammed inside, pressed shoulder to shoulder. Some were barely teenagers, their limbs twig-thin. Others were older, but none looked past forty.
Every single one shared the same hollow-eyed, broken look. Their cheeks were sunken, their skin pale. Their bodies slumped lifelessly against the walls and one another, and for a heartbeat, Zach thought they were corpses.
Then he saw the slow, almost imperceptible rise and fall of their chests.
Alive—but barely.
His gaze fell to himself.
And froze.
The arms in front of him weren't his.
They were scrawny, bony, the skin stretched tight over the bones. His fingers were small, almost delicate, trembling faintly. His clothes hung loosely off him, thin rags that did little against the chill that seeped into the carriage.
This wasn't his body. It was a child's. Frail. Malnourished. Weak.
A cold shiver ran down his spine.
What… what the hell?
His mind scrambled, clawing for answers.
He shut his eyes, forcing himself to think. Memories surfaced in broken fragments—his desk, the glow of his monitor, the triumphant rush as he defeated Calamity's Crown's final boss.
Then… that strange message flashing on his screen. The deafening crack of his monitor shattering. A blinding flash.
And then—nothing.
Until now.
His eyes shot open. His pulse quickened.
No way.
Hours spent binging webnovels, anime, RPGs—all those stories had taught him the signs. This wasn't a dream. Not a hallucination. This was real.
He had transmigrated.
The thought slammed into him, leaving him reeling. This wasn't a dream. It wasn't a hallucination. The cold seeping into his bones, the ache in his body, the stench in the air—it was all too vivid, too solid, too real.
But this wasn't how it was supposed to be.
When he'd imagined waking up in another world, it had been with a sword in hand, a powerful system at his fingertips, maybe some hidden legendary bloodline.
It was supposed to be exhilarating, not… this.
This was misery. This was suffering. This was terrifying.
And yet…
Something about this scene nagged at him. The creak of the carriage. The shape of the narrow slits in the walls. The way the prisoners' heads lolled lifelessly.
It felt familiar.
Too familiar.
He dug through his memories, searching.
And then it clicked.
Calamity's Crown.
Not the gameplay this time. The lore. The hidden cutscenes you unlocked after finishing certain hidden quests.
This carriage. These prisoners.
This was the beginning of Lucien Thorne's backstory.
Back when he was still human. Before he became the Scarlet Curse. Before he became the final calamity of Valeria.
Zach's stomach turned to stone.
"No…"
The words slipped out before he could stop them.
He remembered the forums. The endless threads of players complaining that Lucien never got a proper backstory in the original webnovel Ashes of Valeria. All they knew was that he'd once been human—and that the world had wronged him so deeply, hatred had consumed him until he became a walking catastrophe.
The game had tried to fix that.
And this carriage—this exact moment—was the very beginning of that cutscene.
Which meant…
His throat tightened.
He remembered the message on his screen right before everything went dark.
'You become what you hunt.'
It all fit too well. He had spent days—weeks—fighting the Calamities, dying to Lucien more times than he could count. Lucien had been the hardest, most infuriating boss in the entire game… and somewhere in that frustration, Zach had almost respected him.
But respect didn't mean he wanted to be him.
Yet here he was.
His fists clenched. No. Maybe the carriage just looks the same. Maybe—
But even as he tried to deny it, deep down, he knew.
There was only one way to be certain.
Status.
The thought was silent, but something answered.
A faint chime rang in his ears, and a translucent blue screen shimmered into existence before him.
His breath caught. A system interface.
Hope flickered in his chest. In Calamity's Crown, NPCs didn't have access to the system—only playable characters did. If he had one, maybe… maybe he wasn't Lucien.
Then he saw the name.
And the hope died.
---
Name: Lucien Thorne
Age: 16
Health: 63%
Race: Human
Level: 1 → (0%)
Bloodline: Locked
Mana: Locked
STATS
Strength: 5
Agility: 5
Endurance: 6
Vitality: 5
Intelligence: 6
Perception: 4
Willpower: 1.1
〔Stat Points: 0〕
---
He stared at the screen, the words burning into his mind.
Lucien Thorne.
The Scarlet Curse. The final calamity. The man who would one day burn Valeria to ashes.
And now… him.
Why?
Why him?
Lucien's path wasn't one of triumph. It was a slow, grinding descent into hatred, despair, and destruction.
He was fated to become a monster feared by the entire world.
And Zach had been thrown in at the weakest point.
In the game, an average human's stats hovered around 7. Trained fighters hit 10. Beyond that, you needed bloodline awakening or magic. Lucien—this version of him—was barely scraping by.
"How the hell am I supposed to survive like this?" Zach muttered under his breath.
His gaze swept the other prisoners again. The hollow stares. The skeletal frames. These weren't ordinary slaves—they were failed experiments.
And he knew exactly who had done it.
The Dark Order.
In the lore, they were a shadowy, powerful organization. They kidnapped people, experimented on them, performed rituals. Most didn't survive. Those who did… well, "survive" wasn't the right word.
In this specific scene, the prisoners weren't being released. They were being transported for disposal.
The Dark Order never let failures live.
And somehow, Lucien had escaped.
But the game never showed how. The cutscene jumped straight to him months later, already stronger, already on the path that would end in blood and fire.
Zach had no idea what was supposed to happen next. No map. No walkthrough.
Only one certainty: this carriage was guarded by Dark Order warriors. Bloodline awakened. Lethally strong.
The kind of people who could slaughter everyone here in seconds.
If a miracle didn't happen, he was dead.
As if summoned by the thought—
THUD!
The carriage jolted violently, wood groaning as its wheels bounced off the road. Zach lurched forward, barely catching himself.
Another impact followed, harder. The horses screamed in panic, their hooves clattering against the dirt.
Shouts erupted from outside.
"Beast horde! We're under attack!"
Another voice, sharper, barked back:
"Protect the prisoners! No one escapes!"
Zach's heart leapt.
A beast horde.
Could this… be it?
The miracle?