"…Bringing it all together, I would like to definitively conclude that this story is nothing more than a hotchpotch of shock value and rage bait, designed to anger its audience into turning the next page. It is a terrible disgrace all that is to literature; calling it a novel is an insult to the word itself, and responsible organizations worldwide should ban this filthy assortment of words, compiled merely to appease a lunatic's fantasy."
—An anonymous critic's review of Varian De Virelune: The Series.
"Time of death: 6:13 p.m.," a doctor's voice announced.
I could feel myself dying, but my senses weren't gone yet, even though the doctors had pulled the plug on my life support.
Perhaps… it's because I never lost my senses in the first place, even after I went into a coma.
I can't believe getting shot by a crazy, obsessed fan is how I'll kick the bucket, I scoffed internally. What luck.
To be fair, he wasn't my fan; he was a fan of my work, my only novel.
My novel—the only meaningful thing I've ever done in my life—wasn't something I was proud of. I wrote it because I was sad, lonely, and hateful, and I needed to project those feelings onto someone.
Being the coward that I am, I couldn't trouble anyone in the real world, so I turned to fictional characters—specifically, fantasy Heroes. This led to a story where the hero had every starting bonus known to man but still couldn't protect anyone around him.
For argument's sake, let's say…
The hero is training in an academy? A demon general raids it.
The hero manages to prevent great casualties? The academy's next generation of elites is now traumatized for life, their potential stunted.
The hero kills the demon king? Lo and behold, the absence of a common enemy causes the great factions of the world to decentralize and turn on each other, fighting over the demon king's legacy.
The hero tries to unify the factions through politics and overwhelming power? He is branded the new demon king.
The hero travels back in time to kill the demon king in a way that won't cause a geopolitical collapse? The world is so overjoyed at the news that mass celebrations turn into global mayhem. Millions die, and terrorist organizations seeking the demon king's revival resurface.
The hero somehow avoids all this through plot armor? The very embodiment of Fate and Destiny is now offended by his transgressions.
Basically, he—the hero—could try whatever he wanted, however he wanted, and nothing would ever work out. That was it. That was the whole point of the story.
Whether they were hoping for a happy ending or just enjoyed hating something, people ate it right up.
Anyway, I finished my story. Gave my hero one of the most tragic fates in literary history. Big surprise, I know.
And boy, oh boy, that did not sit well with my audience.
They were outraged.
Overnight, I received more mail than I'd ever received in my life—all death threats.
Scared shitless, I did some research and found out that for someone with my level of infamy, these kinds of threats were common. I told myself not to overthink it.
That gave me the peace I needed to sleep at night… for two days. Then someone, claiming to hate what I'd done to my hero, shot me in the neck, putting me in a coma for four months and eventually leading to my death.
My senses failed, and everything around me turned black.
When the darkness finally left me, I was staring at a mirror, and a face not my own was staring back.
The face was astoundingly beautiful. White hair so lustrous it shone like silver. Golden eyes with silvery specks that glittered like the finest jewelry.
Skin pale and flawless, with high, aristocratic cheekbones and a sharp, chiseled jawline. The physique was lean and powerful, with pointy ears and two raven wings on its back.
Hazarding a guess, I was seventeen, stood well over six feet tall, and weighed more than 200 pounds (91 kilograms).
"Is that—fuck, what the actual fuck?"
Even though everything around me was foreign, to say the least, I knew exactly who this was. And it sent shivers of fury and dread down my spine.
Reflecting in the mirror was the visage of a future demigod, a wargod, and the greatest conqueror of all time, Varian De Virelune—the hero of my tragic story.
That epiphany caused it all to hit me at once: the memories of the body I was in.
Son of Habeus De Vire, the Duke of Versavailles, and Mimetic De Lune, the Duchess of Luxenzsia.
Born into greatness, I (he?) was raised in isolation for much of my (his?) childhood, due to his (my?) parents' fear of him (me?) being assassinated.
Thus, they raised me to become as strong as possible from birth, and now, I was supposed to teleport from my 'safe house' to the world's greatest magic academy.
My head throbbed as I made sense of the torrent of memories.
More and more came, as... Well, I would have said 'as our souls melded together,' but it would be more accurate to say that I devoured him.
In moments, I could recall every slight, just as Varian had experienced it.
I could remember the countless hours spent on academic studies. I could remember my relationships with the others. And, beyond all that, I could remember how this story would go as the one who wrote it.
Oh shit-oh fuck, I'm stuck in a story that's doomed to all hell! My hand clutched my head in dismay. This is worse than hell!
I looked around in a panic, blocking out every detail other than what was important—the giant rock pillar behind me.
It was massive and had light red engravings all over it. With a circular, eye-like disc in the middle, this was my safe house's teleportation portal.
If Varian's memories served me right, I was about to be teleported to the world's most prestigious academy for aspiring elites and aristocrats.
This is the beginning of the story! Oh, my god, it's the beginning of m-my story, the story I wrote!
This was bad. Extremely bad.
If I stepped out of here right now, I would be standing in the grand halls reserved for the best of the incoming first-years.
That wasn't the bad part; it was what came afterward.
The academy holds a demonstration of strength—a tournament between the top ten emerging geniuses among the enrolling candidates—to broadcast it to the entire continent for a variety of social and political reasons.
Varian was one of those top ten candidates, and in the tournament, he would wipe the floor with everyone else.
But that's not the problem. The problem is his strength.
Varian was one of the strongest combatants in the world, even as a teenager. He could take on all nine candidates combined if he wanted. Hell, he could even take on the academy's strongest faculty members all at once if he wanted to feel burnt out after the fight.
This overwhelming strength, which Varian had trained to keep under strict control so as not to annihilate everything around him, was a secret to all but five people.
One of them was the Demon King, who would discover Varian's secret strength through this tournament and promptly send a demon general with its entire legion to attack the academy, virtually crippling the next generation of world leaders.
In other words, it would be a disaster! I felt my blood pressure rising. I have to stop that, or else it, along with other factors, will bring about an apocalypse. But how do I fix this? How, how, HOW–
"Is something the matter?" a limpid, feminine voice said beside me. "Your highness?"