"So this is Morgan's ability," she murmured, her voice faint with awe. "A girl who starved and fought on the streets, who should've died nameless… and yet here I am. Wearing her like a skin, breathing because she couldn't."
The thought twisted her chest. The original Morgan hadn't survived her awakening. She had burned out like a candle—snuffed by the sheer violence of magic. And into that vacuum, the soul of an ordinary modern man—him—had slipped.
He shut his eyes briefly. On Earth, he had been no one. Office work. Cheap dinners. Endless commutes. The only escape had been books, novels like Release That Witch. Now he lived in it.
And the irony was not lost on him.
"Of all the witches to become… it had to be Morgan," he muttered, rubbing his temples. "Not Anna, not Nightingale, not even some no-name side character who survives quietly… No. I get the one who dies in her own awakening."
A hollow laugh escaped him, but it quickly died. He couldn't waste time pitying himself. He was alive again, in a world he knew, with powers at his fingertips. That was more than fate had given Morgan.
Breathing deeply, he closed his eyes and focused inward.
That pulse was there. He had felt it the night before when panic had driven him to summon those twisted moths, swarms of various insects. Now, calmer, he reached for it deliberately. It wasn't in his heart, or his veins. It was everywhere—woven through his flesh, his breath, the marrow of his bones.
He tugged.
Something shifted inside, a current rushing up his arm, and his hand prickled. He opened his eyes in time to see shadows spill from his palm, curling like smoke before solidifying into shapes.
Moths.
Black-winged, fragile, shimmering faintly as though dusted with starlight. They fluttered weakly, colliding with the cellar walls, vanishing after a few seconds.
Morgan exhaled in wonder, her lips curving into a slow smile.
"So it's true. The power's mine now."
The moths had no substance, not yet. But she felt them. Not just their fluttering, but their hunger. A strange echo of instinct tied them to her will. She reached deeper, pushing more magic into the shape—and this time, along with the moths came something else.
A centipede, malformed, its legs too many, its body translucent. It writhed for a few seconds before dissolving into black dust.
The air reeked faintly of iron, like rust and blood.
She flexed her fingers, exhilaration and unease twisting together.
"Animals… no, constructs," she whispered. "They're mine to shape. Moths, insects, beasts of shadow. My familiars."
Her heart pounded. Anna had flames. Nana had healing. Lightning had flight. Simple, practical powers that Roland had shaped into tools of progress. But her? She could spawn the grotesque, the verminous, the nightmare of nature itself.
A true witch's craft.
Her smile sharpened.
"Not tricks. Not utilities. Not… industry." She spat the word like poison. "These witches in the novel—they were ability users, nothing more. Children fumbling with toys until Roland showed them how to build."
She rose, pacing the small cellar, the moths scattering at her movement.
"A witch isn't supposed to be a blacksmith's helper. Or a healer in some clinic. A witch is Fear. Mystery. Darkness."
Her voice dropped, curling into a whisper.
"A true witch is the shadow that stalks the churchman at night, the curse whispered over a noble's cradle, the plague that cannot be burned away. And me…" She extended her hand again, and this time a dozen moths bloomed at once, circling her like an orbit of living dusk. She turn and dance with it.
"…I am that witch."
Her laughter rang hollow against the cellar walls, but it felt good. Liberating.
She sat again, calmer now, and let her thoughts sharpen. She knew the story's flow. She knew the timeline. Timothy had already ascended the throne, the first prince imprisoned. Roland—dear Roland—was down in Border Town, playing at industry, slowly winning witches over with promises of safety and freedom.
A clever man, yes. But predictable.
"He'll take them in. He'll shape them. He'll industrialize magic." She shook her head with disdain. "And it will work, for a time. But they're not witches. They're workers. That's all."
Her gaze hardened.
"I'll do it differently."
First, survival. She needed to master her constructs. They had been weak, fragile, but she had felt potential in them—potential to swarm, to gnaw, to terrify. What if they grew stronger the more fear they fed on? What if her moths could blind, her centipedes could poison, her beasts could tear? Evolution wasn't limited to Anna's fire. It was possible for all witches—if they dared to reach.
Second, allies. Not all witches would flock to Roland. Some hid, some feared, some hated. She would find them. She would promise not safety, but power. Not kindness, but strength. A coven bound not by trust, but by ambition.
And third… the most dangerous step of all.
Her mind wandered to the Pure Witch, Zero. To that final battle of souls. Roland had faced her, and somehow, impossibly, survived. But what if she took his place? What if she fought Zero and won?
The thought sent a shiver through her spine. To face Zero was to gamble her very existence. But to win… oh, to win meant consuming the essence of a being older and stronger than any witch alive. It meant ascending to heights no one had dreamed of.
Her breath quickened, moths scattering into nothing around her.
"Yes," she whispered. "That's the path. To become more than a pawn. To seize power, no matter the cost."
She leaned back against the wall, a strange calm settling over her.
"I will save this world," she murmured. "I will save humanity. But not as a saint. Not as Roland's obedient ally. Not out of charity."
Her lips curled into a cruel smile.
"I'll save them as a villain. As the witch they fear in their prayers. As the shadow in their nightmares. As the one who brings order through terror."
Her eyes glinted in the dim light, her voice low but resolute.
"They will curse me. They will hate me. But they will never forget me. And in the end, when the dust settles, they will kneel—not to Roland, not to Timothy, not to the Church—but to me."
The cellar seemed darker now, as though her words had weight. She closed her eyes, exhaustion tugging at her limbs, but her heart thrummed with fierce purpose.
For the first time since her rebirth, she knew exactly who she was.
Not a tool.
Not a victim.
Not a saint.
But a true witch.