When I opened my eyes, the world wasn't heaven or hell.
It was a gaming screen.
The glow of LED lights traced faint reflections along the edge of my desk — polished, expensive, the kind only found in custom tournament setups.
Mechanical keys clicked under my fingertips, smooth and familiar.
For a second, I thought I was back home in my training suite.
Then a voice cut through my haze.
"Hey, are you going to sit there all day, or are you planning to play?"
I turned.
The man leaning back in his chair was exactly how the internet had once described him — sharp, handsome, and carrying the kind of quiet focus that made crowds go still.
His ID tag blinked across the screen:
ZGDX.LaoK
The air left my lungs.
No way.
ZGDX? That ZGDX — the fictional team from Falling Into Your Smile?
The e-sports novel I'd once binge-read after my matches?
I blinked at the glowing interface again. The map. The hero icons.
Everything was identical.
Somewhere in my mind, memory crashed into memory — the blinding light from my final match, the explosion, the sound of the crowd fading into silence.
And then this.
I wasn't dead.
I was transmigrated.
Inside the game world that was supposed to be fiction.
"Are you lagging, princess?" Lao K's voice came again — dry, teasing. "Your spawn timer's up."
My fingers paused above the keys. Princess.
I almost laughed. If only he knew.
The irony wasn't lost on me. In my world, I was a princess — the daughter of Qin Hanli, CEO of Lyra Technologies, a company that built the world's most elite gaming systems. I had the kind of money people dreamed about.
But money had never been enough. I'd earned my name — Nyx — through sweat, sleepless nights, and a record-breaking strategy career that made grown men swear under their breath.
And now?
Now, I was inside someone else's story.
"I don't lag," I said finally, my voice calm and low. "I calculate."
The corner of his mouth twitched, almost a smile.
"Is that what you call sitting still for thirty seconds?"
"Call it strategy," I replied.
The game countdown hit zero.
I slid my fingers over the keyboard, the motion fluid — deliberate.
As we loaded into Summoner's Rift, something clicked inside me.
Instinct. Precision. Hunger.
Across the map, I spotted his tag again — LaoK — moving through the jungle with that disciplined rhythm of a veteran.
He didn't know it yet, but I'd studied him — every rotation, every hesitation, every tell from every replay I'd ever watched.
He was the kind of player who built walls.
I was the kind who dismantled them.
"Your route's weird," he muttered through team comms. "You're not following standard jungle."
"Maybe I'm not standard," I said.
He gave a short laugh. "No kidding."
I cut across the river brush. The sound of virtual leaves whispered around me. A flash of red buff ahead.
Three keystrokes later, I invaded.
[First Blood: Nyx kills LaoK]
Silence.
Then — a low, incredulous chuckle through comms.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Someone who doesn't lose," I murmured.
The map shimmered faintly. My pulse matched the rhythm of the game's background track.
Maybe this world thought I was just a random player.
Maybe even fate thought this was a glitch.
But they were wrong.
Because I wasn't here to play by their rules.
I was here to build my own.
And for the first time in a long time, I smiled — not the soft kind, but the dangerous one.
Let the game begin.