There was a time when I believed things would eventually get better.
That belief died long before I did.
My name was Ethan Carter, and I learned early that invisibility was a skill. If I kept my head down in the hallways, if I answered questions softly, if I didn't look at anyone too long, I could reduce the chances of becoming entertainment for the day. It did not always work, but it lowered the odds. I understood odds well. When you grow up unwanted, you start calculating survival without realizing it.
School was loud that afternoon. Lockers slammed. Laughter echoed too sharply against the tiled walls. I kept my backpack slung over one shoulder and walked close to the lockers, eyes lowered just enough to avoid eye contact without looking afraid. Looking afraid invited attention. Looking angry invited challenge. Looking neutral was safest.
It was never safe enough.
"Hey, Carter."
I knew the voice. I didn't stop walking. That was mistake one.
A hand shoved my shoulder from behind, hard enough that I staggered into a locker. Metal rang against my skull. The hallway erupted in quick, sharp laughter.
"Didn't you hear me?"
I steadied myself and turned slowly. Three of them. Seniors. Taller. Broader. Confident in the way boys are when they know no one will interfere.
"I heard you," I said.
My voice came out even. I had practiced that tone for years.
"Then why didn't you answer?"
There was no correct answer. There never was. I glanced at the teacher at the end of the hall. He looked in our direction for half a second, then looked away. Decision made.
"I didn't think you were talking to me," I replied.
That earned another laugh. One of them grabbed my backpack strap and pulled me forward. My balance faltered again.
"You think you're funny?"
I didn't. Humor requires confidence. I had none.
"I didn't say anything."
"That's the problem."
The first punch was light. A warning. The second wasn't. It caught me in the stomach and knocked the air from my lungs. I bent forward, gasping, but I didn't fall. Falling made it worse.
They lost interest quickly. They always did. I wasn't satisfying enough. I didn't fight back. I didn't cry. I just endured.
When they left, I stood there for a few seconds, breathing through the ache in my ribs. The hallway had already swallowed the incident whole. No one would remember it by tomorrow.
No one except me.
I walked home after school like I always did. The sky was gray and heavy, the kind that threatened rain without delivering it. My phone buzzed once in my pocket. A group chat I wasn't really part of. I muted it without reading.
Home was not much better. My father sat in his chair, television on too loud. He glanced at me once when I entered, eyes sliding over me like I was an object left in the wrong place.
"You're late."
"Practice ran long," I lied automatically.
He grunted. He didn't ask what practice. There was no practice. There never had been.
My mother didn't look up from the kitchen sink. "Dinner's in the fridge."
That was the extent of the conversation.
I ate alone in my room.
I stared at the ceiling for a long time after the lights were off. The house felt hollow. My chest felt the same. I tried to imagine a future where I mattered to someone. The image wouldn't form. It dissolved every time I reached for it.
The next morning felt identical to the last. And the one before that. Patterns repeating without variation. I moved through the day on instinct.
The shove into the street happened just before dismissal.
It wasn't even intentional cruelty this time. Just a careless burst of laughter, someone backing into me without looking. My foot hit the curb wrong and I stumbled forward.
A horn blared.
Time slowed in a way I had only read about.
I remember the driver's eyes widening. I remember the sudden clarity in my own thoughts.
I could step back.
There was still time.
The sidewalk was only a half step behind me.
I did not move.
For the first time in a long time, the noise in my head stopped. The constant calculations. The survival instincts. The quiet resentment. All of it went silent.
I stepped forward instead.
Impact came like the sky collapsing.
Pain was instant and absolute, and then it wasn't. The world fractured into white and red and sound that didn't belong to anything human. My body folded under something impossibly heavy. I tasted iron. I smelled asphalt.
Then there was nothing.
Not darkness.
Just absence.
—
Pain returned first.
It was not the pain of broken bones or torn muscle. It was deeper. Fevered. Like something inside my chest was burning from the inside out.
I tried to inhale and felt silk brush against my skin.
Silk.
The scent in the air was unfamiliar. Not gasoline. Not dust. Something faintly metallic and sharp.
Voices murmured nearby.
"…Ninth Young Master will not survive the night…"
"…spiritual pulse collapsing…"
"…inform the Marshal—"
Marshal?
My eyes opened.
The ceiling above me was high and carved from dark wood etched with crimson patterns. Heavy curtains framed a tall window. The bed beneath me was wide and draped in fabric too fine to belong anywhere near the life I remembered.
I pushed myself upright.
My body obeyed.
That alone should have been impossible.
My last memory was of bones breaking.
Now my hands were pale and unscarred. Slender. Stronger than I remembered being.
This is not a hospital.
The thought was calm. Too calm.
A wave of dizziness hit me. Images flooded my mind—memories that did not belong to Ethan Carter.
A courtyard filled with soldiers drilling in formation.
A massive estate lined with black banners bearing a crimson blade split down the center.
A towering man with blood-red hair and eyes like cold wine.
Brothers. Seven of them. Each stronger than the last.
Lucian Dreadmoor.
Ninth Son.
Weak.
Sickly.
An embarrassment.
The memories settled into place like pieces clicking into a puzzle.
I exhaled slowly.
"I died," I murmured.
And yet I was breathing.
A cold sensation brushed against my thoughts, precise and mechanical.
System:[Abyssal Consort System initializing.]
I froze.
That voice did not echo in the room. It existed directly inside my mind, stripped of emotion and inflection.
Lucian's memories stirred uneasily. There was no such technique within House Dreadmoor.
System:[Host stabilized. Spiritual vessel integrity at 32%. Ember Pulse stage confirmed.]
I swallowed.
Lucian (internal):What the hell is Ember Pulse?
System:[Ember Pulse: First stage of the Mortal Realms. Spiritual heat forms within the heart vessel. Body refinement begins. Current state unstable.]
My gaze dropped to my chest instinctively. I felt it now—heat. Not fever. Something concentrated just behind my sternum, pulsing faintly.
Lucian (internal):How many stages are there?
System:[Mortal Realms consist of five stages: Ember Pulse, Vein Ignition, Core Awakening, Spirit Manifest, and War Domain. Spirit Manifest is rare within the current continental power structure.]
My heart tightened. Rare.
Lucian's memories confirmed it. Most soldiers within House Dreadmoor plateaued at Core Awakening. Only commanders reached Spirit Manifest. War Domain belonged to generals.
And this body had barely stabilized at the bottom.
Lucian (internal):So I'm weak.
System:[Assessment: Yes.]
A faint, humorless breath escaped me.
On Earth, I had been weak.
Here, I had inherited weakness.
That should have felt cruel.
Instead, something else stirred.
The heat in my chest pulsed harder. Not painful. Hungry.
Lucian's memories whispered of mockery. Of older brothers who never bothered to remember his training schedule because it never mattered. Of servants who spoke gently to him as if he were already gone.
I stood.
My legs trembled slightly but held.
A mirror stood across the chamber. I walked toward it slowly.
The reflection that met me was not Ethan Carter.
Black hair fell past my shoulders, streaked faintly with crimson that caught the light like dried blood. My skin was pale but not sickly. My features were sharper than I remembered possessing in any life. And my eyes—
Crimson.
Not brown.
Not dull.
Crimson.
I held my own gaze.
Something in those eyes did not belong to the fragile boy whose memories echoed in this body.
Lucian (internal):Why do my eyes feel… different?
System:[Dreadmoor ocular inheritance detected. Activation at 2%. Full analysis unavailable at current cultivation level.]
Ocular inheritance.
Lucian's memories confirmed it. Every Dreadmoor possessed the Crimson Sovereign Gaze. It manifested differently, but it was a mark of bloodline authority.
The heat in my chest flared again, spreading faint warmth through my veins.
I flexed my fingers.
On Earth, I had calculated survival.
Here, survival would require strength.
Not quiet endurance.
Strength.
I thought of the hallway. The laughter. The way stepping forward into that bus had felt like the only decision I had ever made for myself.
I was not Ethan Carter anymore.
But I remembered him.
I remembered how small he had felt.
I did not feel small now.
I felt unfinished.
Lucian (internal):System. Can I grow stronger?
There was no hesitation in the response.
System:[Yes.]
The simplicity of it settled something inside me.
Outside the chamber, footsteps approached. Confident. Measured.
Lucian's memories supplied the identity before the door opened.
One of my brothers.
I turned toward the entrance as the handle shifted.
For the first time in either of my lives, I did not lower my gaze.
I would not step backward again.
Not in this world.
Not ever.