Pendora, Unknown Continent.
Temple Of Abyss, Outer Disciple Quarters.
***
Rain pattered steadily against the old stone, a quiet and relentless rhythm that filled the silence like a second heartbeat.
Inside the room, damp and silent, a young man sat on the edge of a narrow bed. His dark robes clung to his frame, soaked from the earlier storm—or perhaps just sweat.
The air reeked faintly of mildew, incense, and something else....
Regret, maybe...
Above him, from a cracked wooden beam, a rope still hung, swaying gently as if stirred by memory.
The other half—frayed, split—was still wrapped loosely around his neck, like a cursed necklace.
He didn't look at it.
He didn't need to.
He let out a long, ragged sigh, the kind that came from deep inside a soul too tired to scream.
"Three hours....." he muttered.
"It's been three fucking hours."
He stared blankly ahead.
No light in his eyes, just the hollow of disbelief.
***
Three hours ago, he had woken up hanging.
Yes, fucking hanging.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
Three hours ago, he had opened his eyes to a nightmare—his own body suspended mid-air, rope tight, feet kicking, mind in panic.
Instinct had taken over. He twisted. Struggled. Gasped. The world dimmed.
And then, with a sound like the past snapping in half, the rope gave out.
Gravity did its thing.
He landed flat on his ass and stared at the ceiling like it owed him an explanation.
Dignity didn't survive the fall.
After the panic faded—after the breathlessness, the shaking—something else began to rise within him.
A strange sense of wonder.
Transmigration !!!
Second life? Check.
Involuntary? Also check.
Possessing a body that had just tried to off itself? Why not?
He couldn't quite believe it. The body was unfamiliar, but it moved at his command. The thoughts were his own.
He almost smiled...
But the smile didn't last long.....
Because the memories came next.
Not all at once—no. They crept in slow, like water seeping through cracked stone. And what he did remember wasn't comforting. It wasn't some noble past life or promising talent.
It was just… bad...
Well, life had never exactly gone easy on him, anyway.
Not back when he was Veilin.
Yeah, just Veilin—no surname.
Didn't need one when nobody wanted you anyway.
On Earth, he had been an orphan—sold at twelve to an illegal factory where daylight felt like a myth. When he finally escaped, he had no one. No education. No family. Just scars and the determination to survive.
And he had.
By twenty-one, he had a job. A modest apartment. His own car. A quiet routine. He wasn't rich. He wasn't important. But for the first time in his life, he'd been ...happy.
Then life did what it always seemed to do.
Took it all back in an instant. A blur of headlights. A crunch of metal. And he woke up here.
Hanging from the ceiling of someone else's room, someone else's body. Rope still burning his neck. The sting still hadn't faded.
***
Back to the present...
He rose slowly and walked to the narrow window at the edge of the room.
Rain still fell outside, soft and steady, weaving through the cracks in the temple's old stone courtyard.
Below, in the temple courtyard, the disciples moved through the storm like it wasn't even there. Sparring with ease. Laughing. Trading jabs, both verbal and physical. A few stood in a circle around some kind of glowing script etched into the mud—probably a ritual.
Or an aggressive board game.
Hard to tell.
He watched them in silence.
"They're... comfortable," he muttered. "With each other. With this place."
He frowned.
"Who would guess they were in a .....cult?"
The truth sat like a stone in his gut, sharp around the edges.
He didn't remember everything—the memories were still foggy, drifting in and out like a bad dream—but he remembered ...enough.
They had all been taken. Ripped from their homes, their sects, their clans. Every corner of the central continent of Pendora—this world, this ruthless crucible—had contributed a prodigy.
Three months ago, under a blood-colored lunar eclipse, they were all dragged into this nightmare.
Including him, apparently.
The welcome speech had been short:
Serve our god, or just die screaming.....
He squinted down at a girl laughing as she dodged a blade with graceful ease, then immediately offered her opponent a hand up and a smile.
"Three months," he muttered. "That's all it took. Prodigies, huh? Really adaptable."
He caught his reflection in the window.
Black hair, black eyes, pale skin, dark circles like he hadn't slept in weeks—and the general aesthetic of a boy who wrote cryptic poetry in blood and didn't get invited to parties.
Yup. Cult-core.
Nailed it.
He leaned against the window frame, eyes still on the courtyard. The body he was in felt strange—light, but exhausted. And the memories were coming in pieces now. Enough to stitch together a name.
Samuel Zevrin Morvain.
Yeah, apparently this whole thing was his name now.
Funny, considering in his past life, he only had one word to carry.
Samuel is eighteen. A prodigy in ancient texts and runic languages. Another one of the Temple's prize catches.
Like the others, he'd been snatched up three months ago during the eclipse—dragged from his life like a bad piece of luggage. Guess the Temple needed more "rare" artifacts.
Honestly, once Veilin figured that out, he didn't even feel that bad.
Sure, it was a cult.
Sure, they worshipped some ancient nightmare with tentacles and trust issues.
And yeah, there were a few blood rituals here and there...
But hey— he got a roof over his head, hot food (most of the time), and a bed that didn't smell like wet socks and disappointment.
Compared to the orphanage? This place was practically a five-star resort.
He turned around.
The room was small—bare, almost like a monk's cell. A narrow bed in the corner. A shelf crowded with worn books. A single window that barely let in any light. And a study table.
Books were scattered across it, some open, others stacked in awkward piles, like someone had been searching for something they never found.
But in the center—lying there like it owned the room—was that damn diary.
That damn diary...
He stared at it for a while, like it might bite if he got too close.
He hadn't meant to read it at first. He'd just wanted to understand.
Figure out why Samuel—this body—had tried to hang himself.
Was it bullying? Training pressure? Some cruel sect hazing?
But no. Samuel hadn't died because he missed home.
He'd died because of that...
When Veilin first arrived, he'd convinced himself that he could just go along with it. Keep his head down.
Pretend to be the good little cultist.
Learn their texts.
Do as they say.
After all, it wasn't the worst situation he'd ever been in.
Hell, he'd survived worse back on Earth. An orphan, sold off to a factory, no family to care. He escaped that hell and clawed his way up to a decent life. He could do this. He could ride out the weirdness, follow the rules, and wait for the right moment.
But that damn diary had crushed all of it.
Every last shred of hope.
He moved toward the diary again, his fingers lingering on the edges like they were drawn to it by some sick magnetism. He flipped it open. At first, the entries were exactly what he expected.
Confused thoughts.
Pieces of memory that lined up with the ones fogging his own brain. The early days after they were taken—trying to stay hopeful, trying to fit in. Trying to survive.
But the last few pages...
They were different.
Torn, frayed at the edges like someone had ripped them out in a hurry. Maybe to destroy them. Maybe to stop themselves from reading more.
And on the final page—the only one left intact—there was blood.
Dried. Dark. Flaked at the corners.
Scrawled with shaking, desperate strokes:
"We were lied to....
We're never going to live.
This... is all a ritual.
To summon ...h-him.
Among us—one will be the vessel.
The rest… the sacrifice."
He had slammed the book shut !!!
And now, every time he looked at it, his jaw clenched, and he cursed that poor bastard under his breath.
Not because he didn't believe him.
But because he ...did.
Because he could feel it—woven into the jagged scribbles, buried beneath the frantic stammering of broken sentences—Samuel's fear. His despair. That hollow, spiraling certainty that there was no way out.
It wasn't just panic written on those pages—it was prophecy.
And suddenly… it all started to make sense.
The cult that rose from nowhere three months ago, during the blood-stained lunar eclipse—
A cult that no one had heard of before.
A cult that kidnapped the top young geniuses from everywhere....
A cult that united every nation in the Central Continent under a single banner of fury.
Because it wasn't random.
None of it was.
It was planned. Designed.
A ritual that needed the strongest…
This wasn't just pressure or bullying.
This was... doom.
Dressed in the robes of faith and glowing runes.
Veilin's breath hitched in his throat. He ran a trembling hand through his hair, fingers dragging across his scalp like he was trying to wake himself up from a nightmare. Then his eyes dropped back down to the diary, staring at it like it might whisper again… whisper something he didn't want to hear.
But instead—
He laughed.
A quiet, broken sound at first.
Barely more than a breath.
Then it grew.
A chuckle.
A grin twisted with ....madness.
And finally—laughter. Bitter, unhinged, loud enough to echo through the trees.
"So what?" he muttered, voice cracking but rising.
"So what if it's true? You think I'm just gonna sit here and wait to die?"
He stood. Eyes wide, wild.
"I'm not dying in this cursed place."
His voice dropped into a growl, something primal behind it.
"I'll escape this hell. I'll burn down anyone who stands in my way."
His gaze turned toward the distant spires of the temple—once a place of worship, now a mausoleum waiting to close its gates.
"I'll burn that temple to ash."
Then, almost a whisper, full of venom:
"I'll burn that cursed god to-----!!!!"
Knock. Knock.
The sudden sound shattered the silence.
He nearly had a stroke.
He stumbled back and landed hard, ass-first on the cold floor.
Thud
Just seconds ago, he'd felt bold—confident, even.
But that bravado scattered like smoke in the wind.
Was someone listening?
The silence pressed in, suffocating and thick, like a predator waiting to pounce.
Was it the temple?
The old stones—maybe they had ears. Maybe they were alive, just waiting for someone to make a mistake.
Or worse…
Had the god heard him?
Fantastic. Just what he needed.
Veilin resisted the urge to apologize to the sky.
Or to cry. Maybe both.
Samuel's eyes widened.
"No—no, no, no…"
Panic mode: activated.
His hands trembled.
Knock !!
"Seriously? This is how I die?" he hissed. "In chapter one? No buildup? No training montage?"
He froze, then shook his head.
"Calm the fuck down. Calm the fuck down !!"
The diary. He had to hide it.
Now!!!!
He scrambled to the bed and jammed the small, weathered book beneath the mattress like a kid hiding contraband from a parent—too fast, too clumsy, and with all the finesse of a drunk raccoon.
Definitely not suspicious at all. Perfectly normal behavior for a totally innocent cult intern with nothing to hide !!
Nope. Just a guy, shoving a bloodstained diary under his mattress during a thunderstorm, with a noose still hanging around his neck.
Happens every day.
Hmph !!
His breath came in short, sharp bursts as he stared at the door, waiting for it to open, waiting for the end—or whatever came next.
Then, a voice.
Muffled. Casual. Almost amused.
"Samuel? Are you alive? If yes, knock once. If not… knock twice."
Samuel froze.
That voice.
Oh no. or Oh yes?
This body knew that voice far too well.
Ah, so he was going to survive Chapter One after all...
***