The First Transmigrat

I didn't kill the deer.

Its body lay broken. Its blood painted the roots of the forest black. Its memories… flowed into me. Like rivers flooding a dam too weak to hold them. I saw its life—no, I lived it.

How it was born as nothing. A creature. A beast.How it learned to feel. To think.How it met humans, deceived them, then consumed them.It was never divine.It only wore divinity like a mask.

And I saw the moment it found the rift—space and time folding, swallowing it. I felt its hunger as it woke in this world. How it spread its corrupted blood into the rivers, how it tried to make others like it—only to devour them too.

And I—Kaiser—was the end of that story.

I thought it was over.

But I didn't kill it.

I let it die on its own. Or maybe I hoped the world would do it for me. Or maybe I was already tired of killing.

I remember thinking: Let this world break. I don't care anymore.

The sky above me was splitting.

Fractures crisscrossed the heavens, glowing faint gold and pale violet. Like a mirror that had been cracked but hadn't yet shattered.

Then the leech returned.

The same one. But… not. It was smaller now, thinner. Its grotesque body twitched and pulsed like it was struggling to breathe.

I didn't fight.

I didn't run.

I just… hid.

Months passed like days. Or maybe years. It was hard to tell. I could barely feel my body anymore. I was all soul now. Drifting. Alone. Borrowing scraps of moonlight to stay intact. I wasn't dying, but I wasn't living either.

The Lumen Core still responded to me—but faintly. Like a god tired of answering a prayer.

Then the leech came again.

I thought it would pass. Like it always did.

It didn't.

It lunged—straight at my body.

Panic seized me.

Not fear. Terror.A cold, raw, consuming terror.

I screamed through the Lumen Core, slashing at it from within, using every drop of power I could scrape together. Bolts of silver energy tore into the leech. It twisted, shrieked in silence.

I landed a hit.

Then another.

Hope. I felt it—a spike of wild, manic joy.

I can win.

I can kill this thing.

The leech began to falter, its shape flickering like a dying fire.

It was dying.

Yes. Yes. Just die. Please. Just—

Then it attacked.

Not my body. Me.

It struck my soul.

And suddenly, a thousand blades tore through me.I couldn't scream.I couldn't think.

It was like drowning in needles.Like every thought I had was being flayed open.I tried to pull back. Retreat.

But it was too late.

Something snapped.

And then—nothing.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't return to my body.Couldn't leave it either.

I was trapped.

My soul hovered there—suspended in silence, my body half-buried in the mud. Unmoving. Cold.

Time lost meaning.

The world changed.

The base fell into chaos. Screams echoed across the distance. Beasts rampaged. Most of the survivors died in days. The rest lasted a little longer.

Twenty-one remained.

Then ten.

Then… silence.

They tried to find me.

They never did.

They took beast cores to survive. It drove them mad. They turned on each other. Their bodies twisted. They roared, howled, begged. Some disappeared. Some were eaten.

And I watched it all.

Helpless.

The world died slowly.

Trees fell. Rivers dried. The sky lost its light. Beasts turned to bone. The cracked mirror of the sky trembled.

I stayed in the mud, my body untouched by decay.

Then—

Lightning.

A storm exploded from the forest.

Electricity danced like dragons across the land, vaporizing everything for miles.

And I—I awoke.

My eyes opened.

I breathed.

My skin sparked with silver and gold.I moved my fingers.

And for a moment, I felt alive.

I looked around.

Everything was gone.

The forest was ash.

The sky was still. The cracks were sealed. No beasts. No humans. No birds.

Just me.

And I knew.

This realm belonged to me now.

Here, I could regenerate endlessly. Here, I couldn't die. My body was perfect, reshaped, reborn. My eyes turned gold at will. I could feel the deer's gifts—its abilities now mine. The echoes of its long life burned in my blood.

But joy?

No.

I felt nothing.

Only a hollow, still quiet.

I searched for survivors.

There were some. Far off. Struggling. Crawling. Begging the sky.

I couldn't help them.Not yet.I was still cursed.

The leech never truly died.

It clung to me.

Even now, it floated beside my soul. A black, tiny thing. A seal. A scar.

I gained new powers. I could leave my body—move as soul alone.

But I couldn't see. I could only feel.Shapes. Emotions. Essence.

The world was a blur of heat and presence.

The leech circled me, waiting.

What did it want?

Was it mine now?

Was I its?

I hadn't tested its abilities. I didn't dare.

But I knew this:

My soul was changing.

Every day, it grew more stable.More solid.More real.

Even without my body, I was no longer a whisper in the void.

I was becoming something new.

Something that didn't belong to this world.

But could shape it.