The flickering hum of dying fluorescent lights echoed off the greasy walls of my café. Only two of the twelve computers still worked. One was occupied by a high schooler grinding through a game he barely understood. The other was mine—old, patched, jury-rigged—yet still capable of tapping into the digital underworld.
Outside, Manila didn't sleep.
Inside, I was already buried.
Rent overdue.
Electric bill threatening to cut power.
Debt collectors like wolves sniffing around my door.
I was a nobody.
Until I met him.
"You want to change the world, kid?"
That was the first message he sent.
Username: RootNull
Avatar: just static. No traceable IP. No location. Not even metadata.
He appeared on a forum so deep I needed three layers of encryption just to open the damn page.
I responded like a fool:
"What can one man do?"
He answered:
"Burn the right files. The system eats itself."
That night, my real education began.
---
Weeks blurred into months.
I learned to write scripts that undid years of cover-ups.
I cracked into servers protected by state-of-the-art security.
I watched politicians fall—one after another—as their dirty secrets flooded social media like a virus.
They called it the "Whisper Plague"—proof too damning to ignore, dropped by an unknown entity.
Anonymous. Undefeated.
Me.
But power breeds arrogance.
One night, I got sloppy.
Skipped the VPN.
No IP masking.
No rerouting.
No protection.
A single breach. A single upload.
I didn't even know I'd been traced until the power cut.
Then came the knock.
Three. Measured. Final.
Before I could stand, the door burst open.
Black suits. No badges. No hesitation.
A gun pressed to my head.
I looked into the void of a man who didn't blink when he pulled the trigger.
---
I thought I'd see darkness.
Instead—I saw fire.
Not hell.
But a sky burning with two suns.
I gasped. My lungs burned. My limbs felt… small. Weak. Like a child's.
Voices echoed around me—elegant, refined, full of nobility and disdain.
"He's awake."
"The Duke's heir survives."
I opened my eyes.
Marble ceilings. Silk blankets. A woman weeping beside the bed, dressed like a noble from some medieval drama.
My hands—tiny. Baby hands.
My body—new.
I'd been reborn.
Into a world of mana, nobility… and corruption deeper than anything I'd seen on Earth.
But they don't know me.
Not yet.
This world thinks power is inherited.
I'll teach them what real power is.