Chapter 37: The Story Begins
Perspective: Klein Moretti / Velkaris (Parallel POV)
Klein's POV – The Awakening
A throbbing pain pulsed inside his skull—rhythmic, intense, and nauseating.
Zhou Mingrui—no, Klein Moretti—gasped, body trembling as he slowly opened his eyes. The world around him was strange. Blurred at first, then tinted red, like his vision was filtered through a veil of blood.
Before him stood a sturdy wooden desk. At its center: an ancient notebook, yellowed with time, opened to the middle.
Black, claw-like handwriting was etched across the page in a language he shouldn't have known—yet understood: Hermes.
To the side, a brass revolver shimmered faintly under pale crimson light. An ink bottle pulsed with a strange glow, embossed with the outline of something divine.
The pipes running through the wall were metallic, unfamiliar, and ominous. The lamp above them—European in design—shed a dim light, flickering slightly.
And when he looked up?
A crimson moon hovered in the sky beyond the window. Vast. Silent. Watching.
The horror gripped him instantly.
Klein stood.
Then fell.
Pain struck again, deeper this time—almost like something inside his mind screamed at being touched.
As he forced himself up from the creaking chair, panic swelled in his chest.
The revolver. The strange study. The veil of red.
He wasn't dreaming.
He had transmigrated.
Velkaris's POV – Watching the Fool
Far across the seas of perception, from within a sanctuary of mirrored lies, Velkaris watched the scene unfold.
His gaze was not bound to distance—he peered through the Mirror of the First Ripple, one of the oldest divine anchors in his temple. The moment he had sensed the Antigonus Book stir, he knew this day would come.
And as he stared deeper, the edges of the mirror flickered.
The first one to notice—
Adam.
Of course it would be him.
The Golden-Eyed Tyrant was already watching.
Bound by his unique nature and ever-curious mind, Adam had positioned Sealed Artifact 006 within the area long ago—perhaps even knowing Klein's death would happen under its gaze. The artifact, known to distort cognition and stir destiny, had reacted. Even the manner of Klein's death bore its signature.
And now, the artifact pulsed.
Velkaris saw it.
It had begun to observe Klein's revival on its own.
Adam noticed the change first.
The artifact itself—second.
And then, in the far misted corners of the reflection…
Evernight's gaze joined the game.
Ripples of divine perception spread, slow and precise. The Evernight Church had not yet realized the who, but they knew something unnatural had happened.
A resurrection tied to the Fool's path.
A violation of fate.
Klein's POV – The First Signs
As his mind calmed, memories flowed into him.
He was Klein Moretti, history graduate of the Loen Kingdom. Son of a dead soldier. Brother to two siblings. Student of the ancient languages—Hermes and Feysac. Mourner. Scholar.
And now—something more.
As Klein struggled to reconcile Zhou Mingrui's past with his new identity, his attention landed on the revolver again.
Why would Klein have something this expensive?
That's when he saw it.
A bloody handprint.
His own right palm was stained in red. The pain in his temple pulsed, like a heartbeat behind a mask.
He stumbled toward the mirror.
What he saw stopped him cold.
A burnt, ruptured wound on his head, crusted with blood and rimmed with a faint charred ring—as if bullet had entered his skull. Around the wound, a faint gray matter oozed down his temple.
Brain matter.
The signs of death—and yet he stood.
The injury wasn't natural. It wasn't accidental. Something had forced its way into his head—his soul.
And suddenly, from the notebook behind him…
"Everyone will die, including me."
Hermes runes, clear as day. His heart pounded.
Velkaris's POV – The Web Tightens
Velkaris leaned forward, eyes narrowing. The mirror showed more than the scene.
It showed threads—fate lines, warping like a net around Klein.
"Fool awakens," he murmured. "And the world bends."
He turned slightly, seeing the reflection of Alger Wilson jolting awake aboard a ship miles away—touched by a nightmare of masks and crimson moons.
Velkaris smiled faintly.
"The Church of Storms already suspects," he said. "Soon the Hangman will be drawn in."
He waved a hand across the mirror, and it shimmered again.
Rumors continued to grow:
"The Fool was once an ancient god. A deceiver of time. A traitor to fate."
"He used riddles to collapse empires."
"The Fool is not a title... It is a curse."
Velkaris stepped back from the glass.
"They'll chase shadows, not names. And by the time they see clearly... the world will already be rewritten."
End of Chapter 37: The Story Begins