The scene shifted abruptly. It was a lush green cemetery, bathed in the subdued light of a late afternoon. Standing before a gravestone was a man in a crisp black and white suit. This was Martin, the person who would eventually be known as Alista Tudor in the Shadow Slave world.
The inscription on the marble stone read:
Mike Winters
A Best Friend
A Great Brother
Martin's face was etched with profound sadness, tears streaming from his eyes. Mike had been his closest friend. Martin hadn't contacted him for a long time, consumed by his own personal life, and now his friend was dead by suicide. He didn't know the reason, and the guilt was a heavy weight on his conscience.
He searched around for their mutual friends. Strangely, most of them were not present. Martin knew Mike was an orphan, but he was also a successful bachelor and, crucially, the owner of the immensely wealthy BWB Group.
Looking away from the grave, Martin saw a blonde girl, Rebecca, who would later called herself Fors Wall. She was sitting alone on a stone bench, wearing a black dress and heels, silently weeping.
Martin walked over to her. Rebecca looked up at him with immense sadness. "Where were you?" she asked, her voice cracking.
"I had… work," Martin stammered. "What happened?"
Rebecca's face suddenly contorted with pure, helpless rage. "It was that goddamn Clara."
Martin was shocked. "Did Clara and Mike break up?"
"No," Rebecca spat out. "Clara goddamn stole his fortune and then framed him in a sexual allegation."
Martin was shocked to the core. "What? Why the hell did she do that?"
Rebecca explained the devastating motive. "Look, I don't know where you were, but Clara had a deep-seated feud with Mike, more accurately, their parents had a bitter fallout years ago. Clara's parents had a negative financial and social collapse. So, Clara impersonated a friend among us and meticulously fooled him."
Martin tried to rationalize. "What happened to the board of directors? They were supportive of Mike."
Rebecca shook her head. "Clara had leverage against them. While she framed everything as being for the company's benefit, she could have handled the situation much better. Some of our batchmates tried to resolve it in their own way, but she made their lives miserable, and some are now somewhere in jail. Regarding the press, she projected herself as the savior of the company."
Martin clenched his fists, the truth finally slamming into him. 'So, that is why I didn't see any corporate issue in the BWB Group in the news.'
Rebecca looked at him with silent accusation. "Where were you? If you were right there, it wouldn't have happened." Martin's face twisted in helpless anger. He had trusted Clara, believing she would take care of Mike's well-being.
As he was consumed by his grief and rage, a black limo pulled up to the cemetery. A beautiful woman with black hair emerged. She was wearing a sophisticated black dress with a black netted cap and carried a high-end Louis Vuitton handbag. It was Clara.
Martin stared at her, his vision clouded with absolute rage.
Alista suddenly woke up with a sharp intake of breath. He was lying down in the carnage of the Ashen Barrow. The memories of his past life, particularly Mike's tragic death, flooded his mind, leaving him feeling cold and deeply unsettled.
He suddenly felt incredibly heavy, making it hard to move, as if he were being weighed down. He managed to look up and saw Artemis nearby, meticulously building the boat.
She looked at him, noticing his struggle. "Are you still good? Do I need to fight you again?"
Alista felt the gravity immediately return to normal. He sprang up and surveyed the area. He had done it—he had killed the Fucking Soul Devouring Tree.
"How long was I out?" Alista asked, rushing past the shame of his outburst. "Did I do anything wrong elsewhere?"
Artemis looked at him pointedly. "Yeah. You technically attacked me, and it was brutal. You seemed to drown in it. Whatever that was, just… don't do it again."
Alista nodded, the memory of his past and his present rage intertwining painfully. He immediately started to help her, his mind still preoccupied with Mike's death. He muttered a silent, desperate prayer: "Fors, don't die."
They worked quickly, their efforts focused on the survival necessity. The boat they were building was rough but sturdy, constructed primarily from the chopped wood of the Soul Devouring Tree. The hull was reinforced with the durable Carapace Scavenger shells and other materials they had scavenged.
Alista looked up at the rapidly darkening sky. "It is going to become dark soon."
Artemis checked their progress. "Let's get ready."
They maneuvered the crude boat close to the edge of the crater. After some time, the sky was completely dark, and the Dark Sea immediately surged, filling the vast crater with black, churning water.
Immediately, Alista and Artemis shoved the boat into the dark expanse and jumped onto it. The boat, built of wood started to float steadily. Slowly, they began to sail away from the destroyed, blood-soaked Ashen Barrow.
********
[Waking World]
A small, cozy bedroom. A short, petite girl with black hair was sleeping soundly on the bed. Her room was filled with photographs of her family, and every surface held books—some were academic texts, others were fictional novels. Her communicator rested on the study table.
She woke up with a sharp intake of breath, her eyes wide with shock. She stared at the entire room, taking in every detail—the unfamiliar furniture, the subtle difference in the technology, the entire new world reflected in the space.
Shocked, she stumbled out of bed and rushed to the mirror, staring intensely at her reflection. She saw pale skin and black hair, features that were undeniably hers, yet somehow different.
She tentatively touched her face. "How did I become this? Why the hell am I in a different world?" she whispered.
Suddenly, a torrent of new memories flooded her mind: who this person was, her personality, her background, her name, and details about her family.
She sank back onto the bed, overwhelmed. 'This world is way more advanced than mine was. I… I've transmigrated. How the hell is this shit real?'
She looked at her reflection again. Her name, the original one, was Clara. She had apparently entered this girl's body in a new, technologically advanced world. She desperately wanted to return to her previous life, but she was somehow stuck in a were dominated by something called the Nightmare Spell.
She picked up a framed photograph of the girl's former self and frowned. "By the way, who the hell names their child Rain?" she muttered, referencing the name of the girl she had involuntarily replaced.
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