It wasn't the gentle caress of sunlight that roused Ewan from his slumber, but rather a sharp, crushing agony, as if a sledgehammer were pulverizing his ribcage. He lay flattened against the earth, his eyes fixed in a thousand-yard stare at the azure sky above. It was a cloudless, brilliant expanse so beautiful it was blinding, standing in stark, cruel contrast to the physical vessel screaming in protest beneath him.
Every single breath Ewan took sent shockwaves of pain rattling through his bones. He lay there, exposed and solitary in this silent space, resembling nothing so much as a fish stranded on dry land, gasping for its final moments. Amidst the physical torment, Ewan became acutely aware of a massive, chaotic deluge of memories like raw information waste being violently force-fed into his cerebral cortex, compelling him to accept the download without any option to decline.
As time sluggishly crawled by, the situation clarified. The good news was that Ewan had finally acquired a physical body, something he had yearned for during tens of thousands of years of drifting. But the bad news? This was neither a gift of life nor a winning lottery ticket from the cosmos. This was a straight-up celestial scam.
The memories embedded in this corpse revealed the truth: some brat, weary of existence and possessing questionable intelligence, had unearthed a tattered grimoire from who-knows-what ancient dynasty and gleefully performed an archaic sacrificial ritual. The text supposedly promised: "The sacrificer offers up life and flesh to summon the Supreme Demon from the Abyss, an entity with the power to move mountains and fill seas, who shall grant every wish of the host."
Supreme Demon, my ass!
Ewan wanted to spring up and slap this summoner across the face, but his limbs were as limp as overcooked noodles. Open your mortal eyes and look! I am Ewan! I am an eco-friendly soul, a lover of peace and a hater of war! I have been drifting for eons just sightseeing, do I look like some bloodthirsty demon you dragged down here?
This knock-off ritual clearly suffered from a critical technical failure. Instead of summoning a three-headed, six-armed monstrosity, it had snagged a random bystander - him - and unceremoniously stuffed him into this frail, pathetic vessel. The sensation of his soul being forcibly fused with flesh was agonizing, feeling as though he were being pulverized and reconstituted from scratch. It was a fate worse than death.
But the crowning indignity didn't end there. That cheap, dime-store ritual came attached with a "Full Package Contract" that was non-cancellable. Ewan was now contractually obligated to fulfill the summoner's dying wish. If he failed, when this body eventually withered, Ewan's soul would perish along with it, scattering into nothingness and vanishing from the three realms forever.
Dammit to hell! Who asked you to summon me? Who asked for your sacrifice? I was living my best afterlife as a happy, wandering spirit, and now I am saddled with your debt?
Ewan lay sprawled on the grass, his mouth twitching as he mumbled curses in every language he had collected over the millennia. He was genuinely panicking. What if this lunatic wanted to conquer the universe or destroy the world? With a body as weak as a garden slug, Ewan couldn't even sit up on his own yet, what qualifications did he have to annihilate humanity? God, just thinking about it made him want to spew profanities.
Ah, wait a moment... within that chaotic jumble of memories, the brat's wish seemed to be lingering. Ewan tried to focus the last shreds of his consciousness to search for the prompt. His eyes glazed over as the information manifested with crystal clarity:
"Help me... take revenge on the clan."
This wish stunned Ewan into silence. If it were revenge against a single person, Ewan might have figured something out. But a clan? An entire, massive, influential clan? Are you kidding me? I haven't even figured out how to stand on two legs yet, and you expect me to take on an entire aristocratic lineage? Do you think I am Superman or a Genie?
A wave of absolute helplessness crashed over him. Amidst the desperate screams echoing from the bottom of his soul, combined with the physical torture racking him every second, Ewan felt his future turn pitch black. It was too much shock, too much pain, and entirely too absurd. He decisively rolled his eyes back and fainted once more, choosing unconsciousness over facing this brutal reality.
His eyelids, heavy as lead, finally deigned to budge. Ewan groggily opened his eyes, bracing himself for the biting cold of the wind or the scorching heat of the sun, but... neither came.
Instead, his vision was filled with the sharp, chiseled features of a man, set against a dimly lit backdrop. Ewan could almost feel the man's hand skimming over his skin, sending a shiver down his spine.
A few fragmented thoughts drifted through his cerebral cortex, but before Ewan could grasp them, his body reacted on instinct. Ewan's hands shoved the man away with all the strength he could muster, while his mouth screamed, though his voice was raspy from prolonged unconsciousness: "What are you doing! Stay away from me!"
"Awake, are we?" The man didn't seem the least bit frightened. He asked casually, though he did take a step or two back. However, for some inexplicable reason, Ewan felt a heavy presence hovering in the air, a pressure that weighed down on him uncomfortably.
"You... get out!"
"Hey now, I have no ill intentions. Don't glare at your benefactor like that, will you?" The man replied, then coughed once. He pulled a handful of leaves from his pocket, stuffed them into his mouth, and chewed: "Just wait a moment. Your pheromones are triggering mine. Could you reel them in a bit?"
Ewan had not fully regained his wits, so he had no idea what the man was talking about. He simply looked at him with eyes that were a mix of confusion and apprehension. Internally, Ewan chided himself: The man saved me, why am I looking at him like he is a predator?
But this was a physiological response, a lingering survival instinct from Basil Vance's consciousness. Helpless against the reaction, he asked vaguely: "What pheromones? How do I... reel them in?"
"..."
The man was momentarily rendered speechless by the question. It was enough to silence anyone. But then again, the boy had just woken up, he was likely still disoriented. The man muttered to himself: "Lucky for you, even though the inhibitors aren't working well, my self-control is excellent."
Then he sighed aloud: "Stop looking at me like I am a wild beast. I picked you up from the edge of the forest. If not for me, your corpse would be drying out in the wilderness. I was just checking your wounds earlier."
Now that it was mentioned, Ewan felt the stinging ache radiating through his body. Several spots on his skin burned, likely from open wounds. Paradoxically, this pain calmed him down, he lowered his guard slightly.
Propping himself up with difficulty, he surveyed his surroundings. The house had a peculiar architecture, boxy and sturdy, carrying the rustic vibe of the Stone Age or a historical drama. However, upon closer inspection of the walls, Ewan noticed something off. The material wasn't clay or normal brick; it was smooth and shimmered with the cold, metallic sheen of a stone he had never seen before.
Where on earth was this backwater place?
"What is it? I told you I am a decent man; I haven't kidnapped you to some criminal den. Don't judge a man's home like that."
The man's deep voice cut through Ewan's train of thought. Ewan finally took a moment to properly observe his self-proclaimed savior. He was tall, easily over a meter ninety, standing like a towering skyscraper that blocked the meager light filtering in from the main entrance.
Due to the backlighting and the dim interior, Ewan strained his eyes but couldn't make out the man's features clearly, seeing only an imposing, oppressive silhouette. But that voice... well, it sounded undeniably masculine, deep, warm, and resonant.
It was then that Ewan realized something miraculous. The man was clearly speaking a language Ewan had never studied, yet he understood it perfectly and could speak it fluently. The memories of the body rushed back like a flood, merging with his soul. Ewan looked at the benefactor before him, cleared his throat, and tried to squeeze out a polite, social smile despite his throat feeling as dry as a desert: "It was you who picked... ah, no, saved me? Thank you very much. I am sorry for the trouble."
"Oh, so you do know how to say thank you. For a moment there, you looked at me as if I were about to ravish you right then and there. Rest assured, even though I am an Alpha, I am a man of principle. I don't go around arbitrarily marking strange Omegas."
"Ravish? What are you..." Ewan was about to retort that a man like him had nothing to fear, but the latter part of the sentence made him freeze. He stammered: "Al... Alpha? Omega?"
Recalling the term "pheromone" the man had used earlier, his entire body went rigid as stone.
Omega? Alpha? Pheromones?
Ewan swallowed hard, a distinct gulp audible in the quiet room, as cold sweat began to bead at the nape of his neck. Don't tell me... he had transmigrated into one of those bizarre worlds often found in the Boy's Love novels that the girls in his old class used to scream about? The kind of world where men could get pregnant?
What in the absolute blooming hell was this?