It took nearly one hour for Mors to finally calm down.
He leaned back against the rough trunk of a large tree, slowly organizing the flood of unfamiliar memories and information in his mind.
In short, he had transmigrated into the world of The Fourth Worldfall, the very novel he had been reading back on Earth.
But not as the protagonist.
Not as a side character.
Not even as a villain.
He had become an extra.
A disposable nobody who was meant to die before the story even had a chance to begin.
His current body was young, around 16 years old, with messy black hair, pale skin, and striking silver eyes. Given a few more years, he would undoubtedly grow into a handsome young master.
This body's original owner was also named Mors. More precisely, Mors de Lunaris.
"What are the chances that I transmigrated into the body of someone with the same stupid name?" Mors muttered under his breath.
On this continent, human power was concentrated in a few major forces: the hegemonic Cilaegon Empire, the holy kingdom of Seraphis, the Solun Diarchy, and several independent states.
The Solun Diarchy was ruled by two ancient lineages: Solaris and Lunaris.
Little Mors was the son of the second wife of the patriarch of House Lunaris.
But sadly, he was exiled from the house and forbidden from setting foot anywhere near the territories of the Diarchy.
Just thinking about the reason Little Mors had been exiled made Big Mors shiver.
"Hoo… those Solaris guys would probably fry me alive if they ever saw me face to face."
So, to sum it all up—
Mors de Lunaris was no longer a Lunaris.
He was just Mors.
Homeless, disowned, and very much alive.
♢ ♢ ♢ ♢
Mors pushed himself to his feet and decided to stop dwelling on Little Mors's tragic history. Worrying about the past would not help him survive the present.
He scanned the forest, his gaze eventually landing on a nearby bush filled with small, cherry-sized red fruits.
His lips twitched at the sight.
After all, those fruits were the very reason the original Mors had died, making room for Mors from Earth to take his place.
"Sigh…"
Mors clasped his hands together and bowed slightly toward the bush.
"Rest in peace, kid. I'll take care of everything else."
Straightening up, he began to move around, walking, jumping lightly, and stretching as he adjusted to the unfamiliar body. After a few moments, he stopped, his lips slowly curling upward.
"Heh… haha."
The laughter started quietly, almost cautiously, as if he were testing whether it was allowed.
Then it grew louder, edged with hysteria.
Of course he was laughing. He had just gained a perfectly healthy body.
Mors did not miss Earth even a little, and there were two very good reasons for that.
First, he had no family waiting for him there.
Abandoned at birth and left in an orphanage, he was later adopted by an elderly couple. He lost them while he was still young, but they had left him their home and savings, allowing him to live a peaceful, quiet life.
He missed them deeply. To him, they had been grandparents in every sense that mattered.
As for his biological parents, he did not care whether they were alive or dead. No excuse would ever justify abandoning a child at birth.
The second reason was his body.
On Earth, he could only stay awake for eight hours a day. Most of that time was consumed by school, where he was bullied for his condition and for being an orphan.
The teachers, at least, understood and limited his classes to four hours a day, but it was still exhausting.
Here, though?
He had a healthy body. No forced sleep. No weakness.
And it was even more handsome, which he considered a minor but welcome bonus.
"I'm going to enjoy this life until this world gets doomed again."
His voice carried through the silent forest, steady and unapologetic.
But before he could take a single step toward enjoying that future, an overwhelming wave of drowsiness crashed down on him. His eyelids grew unbearably heavy.
"Wha…?!"
He staggered, lost his balance, and fell onto the damp earth.
"Wait… no… no… why am I—"
His eyes shut completely.
Mors slipped into a deep sleep, the kind where even a nuclear explosion nearby would not be enough to wake him.
♢ ♢ ♢ ♢
Time slipped by, and 16 hours passed in the blink of an eye.
Mors was still sprawled on the forest floor, his body flat against damp leaves and dirt, sleeping peacefully.
Suddenly, his eyes snapped open.
"Ugh…"
He groaned as consciousness returned.
Just before being dragged into forced sleep, his new body had felt weak, like that of a boy who had been fasting for days. Now, however, it felt strangely reinvigorated.
And yet, there was no joy on his face.
The excitement he had felt earlier, the thrill of a new world and a new life, drained away like water through cracked stone. In its place was a familiar, suffocating rhythm.
The same drowsy cycle he had lived with back on Earth.
'So… it wasn't a dream,' Mors thought. 'I really did transmigrate. And it looks like my disorder followed me all the way to this world.'
He did not want to believe it.
But his body was telling him otherwise.
Slowly, he pushed himself up and turned his gaze toward the bush of poisonous red berries nearby.
His expression went blank.
Then he snapped.
He kicked the bush repeatedly, flattening it underfoot. He slammed his fists into the rough bark of a nearby tree, ignoring the sharp pain that tore through his knuckles.
All it earned him was torn skin and bleeding hands.
Eventually, Mors stopped. His chest heaved as he tilted his head back, staring through the dense canopy above.
"Haa… haha…" He laughed bitterly. "What the fuck is wrong with me?"
His voice carried faintly among the trees.
"How does a body condition follow my soul into another world? What kind of sick joke is this?"
He collapsed backward onto the ground and stayed there, staring at nothing.
Grrrlll.
His stomach growled loudly from hunger, yet Mors didn't even bother reacting.
'What now…?'
Sleeping 16 hours a day in a world where you could be stabbed for walking down the wrong street was practically a death sentence. That was without even mentioning slave traders.
And with his noble-looking features and unnatural silver eyes, he would be prime merchandise.
"What reset is this world even on?"
From Little Mors's memories and from what he remembered reading in the novel, this did not resemble the fourth reset at all.
There was a clear reason for that.
In the fourth cycle, at least in the version recorded in the novel, only one Heir was widely known at the beginning.
Asier Crowne.
The other Heirs were newly selected during the fourth cycle itself.
Every Heir who had died in the first three cycles had completely ceased to exist.
They were not reborn when the world was reconstructed. They did not return. It was as if they had never existed at all.
Even their loved ones forgot them.
Only Asier, the Chosen One, persisted through the resets and retained his memories.
The world had already ended four times.
Mors was certain of that for a simple reason.
In the fourth cycle, the Heir of the Celestial had come from the Lunaris Family. More precisely, it had been Little Mors's elder sister, Stella de Lunaris.
Yet within Little Mors's memories, there was no sister named Stella.
No face.
No presence.
Not even a vague sense of loss.
After the world was reset once more, she had simply ceased to exist.
"So this is the fifth cycle," Mors muttered quietly. "And if what Charon said is true…"
He swallowed.
"The Goddess of Creation, Nüwa, is already too weak to reconstruct the world again."
'That means this is the final run.'
He did not know what to feel about that.
Knowing the events of the fourth cycle was useless anyway. The Apostles would remember everything too. In this round, nothing would follow the novel.
Nothing ever did.
"An accursed world," Mors sighed.
His thoughts slowed, heavy and sluggish, sinking into apathy.
"But I'm too sleepy to care."
Like a sloth clinging to a tree, his motivation loosened its grip and slipped away.