The Transmigrated Author

"...What?"

"My memory doesn't recall doing such an act like this." He tilted his head slightly, studying me.

"It should have gone much more differently."

I stared at him. My brain was still rebooting trying to stitch together the sequence of events that had led from three simultaneous explosions to me on my back, breathing, alive.

"The System," I managed.

"It said I completed the quest. Then it said I died. Then it activated Fate Reprieve."

"Fate Reprieve." He repeated the words like he was tasting them.

"I remember that. I remember earning it."

He was quiet for a moment. His eyes drifted to the side, searching for something I couldn't see.

"But I don't remember using it here. In this moment."

His gaze came back to me. Sharper now.

The same look I got when something didn't add up and I was trying to figure out why.

"You must have done something differently," he said.

"Something that altered the way the story goes."

"How?" My voice was hoarse. "I thought..."

I didn't finish. I didn't know how.

He seemed to understand anyway. He always did. He was me.

"Well." He gestured vaguely at the void around us.

"I guess it's the path of fate. The main timeline. Or whatever you want to call it."

His hand dropped back to his side.

"This moment...this meeting... was supposed to happen a certain way. I remember it happening a certain way."

He paused.

"But this isn't how I remember it."

I didn't know what to say to that. I was still on my knees, still shaking, still trying to process the fact that I'd just died and come back in the space of a single breath.

"You can't tell me what changed,"

"I can't tell you a lot of things. The Tower has rules. I'm doing what I'm allowed to do."

"Allowed." I pushed myself upright.

My legs still felt like they belonged to someone else, but they held.

"That doesn't sound like us."

"It sounds exactly like us. You just haven't learned it yet."

He reached into his coat—the all-black tactical suit, the mercenary gear I'd been studying since he first appeared—and withdrew something small. It caught the void's strange light and held it, glinting faintly.

"Take this."

I held out my hand. He dropped the object into my palm.

It was a compass. No needle. No markings. Just a smooth surface that shimmered when I turned it, like something was sleeping beneath the glass.

FWANG!

[Item Received: Wayfinder's Compass]

[Rarity: ???]

[Effect: Allows instant traversal between the four towers of the system.]

[Select Destination: Tower 1 | Tower 2 | Tower 3 | Tower 4]

[Current Location: Unknown]

[Note: Does not consume mana. Passive relic. No cooldown.]

[Limitation: Item cannot be used until the Tower Arc begins.]

I stared at the description. Four towers. Instant traversal.

This wasn't just a convenience it was a strategic asset.

The kind of item that changed how you approached every floor, every fight, every escape route.

"What's the catch?"

"No catch. You just can't use it yet." Prime folded his arms.

"When the Tower arc starts, it'll work. Until then, it's a paperweight."

I pocketed the compass and bowed gratefully to myself.

"Thank you."

"Don't thank me. It's yours anyway. I'm just giving it to you earlier than I got it."

Before I could respond, the system window flickered back to life.

FWANG!

[Quest rewards have been calculated...]

[Distributing Reward Now!]

[Item Received: Early Access Ticket]

[Rarity: Unique]

[Effect: Allows early access to the Tower before the official opening period.]

[Usage: Upon entering the tower [???] will ask for your ticket.]

[Uses: 1/1]

[Note: This item is permanently bound to User: Axel Saint Rel Laurence.]

[Note: Cannot be traded, dropped, or stolen.]

I read the description twice... that meant I could enter the Tower ahead of the other candidates ahead of Jan, ahead of Louise, ahead of whoever else the system decided to throw into the next phase.

I looked up at Prime.

"Did you get this too?"

He glanced at the window, and something passed through his expression not quite surprise, but close.

"Something similar," he said. "Not that."

"Not the same?"

"No." His eyes met mine. "That's new."

It was another change to the timeline that his older self remembered.

It seemed everything was drifting further away from the one I was living, and neither of us knew where it was heading.

[Departure in 30 seconds.]

I didn't have much time. The void was already thinning at the edges, the white bleeding toward something else.

I looked at Prime one last time.

"Does everyone make it?" I asked.

"In the end. Do they all make it?"

"That's something only you can change."

I held his gaze. He didn't look away.

"I hope," he said quietly, "you can change everything I couldn't fix."

The void began to dissolve.

Prime's form faded at the edges and the black suit, the broken mask, the tired eyes.

He raised one hand in something that wasn't quite a wave and wasn't quite a salute.

"Don't waste it," he said.

"The early access. The compass. The second chance."

"I won't."

"Good." His voice was fading now, the white swallowing him whole.

"Then maybe I'll remember this differently next time."

FWOOOSH!

***

[Montclair's Mansion - Artifact Library]

The Montclair estate was in ruins.

What had once been a grand courtyard was now a battlefield of cracked stone and scorched earth.

The artifact library stood behind them, its doors still open, the faint glow of the Orb of Phantasmal flickering from within. But the fight had long since moved outside.

Morwen stood at the centre of the destruction, unharmed and unbothered.

His dark cloak hung still around him despite the wind that howled through the broken pillars.

His expression was unreadable calm, almost bored, as if the two opponents facing him were little more than a passing inconvenience.

"You're persistent," Morwen said.

"I'll give you that."

"Persistence is all we need."

Yang Vienna stood opposite him, her clothes were torn at the shoulder and her breath was getting heavier by the moment.

The thorns of crystallized mana hovered around her in a defensive ring each one sharp enough to pierce steel, each one vibrating with the tension of a coiled spring.

She'd been holding the line for ten minutes now, and every second of it showed in the set of her jaw.

Beside her, Lan Villerion rolled his shoulder like he was loosening up for a morning workout rather than a fight against one of the Darkworld's commanders.

"You know, most people leave when they're not wanted. It's basic manners."

SHKKKK!

Lightning shot straight out from Lan's arms as he took a stance.

"Manners don't concern me." Morwen's gaze flicked to him.

"Clearly."

FWSHOOOWH!

Lan moved.

BAM!

He crossed the distance in a blink, faster than someone his size had any right to be and his fist connected with the space where Morwen had been standing a half-second earlier.

The impact shattered the ground.

Dust and debris erupted outward in a shockwave that rattled the remaining windows of the library.

Morwen had shifted. Barely. Just enough.

"You're quick,"

"You're slow," Lan replied, already pressing forward again.

"Five Folded Thorn Bullets"

Yang didn't waste the opening.

Her thorns shot forward in a coordinated wave, breaking the earth in staggered succession rather than all at once.

Two from the left, two from above, and one driving straight toward Morwen's center of mass, each pillar surfacing a heartbeat after the last so that avoiding the first only walked him into the next.

Each one carried enough force to punch through reinforced steel. Each one was aimed to kill.

Morwen deflected the first three with a sweep of his arm. The fourth he caught. The fifth he sidestepped.

And without noticing there was a sixth.

BAM!

The sixth clipped his sleeve.

A thin line of red appeared on his forearm. Not deep. Barely a scratch. But it was there.

Yang's eyes narrowed.

"You're holding back."

"I'm being careful," Morwen corrected. He glanced toward the library—toward the glow of the Orb still pulsing inside.

"There's a difference."

"You're afraid of damaging it," Lan said, circling to Morwen's left.

"The Orb. You've been pulling your punches this whole time because you don't want to risk breaking it."

Morwen didn't confirm or deny. He didn't need to. The answer was written in every restrained movement, every deflected blow, every time he chose evasion over counterattack.

"If I wanted either of you dead," Morwen said quietly, "you would be."

"Bold words for someone who's bleeding," Yang said.

Morwen looked at the cut on his arm. Almost amused.

"This isn't bleeding. This is an inconvenience."

He raised his hand. The air around him darkened not with mana, but with something else.

The shadows at his feet began to writhe, stretching outward like reaching fingers.

Yang's thorns repositioned. Lan's stance shifted. Both of them braced.

Then the light came.

FWANG!

A flash erupted from the artifact library.

Then the doors burst open, and the air filled with the unmistakable hum of a completed teleportation.

One by one, figures began to materialize in the courtyard.

Jan. Louise. Bazz. Camila. Alice. Jae. Lyra. Christian and Anouz, Richard's unconscious form still slung between them.

And at the center.

Rel.

Valencia appeared beside him, her hand still half-raised from where she'd touched the shard.

Their eyes met for a fraction of a second. Something passed between them. Something that would need to be discussed later.

Morwen lowered his hand and the shadows retreated.

"Well," he said, his voice carrying across the ruined household.

"It seems the game has changed."

His eyes moved across the returning students—pausing on Rel, then Valencia, then Jan—before settling back on Yang and Lan.

"You've won this encounter," Morwen said.

"But don't mistake fortune for victory."