Transmigrated as the Villain: I Will Destroy Fate

Chapter 164: Recontextualization [1]

Leaving Grace was a mistake.

Not an accident. Not a casualty of circumstance, either. A mistake.

The decision had seemed rational at the time. Necessary. She was dangerous, but not in the way Mesmer was. Grace Light understood the shape of things, the flow of the story. She would have seen the encounter with Bruce for what it was, a convergence point, a reward waiting for its intended recipient.

Ronan had not been running toward Luca simply to save him. Sure, the mission had come later and that reinforced his decision, but he had been running toward him because Bruce would be there.

And Ronan wanted Bruce dead.

Not defeated. Dead.

Bruce’s power was the key. The ability to devour souls, and the power transferred to whoever its dying holder thought of last.

In the original novel, that power was meant for Grace. When Luca killed Bruce during the ball, he thought of Grace last, because he thought her beautiful, and she got the power to devour souls. It was part of her path, a piece of the puzzle that elevated her beyond a simple support character. She would have recognized the setup, understood why Bruce mattered. She would have preserved the original route, or at least angled the outcome toward Luca and herself.

She would never have allowed Ronan to take it.

So he left her. He gambled, betting he could reach Luca first, intercept Bruce, and control the transfer towards himself.

He would have the power, and she would have to deal with the consequences of a rewritten Chapter.

That was the word for it. Arrogance. He had dressed it in the colors of strategy, but it was simple, unvarnished arrogance. Now, with his arms ruined, his soul cracked, and his mana almost depleted, he was paying the price. Mesmer had marked him as someone interesting, he should have anticipated this.

He hated this. This lack of control over the outcomes. It ate at him as he jogged beside Elara, trying to look for anyone that could help.

Elara had stopped asking questions.

She followed behind him in watchful silence. Her breathing was heavy but controlled, showing that she was still healthy. The polished steel of her gauntlets caught the dim light. Ronan could feel her questions pressing at his back. Mira’s possessed corpse. Lilith’s manic obsession. His impossible knowledge. Everything.

But she said nothing. She simply moved.

When a warped, twitching shape lunged from the trees, Elara was on it before Ronan had to waste the mana for a fireball. Her gauntlet caved in its malformed skull. A second creature, its limbs bent at unnatural angles, scrambled from the undergrowth. A raw burst of mana from Elara’s free hand threw it into a tree with enough force to shatter its spine.

When two came at once, she intercepted the first with a brutal forward thrust, then pivoted, crushing the second’s knee before driving her fist through its chest.

Ronan let her.

He despised needing the protection, only because it was not through choice of his own, but he was not fool enough to reject it.

They continued toward the center of the broken battlefield. The forest grew worse the deeper they went. Bodies littered the path - students, beasts, and twisted things that were no longer human enough to identify. Most were gone now. Either extracted by the failing retrieval system before it finally collapsed, or dead. The Academy should have intervened already, or they would have if they weren’t experiencing the brunt of the attack.

Then he saw it.

A pillar of light rose in the distance, a clean, white-gold spear piercing the smoke-choked sky.

Ronan stopped.

His heart skipped a beat.

Seraphina.

He turned to Elara. "There. We’re going there."

Her head snapped toward the light, then back at him. The suspicion in her eyes was immediate.

"Why? What is that?"

He gave her the useful part of the truth. "That pillar is the princess." He wasn’t in any mood to lie. He explained it was likely the activation of a royal protective artifact - a last resort. If it was active, she was in trouble.

And they needed her.

"She knows healing magic," Ronan said, cutting off her next question before it could form. His voice was flat, a statement of fact. "Grace would be better, but Grace isn’t here. These," he gestured with his chin toward his flayed forearms, "need treatment before they become useless. My body can’t take another fight like that."

They had no choice. Elara’s expression tightened. He could see the conflict warring in her face - the instinct to distrust him versus the undeniable logic of his words. She accepted it. Not with a nod, but by simply jogging towards the light.

They changed direction.

---

He walked through the forest with a bundle of firewood tied across his back, humming a quiet tune.

The air was cold enough to make his fingers ache, but Luca did not complain. Complaining would not make the wood lighter. It would not help Sylvia.

He did not know what illness Sylvia had. Sometimes she coughed until her whole body shook. Sometimes she slept for most of the day, her breathing shallow. Sometimes she looked at him with eyes so ancient and sad that Luca felt she was seeing someone else entirely. It did not matter. He was taught to help people.

So he helped.

Taking care of himself had been hard enough. Two people was harder. It meant more food, more firewood, more caution. But Sylvia was kind. She smiled even when she was tired. She told him stories of her travels, of cities he had never seen and monsters he could barely imagine.

She made him laugh.

That was enough.

He had lived with her for nearly a year.

There had been only one strange moment. When she muttered something under her breath about saving the world. But she returned to normal after that. Sick people said strange things. He decided not to worry.

The cabin came into view through the trees.

Luca froze.

Smoke rose from the roof.

For a single heartbeat, he did not understand. Then flames burst through a side window, hungry and orange.

The cabin was on fire.

The firewood dropped from his back. He ran.

"Sylvia!" he screamed, his voice cracking.

Mana gathered around him, wild and urgent.

Water formed in the air, a massive, massive sphere that grew above the burning cabin. He forced more power into it, more than he should, more than he could control.

He released it.

The sphere crashed down, smashing over the cabin and crushing the flames. Steam erupted in every direction. The door hung open, blackened and half-burned.

He rushed inside, coughing as heat and smoke hit his face. For a moment, he thought he was too late.

Then he saw her.

Sylvia lay in the center of the room.

She was not alone.

Three figures stood around her.

A circle had been drawn across the floor, dark lines and unfamiliar symbols forming rings around her body. The strangers stood at its border, as if maintaining it.

Sylvia lay in the center.

The air felt heavy. Wrong.

"Sylvia?" Luca’s voice broke.

The three figures turned toward him.