Transmigrated as the Villain: I Will Destroy Fate

Chapter 166: Recontextualization [3]

His body hurt. It hurt everywhere.

The taste of smoke and dust burned in his throat. A ribs ached, and his head pounded with the force of the impact that had sent him to the ground. The world refused to settle. Demons, a shattered barrier, a memory he had buried so deep he’d never thought it would resurface so clearly.

But he got up. He forced himself to his feet, swaying, his limbs heavy as stone.

He could not die here.

Sylvia died after telling him he had a purpose.

Luca did not understand what it all meant. He did not know why he was chosen, whether he deserved it, or why his entire life felt like it belonged to the world instead of him.

He would not spit on her death by dying here.

He raised his head, his gaze locking onto the young man standing before him. Green hair, dark brown eyes, a calm posture. The faintly disappointed expression remained, as if Luca had failed to meet some quiet, internal standard.

"Bruce." The young man introduced himself casually. "I already know who you are, so no need to introduce yourself."

There was no tension in his voice. No killing intent pressing down like a blade. He spoke as if this were an ordinary meeting, as if Luca was not a threat worth guarding against.

That casualness chafed more than any open mockery could have.

"So you’re the Hero?" Bruce tilted his head, studying him.

"Mesmer’s information was quite specific. You were supposed to have received some kind of... revelation. A prophecy in the past" He sounded like he was checking an item against a list. "Can you confirm that, just so I know I have the right guy?"

Luca answered by moving.

Lightning, sharp and violent, gathered around his fists. He lunged before Bruce could finish the question.

The first strike landed.

Electricity poured into Bruce’s body on contact, a torrent of raw power. But Luca did not release it. He channelled it, guiding the destructive energy through Bruce’s internal mana pathways, forcing it to spread like a virus. Then, with a control that bordered on obscene, he converted the nature of the spell.

Lightning became flame.

It was not a simple elemental switch. Most mages could barely transform the structure of their mana cleanly outside their own body, let alone inside an opponent’s. The lightning acted as a channel, the fire followed, erupting from within.

Flames burst across Bruce’s skin. They consumed him in a violent, silent flash. A second later, the burning form collapsed, crumbling into ash.

Luca did not relax. The dread in his chest, cold and heavy, remained.

A voice spoke behind him. It was impressed.

"Well, now. That’s more like it."

Luca spun around.

Bruce stood a few feet away, unharmed, looking at the charred corpse with mild curiosity.

"That was impressive. Maybe you are the Hero, after all. Who else could use magic like that?" He offered a slight, almost friendly smile. "How many elements can you use?"

Luca attacked again. A wave of concussive force, wind compressed into a battering ram.

Bruce kept speaking while he moved, sidestepping the blast with an infuriating lack of effort.

"I can only use one myself. Wind." The air around him shimmered as he slipped past a follow-up strike. "There is one other thing, of course. But I can’t tell you about that."

The tone remained conversational.

Luca’s attacks grew sharper. Faster. He abandoned finesse for overwhelming force, but Bruce was always just out of reach. His dodges were impossibly precise, avoiding spells by a margin so small it felt like a deliberate insult.

Luca fired a final, explosive burst of magic, aiming not to hit Bruce, but to force him back.

Bruce dodged.

Then he was in front of him.

Too fast? No. It was not speed. It was an illusion, a displacement trick that his senses had failed to parse.

Bruce sighed, that faint disappointment returning. His hand, glowing with a strange, misty energy, slid into Luca’s side. It was not a punch or a blade. It was a precise, horrifying insertion of mana near his liver.

Luca choked. Pain, white-hot and absolute, crashed through him. Bruce withdrew his hand, the strange mist coiling around his fingers. It felt wrong, like something reaching past flesh.

Bruce reached for his face.

"No."

Every instinct screamed.

Luca could not let that mist touch him.

He forced wind magic beneath his feet, a crude, uncontrolled explosion that threw him backward.

He tumbled across the ground, the impact rattling his bones, but he had created distance.

Bruce landed gracefully, frowning\.

"You don’t have to be scared," he explained, with no real malice in his voice. "I was only going to bring you into my soulspace."

Luca froze. He knew that term. Sylvia. The white forest. The recognition made the fear claw at him again.

"I just want to talk to someone normal," Bruce continued, almost rambling now. "Mesmer’s lot... they’re useful, interesting even, but they’re all strange. Lilith is unnatural. Nel feels like she’d torture you just to see what sound you make. And Fray is obsessed with battle." He paused. "As for Mesmer... well. Let’s not talk about Mesmer."

If anything, Bruce sounded tired. Lonely. That did not make him safer. It made him impossible to understand.

"You’re very susceptible to illusion magic, by the way," Bruce commented. "And soul attacks. You should work on that."

What?

Luca’s confusion lasted less than a heartbeat.

Move.

Instinct. That was what saved him.

He pushed off the ground, dodging to the side.

Nothing visible had attacked.

Then Bruce materialized in the exact space he had just abandoned. The real Bruce. Or another illusion. Luca could not tell.

This time, the casual tone vanished. "You’re being annoying."

No more talking.

Luca tried to move again, but it was too late.

Bruce grabbed him by the throat, his grip closing with crushing strength.

Pain bloomed as Luca lost the breath in his throat.

Luca clawed at the hand compressing his neck, but his body refused to respond cleanly.

The same mist from before coiled around Bruce’s fingers.

Then Luca felt something inside him being pulled.

Not blood. Not mana. Something deeper. Something that was him.

It was as if invisible hooks had sunk into the very center of his being, and were dragging him out through his throat.

Worse than the broken leg. Worse than the strike to his side.

Worse than anything.

He tried to scream. No sound came out.

Sylvia’s face flashed in his mind. The white forest. Her promise.

I’m sorry.

Then Bruce screamed.

The grip on his throat loosened.

Luca fell, gasping, air flooding his lungs.

Bruce staggered back, clutching his wrist.

His arm was burning with white fire. No, not fire. It was brighter, cleaner, more pure almost. The soul-stealing mist dissolved beneath it.

Luca’s wounds began to close. The ache in his body receded. He had not cast anything.

Then he heard a new voice.

A figure stepped in front of him, her flowing blonde hair a stark contrast to the battlefield’s smoke and ruin.

Her presence was bright enough to cut through the terror.

She was beautiful.

At the same time, familiar hands helped him to his feet.

Luca turned his head, still breathing hard, still shaking.

The blonde girl – Grace, it was Grace – faced Bruce.

Her voice was calm, almost sorrowful.

"You shouldn’t have done that, Bruce."

Iris stood behind him, her grip on his arm.

Bruce only stared at the divine flame consuming his arm.

His detached curiosity was finally gone.