Chapter 1: The Tyrant’s Return

The first thing he noticed was the weight.

A body heavier than his own, the stillness of limbs that weren’t his, and the faint burn of power coursing under skin like an ember that never died. His eyes opened slowly to a vaulted ceiling carved with runes, where gilded chandeliers cast fractured light across polished marble.

But the real shock was the reflection staring back at him from the glass window to his left.

A boy. No—him.

Black hair, unruly yet regal. Pale skin, almost too flawless. And eyes—those damned silver eyes that gleamed unnaturally, cold and otherworldly. Eyes he had only ever seen described on paper, never meant to belong to him.

“...No way.” His voice trembled as he touched his face, the stranger’s features too sharp, too aristocratic. “This is—this can’t be…”

But it was.

Lucien Rennehart.

The very name clawed at his mind, dragging with it the memory of nights spent reading Legacy of Order. A name synonymous with cruelty, betrayal, and arrogance. The one true villain of the story—a man so consumed by his ideals that he became the tyrant who stood against the heroes.

And the one destined to fall.

“Of all the people…” He clenched his jaw, bitterness twisting his expression. “Why him? Why me?”

He remembered clearly—Lucien wasn’t a misunderstood rival or a tragic figure who earned sympathy. He was the obstacle, the storm every hero had to endure before the dawn. Readers loathed him. The protagonist of Legacy of Order despised him. And when the end came, Lucien was reduced to ashes, forgotten. That was the role he had been thrown into.

His fists tightened until his knuckles whitened. A tremor ran through him, not from fear of death, but from the cruel irony. “To be trapped in the body of the story’s most hated villain…” His laugh was hollow and dry. “This has to be a sick joke.”

His mind spiraled back to the book. Lucien Rennehart—last heir of a disgraced noble line. A prodigy in magic and intellect, cursed with solitude. The academy would be his stage, but every step he took was another stone laid on the path of tyranny. He would rise high, yes—but only to fall harder. And now he was supposed to walk that path.

“No.” His silver eyes narrowed, sharp as a blade. “Not me. I won’t be crushed under a fate that isn’t mine.” He would use the immense power humming beneath his skin, the knowledge of the future he possessed, and he would carve out a new destiny.

As the defiant thought crossed his mind, a faint pulse shivered in the back of his skull.

A voice.

Cold. Mechanical. Absolute.

[System initialized.] [Identity confirmed: Lucien Rennehart.]

He froze, the voice echoing not in his ears but directly within his consciousness. Before he could process it, he felt the deep reservoir of magical power in his new body and instinctively tried to draw upon it—a test, a confirmation.

The moment he reached for it, agony erupted behind his eyes. It was a clean, blinding pain, as if a needle of ice had been driven into his brain. He gasped, stumbling back against a marble column, his vision swimming with black spots.

[Warning: Deviation from predetermined role will incur penalties. Unauthorized use of power is forbidden.]

His blood ran cold. The pain receded as quickly as it came, leaving a phantom chill and a terrifying clarity. He wasn't free. He was a puppet, and this "System" held the strings.

“...So I don’t even get a choice, huh?” he whispered to the empty room. He had to play the part. To the outside world, he must be the arrogant, cruel, and ultimately doomed Lucien. To deviate was to invite pain, or worse—to have the world itself shift against him, making his impossible situation even deadlier.

With a deep, steadying breath, he straightened his uniform. The academy awaited beyond the door.

Hide. Observe. Survive. That was the only real choice he had.

With that, he stepped forward, his first careful strides into Arcanis Magna Academy as the false villain.

The Great Hall stretched before him, vaulted ceilings adorned with intricate runes and banners bearing the academy’s crest. Sunlight filtered through stained glass, casting fractured rainbows across the polished stone floors where hundreds of students milled about. The air hummed with nervous excitement and the casual cruelty of adolescents discovering hierarchy for the first time.

Lucien’s eyes flicked from face to face, his mind a cold, calculating machine. He noted a tall girl with auburn hair moving with the measured grace of a duelist, her violet eyes sharp and analytical. He saw a boy with spiky blond hair laughing loudly, radiating a reckless power masked by arrogance—a typical obstacle, dangerous if underestimated. His gaze drifted to a corner where a smaller figure crouched, hunched over, a potential pawn if handled correctly. Every student was a variable, a piece on a board he was forced to play.

And then he saw her.

Poised and confident, with fiery red hair tied back from a face of aristocratic beauty, she descended the grand staircase. Seraphina Vale. The story’s main heroine. Pride radiated from her in waves, but so did an impossible level of focus and restraint.

An unfamiliar sneer tugged at his lips—an arrogant, dismissive expression that wasn't his own. It was an echo of the original Lucien, a ghost in the machine. He stamped it down, forcing his features into a mask of detached mediocrity. As if sensing his gaze, her head turned. Her eyes, sharp as newly forged steel, met his.

For a fraction of a second, the hall’s noise faded. He saw not recognition, but a flicker of analytical curiosity—the kind a predator gives to something new in its environment. A faint throb pulsed behind his temple, a gentle reminder from the System. Do not engage. He broke eye contact, melting back into the anonymity of the crowd.

Suddenly, the murmur shifted as footsteps echoed from a raised dais at the far end of the hall. A tall, imposing figure in robes embroidered with silver sigils had arrived. The Headmaster.

“Welcome, first-year students, to Arcanis Magna Academy,” the Headmaster’s voice rang out, calm yet carrying immense weight. “You are the inheritors of a legacy that spans centuries. Here, you will learn not only magic, but the discipline and cunning required to wield it.”

As the speech continued, outlining rules and expectations, Lucien let his gaze drift over the assembled students. His true power remained a caged storm beneath his skin, the System its unyielding warden. He had to be mediocre. He had to be unremarkable. He had to be the villain everyone expected, right up until the moment he could defy that fate.

The Headmaster's words about separating "the truly powerful from the rest" held a bitter irony. He was perhaps the most powerful first-year here, yet he was forbidden from showing it.

For now, he was just another face in the crowd, quiet and harmless.

The false villain had taken his first steps into the arena. And he would play his part perfectly, waiting for the one moment, the one loophole, that would allow him to tear the whole stage down.