The Author's Descent

Chapter 1: The Author's Descent

The final keystroke echoed in the silence of my cramped apartment. With a sigh that carried the weight of a thousand regrets, I clicked ‘Upload.’

Epilogue: The Villain’s End.

It was done. The story I had nurtured in my heart—a complex tale of a cunning, fox-eyed villain with a tragic past and a justified rage—was dead. In its place was a hollow shell, a commercially successful romp where a charismatic hero effortlessly crushed a mustache-twirling caricature of evil. The readers loved it. My wallet was happier. My soul felt filthy.

He spent a lot of time and effort. I lost so much and gave up so much… But I failed. Evil cannot overcome good.

The words I had just written for my villain’s final monologue mocked me. They weren’t his words. They were mine. A eulogy for my own creativity, killed by the demands of an audience that craved simplicity.

A wave of dizziness washed over me. The stress, the sleepless nights, the self-loathing—it all crested at once. My vision swam, the glow of the monitor blurring into a single, blinding point of light.

The last thing I remembered was the feeling of falling, my forehead hitting the cool surface of the desk.

And then… nothing.

---

Awareness returned not as a gentle awakening, but as a violent insertion.

My lungs burned, screaming for a breath they couldn’t seem to catch. A metallic taste of blood filled my mouth. The smell of dust, old wood, and something coppery—blood—assaulted my senses. I was on my knees, my body wracked with pain, my hands pressed against cold, stone flags.

GASP—

I finally sucked in a ragged, desperate breath. My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Where am I? What happened?

I pushed myself up, my limbs trembling, weak, and… unfamiliar. I looked down. My hands were slender, pale, and covered in faint, silvery scars and calluses that spoke of rigorous, hidden training. They were not the soft, writer’s hands I knew.

Panic, cold and sharp, began to prickle at my mind. I stumbled forward, my legs unsteady, and found myself standing before a large, gilded mirror, cracked and flecked with tarnish.

The face that stared back at me was not my own.

The young man in the reflection couldn’t be older than sixteen. His hair was a shock of crimson, the color of fresh blood and ill omen. His features were sharp and pale, almost ethereally handsome, but it was his eyes that stole the breath from my lungs.

They were a piercing, intelligent amber, slanted and narrow like a fox’s. And in their depths was a chilling void—a mixture of profound weariness, simmering fury, and a cunning so deep it felt ancient.

I knew this face. I had described it a thousand times. I had built his legend, his pain, his every skill.

This was Arsene Adel.

The tragic villain. The heir of a ruined house. The boy with the demonic bloodline. The character whose complexity I had sacrificed at the altar of popular demand.

And I was now him.

“No…” The word was a dry croak from a throat that wasn’t mine. “This… this can’t be…”

A flood of foreign memories, emotions, and sensations ripped through my mind. The loneliness of the empty manor. The whispered insults of the servants. The burning hatred for the Six Families who had destroyed his kin. The secret, grueling training sessions under the cover of [Darkness]. The chilling certainty that assassins were coming.

It was all there, crashing into my 21st-century consciousness, threatening to shatter it. The soul of a modern author and the memories of a fantasy villain fused into a single, terrified entity.

And then, as if things weren't surreal enough, light flickered at the edge of my vision. A translucent, crimson screen materialized in the air before me, displaying text in a stark, elegant font.

[Synchronization Complete.] [New Identity: Arsene Adel. Confirmed.] [Inherent Traits: Awakened.] [Mana Core: Dormant. Awakening Required.] [Primary Objective: Survive The Incoming Assassination.] [Time Until Knight Arrival: 9 Hours.]

The System. Just like in the Villain's Code: My Academy System of Justice. A guide and a reminder of my precarious situation.

I was living my own novel. Not as the hero, but as the villain I had created and then betrayed. And in nine hours, the disposable knights I had written were coming to kill this body.

A hysterical laugh bubbled up in my throat, but it died before it could escape. The Arsene Adel part of me—the cold, calculating survivor—stamped it down. Panic was a luxury we could not afford.

I focused on the System screen. Mana Core: Dormant. That was the key. In this world, mana was everything. It was the fuel for magic, the source of strength, the measure of one’s potential. The original Arsene had a powerful but latent core, which he’d awakened under the extreme pressure of the assassination attempt.

But I wasn’t him. I was a writer who had only theoretically understood these concepts. I had to figure it out faster.

“Okay, okay,” I whispered to myself, my voice Arsene’s, but the cadence my own. “Think. What did you write? Mana is drawn from the world and refined within one’s core. But his bloodline… the Half-Demon bloodline…”

A memory that wasn’t mine surfaced. The Arsene family didn’t draw mana from the world like humans. They woke the power that slept in their own blood. It was darker, hungrier, more personal.

I closed my fox-like eyes, trying to ignore the pounding of my heart. I reached inward, not outward. I sought not the ambient energy of the world, but the slumbering ember I knew was buried deep within this body’s soul.

For what felt like an eternity, there was nothing. Just the cold dread of failure.

Then, I felt it. A faint, cold pulse. A whisper of power that felt ancient and voracious. It was like touching a dormant volcano. I focused on it, pouring every ounce of my will, my desperation, my need to survive into that ember.

AWAKEN.

A shockwave of icy fire exploded from my core, racing through my veins. It was agonizing and ecstatic all at once. My body convulsed, and I fell to my knees again, but this time, power—raw and untamed—thrummed under my skin. The shadows in the room seemed to lean toward me, whispering secrets only I could hear.

The System screen flickered and updated.

[Mana Core: Awakened!] [Mana Reserve: 350/350] [Inherent Traits: [Darkness Affinity], [Mana Manipulation], [Killing Intent], [Absorption] - Now Accessible.] [Life Signature: Stable.]

I looked at my hands. A faint, dark aura, like shimmering black smoke, wreathed around my fingers. I willed it, and the shadows in the corner of the room coalesced into a solid, dagger-like shard for a moment before dissolving.

A slow, dangerous smile spread across Arsene Adel’s face. It was my smile now. The smile of an author who knew every plot twist, every character's weakness, every secret of this world.

And the smile of a villain who had just been given a second chance.

The knights were coming. They expected a scared, weak boy hiding in a ruined manor.

They would find a fox in his den. Waiting.

The game had changed. I wasn’t going to be a disposable villain anymore.

I was going to be the master of this story.