"What the fuck?!" James shouted as he sat up in his bed.

His hands were holding his phone and his eyes were as wide as saucers.

"What do you mean, Damien couldn’t see where it came from?! He has the Eye of Boundless!!" He stammered as he scrolled further down the screen.

At the top of the screen was:

2150 A Faint Whisper (The End)

It was the final Chapter of his favorite web novel – Villain’s Ascension.

As for why he was so heated?

The story was nowhere near its end.

Heck the protagonist Alex Blade hadn’t even reached SSS yet, but for only god knows why the author had decided to end the book.

Creaks of the ceiling fan filled the neat room, and the further he scrolled down, the more somber his expression.

"Just what the hell is going on?" He muttered in utter confusion, and all of a sudden, his eyes widened even further and his jaw fell open.

The device slid from his grip, and he whispered in a broken voice.

"He died..."

His body fell to the bed as if it no longer had life, and he stared at the spinning fan with a blank expression.

The only thoughts that filled his mind were:

What just happened? How did he even die?

He slowly lifted his phone, stared at the screen, and read it aloud.

"As Alex heard the whisper, the world halted and the next moment, he burst into red and blue static sparks.

Alex Blade – the King in Gray had perished.

The End."

His lips closed and opened a few times, but he had no way to describe what he was feeling.

If he had to name it, it was a weird cocktail of anger, dissatisfaction, sadness, and betrayal.

James had found this book when it only had two hundred Chapters, it was no different from love at first sight so much so that he had been reading it for six years.

Within the first few months, it became his favorite webnovel. To him, it was peak fiction.

And this was how it ended? With no explanation. No nothing. The protagonist just died.

He felt like something heavy and immovable had been placed on his chest, and his eyes were itchy as though waiting for a chance to lower the dams and spill the tears.

He put his phone to the side and placed an arm over his forehead.

"Fuck this..." he sighed in defeat and closed his eyes, ready to drift into the embrace of sleep.

But before he could, a chime rang from the side.

His eyes snapped open, and he turned his head to the phone.

With a hitched breath, he thought.

Maybe it is the next Chapter? Maybe the author had just played a prank, and Alex actually had a method to survive? Maybe he just retconned it?

With his heart beating loudly against his chest, he lifted the phone and checked the notification.

The message was indeed from Author BrOne.

—

BrOne [Author]

I’ve published a new book!

Thank you for enjoying my previous books!

You’re bound to fall for my latest book:

<Young Master’s Viewpoint> Come check!

—

James’s heart fell apart into fragments so minuscule that even if one used a microscope, they wouldn’t be able to find them.

Hate and anger erupted like a volcano, and he raised his hand to hurl the phone at the wall. But just as he was about to, it began to ring loudly.

Its ringtone instantly filled the silent room.

"Who the hell is it?!" He snapped and checked the caller’s name.

In bold letters it said:

UNKNOWN NUMBER

"..." He stared at it in silence that seemed to have lasted a minute, and with a deep inhale, he calmed himself.

He picked up the call and, with his professional expertise as an employee in one of the city’s biggest companies, he asked, "What the fuck do you want?!"

A chuckle responded from the opposite, and an amused, feminine voice responded. "Haha~ Are you angry?"

Why is a woman calling me? His brows furrowed upward, and he growled,

"What kind of horrible kink is this? First, you call me dead at night then ask me if I am angry or not? Are you mental?" he lowered his voice at the end as though considering the possibility of it being true.

Still, the mysterious caller just chuckled and said, "I am not talking about the call."

He frowned in confusion and his lips parted but before he could say anything, the mysterious caller continued, "Aren’t you mad about Alex’s death?"

"Huh?"

Suddenly, his chest began to ache as if some invisible hand was gripping his heart.

His ears rang, and his mind told him not to answer – to end the call, but his lips moved by their own and mumbled while quivering.

"Y-Yes. I am mad."

"Do you want to change it?" She asked.

"Change it...?" James mumbled and thought about it for a while.

But he soon calmed down and muttered inwardly, What is she talking about?

He looked at his phone with a slightly scared expression and asked, "What do you mean?"

A few seconds passed by but he received no answer.

James felt that something was wrong. Very wrong, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.

After a few moments, he called out, "Hello?"

But the mysterious caller still said nothing.

Two minutes later, he ended the call and muttered while thinking back to her question.

"Change, huh... I think anything would be better than the crap BrOne has done."

Suddenly, a giggle followed by a faint whisper reached him from the left, and just as he turned his head around, everything turned dark.

"W-What—" He looked around and his eyes lost their glimmer.

Slowly the darkness consumed his body and his consciousness floated within the vast expanse as dreadful whispers dug deep into his very being.

Do not look...Do not hear...Do not speak...They are watching...They are listening...

James folded in on himself like a fetus, and utter darkness cradled him.

After an incomprehensible amount of time, his world shifted, and new, unfamiliar voices drifted into his ears.

"Marcus. He isn’t actually dead, is he?" Someone mumbled with a hint of terror.

Someone snorted and responded, "What are you worrying about? No one would even care if he disappeared."

"W-Well, what if the professors find out?"

"Haha! Stop being a pussy. No one would come to this rundown building. Let’s go."

Sounds of boots scraping over grit resounded throughout the place.

Did they leave? James thought and slightly lifted his eyelids to check.

After checking that he was utterly alone, he opened his eyes and sat up.

"Where am I?" He mumbled and examined the place.

It was a wide room with multiple metal shelves and wooden cupboards lining the worn, cracked walls. Fine grit and uneven stones littered the floor while a single bulb buzzed overhead.

"A storage room, perhaps," he surmised and turned his head to the back.

As he did so, he saw himself in the broken mirror standing against the wall. Blood covering its sharp edge.

"Who is this...?" he frowned.

The person looking back at James wasn’t him. He had messy jet black hair, yellow topaz eyes with dark circles under them, the side of his face was marred in blood, and he wore a blood-stained black coat with bronze embroidery at the edges, a white shirt underneath with black pants and boots of the same color.

"No wonder I was feeling lightheaded..." he mumbled while staring at the mirror shard impaled in his head.

For some odd reason, he wasn’t feeling any pain, and he was calm... too calm for the absurd situation he was going through.

His hand, which was smaller and younger than before, moved to the mirror shard, and even though he was aware that what he was about to do was utterly stupid, he still yanked it out.

The glass shard broke into pieces as he threw it aside and looked at himself in the mirror.

He had expected blood to leak out of the harrowing wound – however, there was none. Instead, the wound slowly stitched itself back and disappeared as if it had never been there.

Seeing the revolting scene, James’s head ached, and without any heads up, memories slammed into his mind like a truck.

"Ugh!" A groan slid out of his lips, and his vision spun for a moment.

Now, he was Alex Blade.

A student at the Solace Academy.

An orphan whose parents had died within Zyandra, and currently he lived with the family of his father’s friend. He was eighteen years old, and due to the way his apparent cousin treated him, he had long since become the person everyone loved to bully.

James’s hand flew to his mouth, and he mumbled in disbelief, "I am Alex...?"

"Did I transmigrate?" He asked himself.

Now that he thought about it.

In the original story – exactly at this spot – Alex had been beaten to near death by Marcus and his lackeys, but just as he was about to die, the system connected him to Origin Dominion and saved him from dying.

But there was one problem... Alex had actually died, and he had taken his place.

"...Is this how I am supposed to change the ending?"