Awakening Domination System: But I'm a Slave?-Chapter 307: How is this Possible?

"Who are you?" Alaric’s voice came out rougher than intended.

And the figure’s smile widened slightly.

He leaned back in the throne with casual confidence, one leg crossed over the other, completely at ease.

"Brandon Azra Kharzeth," he said, his crimson eyes glinting with amusement.

"But if you want, you can call me."

"...’The Fallen King’."

Alaric just stared at him.

What? Brandon? Fallen King? That’s...

His mind worked. At what his status showed in title and his current name.

Brandon looked at Alaric with open amusement.

The silence stretched between them, heavy with implications neither had yet voiced.

"What are you?" Alaric finally asked, his voice steady.

Brandon’s smile widened slightly. "I literally just told you."

"I’m not asking for your name." Alaric’s tone sharpened, frustration bleeding through his usual cold control.

"I’m asking who you are. What you are. What this place is. Why you..." He gestured at Brandon’s face, at the similarities. "Look like that."

Brandon studied him for a long moment, head tilted slightly, that amusement never quite leaving his expression.

Then he raised one hand and pointed directly at himself.

"I," he said clearly, deliberately, "am you."

Before Alaric could respond, Brandon’s hand shifted, finger now pointing directly at Alaric himself.

"And you," he continued, his crimson eyes boring into Alaric’s with uncomfortable intensity, "are wearing what remains of me."

Silence.

Alaric’s jaw tightened. "That’s not an answer. That’s cryptic nonsense."

"Is it?" Brandon leaned forward slightly, elbows resting on the throne’s armrests, fingers steepled. "You’ve died before, haven’t you? Alaric Noir."

Alaric’s expression didn’t change, but something flickered in his eyes.

"Tell me, Alaric Noir," Brandon continued, "Do you think that’s accident? Do you think souls just randomly find compatible vessels?"

Alaric said nothing. Just stared.

Brandon stood smoothly, descending the dais steps with predatory grace. Each movement was fluid, controlled, carrying the kind of confidence that came from absolute certainty of superiority.

He stopped a few meters away, close.

"This place," Brandon gestured at the throne room, at the castle beyond, at the blood plain and crimson moon visible through shattered windows, "is inside your mind. Or my soul."

He paused, then corrected himself with casual precision.

"Actually, that’s not quite accurate." His eyes found Alaric’s again. "This is my body. The one you’ve been controlling so freely. Walking around in. Using like it belongs to you."

Alaric’s eyes widened. "What?"

"You heard me." Brandon’s tone remained conversational, almost pleasant.

"That’s," Alaric’s mind raced. "How is that even possible? You’re lying. This isn’t possible. If what you’re saying is true, if this body was yours, then—"

Brandon pointed directly at him.

"What did you think the system was for?" His voice hardened, losing its casual amusement.

"You thought it was there to make you powerful? To help you become stronger? To give you an advantage in this new world?"

He laughed.

"No."

"The system," he said slowly, each word enunciated with painful clarity, "Was designed to keep me sealed. To weaken my soul. To fragment my essence into manageable pieces that could be controlled, monitored, suppressed."

He took a step closer, and the temperature in the throne room seemed to drop.

"Every level you gained? Every technique you mastered? Every power-up?" Another step.

"That was my essence being slowly unlocked. Piece by piece. Carefully measured. Just enough to keep you functional, to let you survive, but never enough to let me wake up."

Alaric’s hands clenched into fists.

"That’s..." Alaric’s voice was quiet now. Controlled. "That’s not how I heard reincarnation works. Souls don’t just... share bodies."

"You’re right." Brandon nodded, his expression becoming something almost approving. "They don’t. Under normal circumstances, a soul either replaces the previous occupant completely, or it fails to integrate and dies."

He spread his hands, gesturing at himself, at Alaric, at the space between them. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"But we’re not normal circumstances, are we? You’re not some random soul that stumbled into an empty vessel. And I’m not some weak consciousness that could be easily displaced."

His smile returned.

"You were chosen. Specifically. Because your particular brand of cold ruthlessness, your willingness to sacrifice anything for survival, your complete lack of sentiment, all of it made you the perfect cage."

The implications settled like lead in Alaric’s stomach.

"Who?" he demanded. "Who chose me? Who designed this... this trap?"

Brandon’s expression flickered, something passing across his features too quickly to identify. Pain? Fury? Betrayal?

"That," he said quietly, "is a longer story.

He turned away, walking back toward the throne, his movements suddenly less confident. Almost... tired.

"But the short version?" He looked back over his shoulder. "You’re here because someone wanted me gone. Not dead, dead would have been too easy, too clean. They wanted me trapped. Sealed. Aware but helpless. Watching someone else live in my body while I screamed uselessly in the dark."

The throne room fell silent except for the distant sound of wind howling across the blood plain outside.

Alaric stood there, processing, analyzing, trying to find the angle in this revelation.

Because if what Brandon said was true.

If this body wasn’t his.

If he was just a convenient cage for something or someone.

Then everything he’d built, everything he’d survived, everything he was...

Was borrowed. Temporary. Built on a foundation that wasn’t his to claim.

And somewhere, someone was watching.

Waiting.

For the lock to finally break.

Brandon then paused mid-step, gesturing for Alaric to follow, and began walking deeper into the throne room, toward a section of wall that seemed darker than the rest, that seemed to absorb the crimson light rather than reflect it.

"Let me tell you a story," Brandon said, his voice echoing strangely in the vast space. "About a king who fell. About power that couldn’t die. And about the price of ambition that transcends lifetimes."

He stopped in front of the dark wall and placed one hand against it.

The surface rippled like water disturbed by a thrown stone.

"This," Brandon said quietly, "is where it all begins."

The darkness parted.

And beyond it—

Alaric saw everything.