Transmigrated as the Cuck.... WTF!!!-Chapter 183. OBSESSION

While the trio wandered along the forest’s jagged perimeter, the air grew heavier—denser. At first, it was subtle, something easily brushed off as paranoia. But it wasn’t just their nerves this time. The fog wall that had loomed in the distance was no longer stagnant. It was growing.

Mia noticed it first.

She squinted through the haze, then nudged the other two with a sense of urgency. "Guys... the fog. It’s expanding, right? I’m not hallucinating, am I?"

Verena gulped and scanned the forest’s edge, eyes narrowing. "No. You’re not wrong. That thing’s spreading."

Kaelira’s lips pressed into a thin line. She clutched her daggers tighter. "Should we... run? That thing doesn’t feel natural. More cursed than the monsters we saw earlier."

Verena didn’t hesitate. "Yeah. That’s not something we want to be anywhere near."

Mia was about to nod in agreement—when her eyes went wide.

Her breath hitched.

"What the—"

Out from the fog’s swirling embrace, a silhouette emerged. A figure—familiar, but changed.

Middle-parted amethyst hair, sharp violet eyes, and an open black hoodie billowing behind him. It was Cassius. But something was deeply wrong.

The right side of his face was veiled in a translucent white mist, like a mask made of vapor. The left side was worse—deathly pale, hollow, almost corpse-like. Lifeless.

And in his hand... a sword. No, not metal. Not steel. It was a blade forged entirely of mist. Amorphous yet solid, glowing faintly, radiating annihilation.

Mia stumbled back.

She opened her system window in desperation.

« Character Profile »

Name: Cassius Lancaster

Age: 22

Rank: ★★★★

Elements: #######, Amethyst Lightning

Alignment: ######

Condition: #######

Skills: [Restricted]

Abilities: [Restricted]

« Close »

Her heart stopped. Her chest caved.

The name... It didn’t say ARAWN.

It said Cassius Lancaster.

For the first time since his transmigration, the system didn’t register him by his old soul’s name—but by his body’s. That terrified her more than the fact he looked half-dead... or how his sword was erasing monsters from existence with every strike.

Disintegrated. That’s what happened to them. Not wounded. Not killed. They simply ceased. Like they’d never existed.

The grotesque creatures—the twisted horrors that had slaughtered dozens just days ago—were reduced to ash and scattered mist before they could even land a blow.

Cassius didn’t even flinch. He moved like a death incarnate. Cold, detached, surgical. He wasn’t fighting.

He was cleansing.

Mia’s legs gave out, collapsing beneath her.

"Mia!!"

Both Verena and Kaelira rushed to her side, panic clear in their expressions. They helped her up, but it was clear—her mind was far from here.

Her glassy eyes stared at the approaching specter. Not in fear. Not even awe. But with grief.

The Cassius she knew wasn’t the one walking through that battlefield.

Kaelira’s eyes narrowed. She clicked her tongue in frustration and turned to Verena. "Stay with her. I’ll go after him. Try to snap him out of it or... whatever the hell this is."

Verena opened her mouth, instinctively ready with a retort—but the words never came. Because she, too, had seen it.

Cassius was no longer a sarcastic nuisance or a cocky bastard.

He was like a god.

An overwhelming force of nature that made her feel like an ant beneath a boot. The weight of his presence alone was suffocating—her instincts screamed at her to bow, to run, to never meet his gaze.

Verena lowered her head in submission and silently took Mia into her arms, guiding her away, back toward the group.

Kaelira, however, turned and marched forward.

There was something about the fog.

Something profane yet divine. Something otherworldly. It wrapped the air like a curtain of silk and poison, dancing with eerie grace. And at the heart of it all... was him.

Cassius.

Or whatever he had become.

Kaelira couldn’t take her eyes off him. Not just because of the way he moved, not just because of the violence he wielded like a brushstroke, but because... he had changed. Utterly. Fundamentally.

The Cassius she knew was sarcastic, smug, insufferable. A walking eye-roll machine with a sharp tongue and a tendency to make everything a joke.

But this...?

This was someone else.

No, not someone. Something else.

His body floated mid-air, suspended like a marionette without strings, with mist coiling around his limbs. The blade of fog in his hand pulsed like a living thing, exhaling power with every twitch of his fingers. His face? Half-hidden in spectral haze. The other half pale and cold. As if he had been hollowed out from within.

And yet...

Her lips parted into a smile.

Kaelira didn’t understand it. Couldn’t explain it. But something about this new Cassius—this death-touched, fog-veiled, almost-unknowable version of him—interested her. Deeply. Viscerally.

She felt a strange pull. Not affection. Not admiration. Something worse. Something better.

Obsession.

With a glint in her sapphire eyes, she muttered under her breath: "[Extreme Speed]!"

Her boots lit up with a flash of incandescent white-blue, and the world blurred. Her figure disappeared, only a phantom streak cutting through the horde like a crack of lightning.

In seconds, ten monsters fell—necks severed, skulls cracked, torsos diced with elegant precision. Her twin daggers twirled beside her like loyal pets, and her breath was steady.

After a brief pause, she brushed her red strands behind her ear, and looked up—toward the sky.

Cassius was still there. Floating. Motionless.

She narrowed her eyes.

"No one under Rank ★★★★★★ can fly," she whispered to herself. "There’s no way..."

It made no sense. The last she remembered, he was still Rank ★★★★. There was absolutely no way he could have reached that level.

But he was flying.

"Okay... he’s up there and I’m down here. So how the hell do I get to him?"

She glanced around, assessing. The battlefield was thinning. The monsters had been slaughtered down to maybe a hundred. All still twisted. All still horrific. But manageable.

She cracked her neck, a smirk tugging her lips.

"Guess I’ll just kill the rest and lure him down."

No poetic plan. Just instinct and muscle memory.

And so, she moved again.

Her boots flared with that familiar light, and she became a storm.

With each step, bodies fell. Limbs flew. Purple ichor splashed across the charred earth like raindrops from hell. Monsters—twisted things of flesh, bone, and fog—died one by one, each kill graceful and silent.

And at her side—above, even—Cassius moved too.

He didn’t strike with rage or aggression. He simply waved his sword. One motion. One line. One disappearance after another.

Monsters were erased from reality. Not killed—removed.

And five minutes later... there was silence.

No monsters. No screeches. No roars. Just the soft hum of fog... and breath.

Cassius began descending from the sky like a ghost returning to earth. Slow and untouchable.

Kaelira’s eyes followed him like a hawk. Her heart pounded. ’Now... I can talk to him.’

But the moment she took a single step closer—

Terror.

A pure, primal warning exploded through her body.

Every nerve screamed. Every instinct thrashed. Her muscles locked. Her knees buckled. Her body shook so violently that she collapsed onto the blood-soaked soil, convulsing.

Sweat poured like waterfalls. Her breathing hitched. She couldn’t even scream.

Her body was dying just by approaching him.

And yet... she laughed.

Madly.

Hysterically.

It was so absurd, so completely batshit, that she found herself grinning with joy. With delirium. Her eyes sparkled with something dangerous, her mouth splitting into a smile of pure madness.

’He’s keeping me alive...’

That thought pierced her skull, as if whispered from somewhere deep within the fog.

He was actively suppressing the lethal aura radiating from his own body. Just enough so she wouldn’t die.

She was sure of it.

Her lips trembled. She barely forced the words out.

"Y-You’re... keeping... me alive... on purpose..."

Her voice was soft. Barely a whisper. But filled with awe. With delight. With curiosity.

Cassius’s figure loomed over her now. Taller. Closer. The fog shifted with his breath.

His face—still half-masked—turned down toward her. His voice came out distorted, layered, like multiple people speaking at once.

"...You aren’t scared?"

Kaelira looked up. Her whole body was trembling, but her eyes—those fierce, rebellious sapphire eyes—gleamed with fascination.

"You’re... interesting..."

A pause.

Then, Cassius’s lips curled into something between a smirk and a sneer. A single, heavy exhale left his throat.

"...You too."

Kaelira blinked.

The moment Cassius’s smirk stretched wider, something inside her twisted. It was a smile unlike any he had given before.

It was empty.

A beat passed.

And then another.

Cassius stood still, his eyes dim under the veil of fog. The blade in his hand dissipated into mist once more, the particles trailing along his fingers. He tilted his head slightly, studying Kaelira like one would a cracked porcelain doll.

"I recognize you," he said, voice still layered, distorted. "You’re loud. Annoying. But useful."

Kaelira snorted, coughing as she wiped blood from the corner of her lip. "Glad to know I left an impression." 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

She slowly pushed herself up to her knees, still trembling, but fighting against every scream her body made. Her limbs felt like they were burning. But her pride? Thriving.

Cassius crouched beside her, and the fog around him thickened—curled in spirals, whispering, as if it were alive.

"You will be helpful in the near future," he muttered.

His hand reached out—not to strike, but to touch.

Kaelira flinched instinctively, but the fingers merely brushed against her cheek.

Cold.

Like death. Like absence. Like a memory forgotten by time.

Her eyes widened.

And then, for the briefest moment... Cassius’s fingers trembled.

His gaze flickered. His pupils dilated. His smirk faded.

"...Kae...lira...?"

It was his voice.

His real voice.