The name refused to leave him.
It lingered at the edge of his thoughts, surfacing every time his breathing slowed—every time the world felt too familiar.
Eren sat against a collapsed pillar, the cold stone biting through thin fabric. His body had stopped trembling. The headache from the memory influx had dulled into a constant pressure, like a reminder rather than a wound.
He stared at his hands.
Slender. Pale. Untested.
Not the hands of a killer.
Yet when he closed his eyes, he could still feel the ghost-weight of weapons that did not exist here. Muscle memory without muscle. Violence without blood.
A mismatch.
That was when it struck him.
Not suddenly.Not dramatically.
But with the quiet horror of inevitability.
"…Ashen Crown."
The words left his mouth before he realized he'd spoken them.
The air did not respond—but he did.
His heartbeat skipped.
Because he hadn't learned that name here.
He had read it.
Ashen Crown was a novel he had encountered in his previous life—one he remembered not because he loved it, but because it unsettled him. A world ruled by seven dominant bloodlines. Power measured in stars. A story obsessed with hierarchy, control, and inevitability.
A story where talent decided worth.
Slowly, he lifted his head.
The ruined structure around him—the abandoned estate, the creeping moss, the broken elegance—it fit. Too well. Even the smell of old mana residue clinging faintly to the walls felt familiar now, like a detail pulled straight from text rather than reality.
His chest tightened.
"This is…" His voice was hoarse. "…a novel."
Not metaphorical.
Literal.
The realization did not bring panic. Panic was inefficient. Instead, something colder settled in—recognition layered with calculation.
If this was Ashen Crown—
Then this body had a role.
Memories stirred in response, surfacing carefully this time, no longer crashing. Names. Places. Judgments whispered by voices long gone.
The Veridian Dynasty.
His breath slowed.
Control & Amplification.Will as law.A bloodline obsessed with dominion—over mana, over others, over fate itself.
And at its center—
The Patriarch.
His father.
The memory was… distant. Not abusive. Not kind. Merely absolute. A presence that filled rooms without raising its voice. A man whose word bent reality because the clan believed it should.
Eren felt nothing when the image surfaced.
No anger.
No longing.
Just awareness.
Then came the others.
Cold stares from elder siblings. Silence that weighed heavier than insults. Servants who hesitated—just long enough to be noticeable—before obeying.
And always, always—
The hair.
White.
Not luminous. Not radiant. Not blessed.
Ashen.
A flaw.
A void.
The Veridian Dynasty believed mana responded to will. That blood carried authority. That lineage was proof of superiority.
And Eren—born of the Patriarch's third wife, a woman dismissed as ordinary, forgettable—was proof that control could fail.
He remembered the word they used.
Mana-deaf.
A child who couldn't hear the song of power.
A living embarrassment.
His fingers curled slowly.
In Ashen Crown, Eren Veridian was a minor character.
A footnote.
A failure who never awakened properly. A noble-born child discarded quietly, sent away under the guise of "protection," only to die early—his death serving as narrative fuel for someone else's rise.
A necessary sacrifice.
The irony settled deep in his bones.
They were wrong.
About everything.
He lowered his gaze, pale hair falling forward, shadowing his eyes.
His old life had been about obedience.This body's life had been about rejection.
Different systems.
Same outcome.
Disposable.
A faint pressure stirred somewhere deep within him—not mana as the Veridian elders defined it, not something loud or obedient. It didn't surge. It didn't respond to command.
It simply existed.
Watching.
Waiting.
Eren exhaled slowly.
If this truly was Ashen Crown—
Then the story was already broken.
Because the Eren Veridian written in the novel would never have noticed the lie.
And the man standing here had never been good at obeying stories.
He rose to his feet.
The ruined estate creaked softly, like an old thing acknowledging a presence it had long forgotten.
"Fine," he said quietly, to the world, to the novel, to whatever watched from beyond fate.
"If this is a crown made of ash…"
His eyes lifted, dark and steady.
"…then I'll decide what burns."