Pain is a funny thing. Back in my penthouse, pain was just the spicy seasoning to a night of debauchery. But this? This felt like being hit by a freight train made of lard.
I tried to suck in a breath, but my lungs felt like they were being squeezed by a pair of industrial vices. My eyes felt glued shut with crusty gunk. The air didn't smell like the expensive French perfume of my playmate Elena. It smelled like a locker room that had been marinating in a deep fryer.
I forced my lids open.
The ceiling was stained with damp patches. Posters of glowing people fighting monsters covered the walls, their faces full of heroic intensity. I tried to sit up, but my center of gravity was somewhere in the next zip code. I rolled, my body wobbling like a bowl of jelly, and crashed onto the floor with a sound that shook the foundation of the building.
"What the hell..."
My voice was a high, wheezy rattle. I looked at my hands. They weren't my hands. They were pale, dimpled paws with sausages for fingers. I crawled toward a cracked mirror leaning against a desk piled high with junk food wrappers.
The reflection staring back was a nightmare from a horror movie. A massive, sweaty blob of a human with greasy silver hair and sapphire-blue eyes that looked completely out of place in such a pathetic face.
Then the headache hit.
It was like a lightning bolt through my skull. Images, voices, and memories that weren't mine started flooding in like a broken dam.
Eldara. A world where the oceans turned into the Abyss nine hundred years ago. A world where people eat 'Abyss Seeds' to gain powers and use something called Anima.
I saw the face of an old man with the same silver hair looking at me with pure disgust. My father.
I felt the sting of a hundred insults. Piggy Lu. The Morningstar Disgrace. The walking grease fire.
I realized who I was now. Luciel Morningstar. The youngest bastard son of one of the most powerful noble houses. In this world, nobility was everything, and I was the bottom of the barrel. I had awakened a special constitution at eighteen, which was very late by noble standards.
The Yang Furnace.
The memories turned bitter. I remembered the day the family doctor announced it. A constitution that could boost any woman's power just by sharing fluids or having sex. It should have made me the most wanted man in the city. But then the doctor looked at my four-hundred-pound frame, the sweat stains under my pits, and the smell of grease radiating off me, and he had actually laughed.
"A treasure chest buried in a mountain of trash," he had said. "A pity no woman would ever be desperate enough to dig for it."
Since then, I was a joke. A battery that no one wanted to plug into because the socket was too filthy.
"God dammit," I wheezed, wiping grease from my forehead with a discarded shirt. "I went from the top of the food chain to the literal bottom."
[Ding!]
A violet holographic screen flickered in my vision. It didn't look like the tech in this world. It looked... wrong. Darker.
[Harem King System Initializing...]
[Soul Sync: 100%]
[HOST STATUS]
Name: Luciel Morningstar (Samuel Massimo)
Rank: F- (A disgrace to the human race)
Charm: -50 (Repulsive)
Note: You are so ugly that even the System is having a hard time looking at you.
[Current Constitution: Yang Furnace (Level 1 - Dormant)]
Effect: Currently useless. Your Anima capacity is zero because you haven't consumed an Abyss Seed. You are just a fat battery with no charge.
"Listen here, you glitchy piece of shit," I growled, trying to find my CEO confidence despite the three chins. "I didn't build a billion-dollar empire by quitting. If this is the hand I'm dealt, I'm going to bluff the hell out of it."
The door to my room didn't just open; it was kicked off the latch.
A girl walked in. She looked like she stepped off a runway: athletic, with short black hair and eyes that burned like embers. She wore the high-collared uniform of the Zenith Academy, the place where the elite trained to become Abyss Walkers.
This was Seraphina. My half-sister. The one who had actually eaten a 'Blaze Seed' and could manipulate fire.
"Still alive, Lu?" she asked, her voice dripping with venom. She held her nose with one hand. "The smell in here is worse than usual. Get up. Father sent me to drag your carcass to the Awakening Ceremony. He says if you don't show up to represent the family name, he's cutting off your allowance and throwing you into the slums."
She looked at me with such intense loathing it was almost impressive. To her, I wasn't a brother. I wasn't even a person. I was a stain on the Morningstar crest.
I looked at her, and for the first time, I didn't see the fear or shame the old Luciel felt. I saw a target. She was beautiful, powerful, and she had exactly what I needed: status and Anima.
[Ding! Target Identified!]
[Seraphina Morningstar: Affection Level: -20% (Disgust)]
[New Quest: The King's First Ambition]
[Objective: Attend the Zenith Academy Awakening Ceremony and survive the mockery without crying.]
[Reward: 10 Vile Points (VP) & System Shop Unlock.]
[Failure: You lose another 10 points of Charm. (Note: You'll literally start scaring children to death).]
I pushed myself up, my joints popping like bubble wrap. It took three tries to get to my feet, but I managed it. I looked Seraphina straight in the eye, ignoring the flicker of red flame dancing on her fingertips.
"Give me ten minutes to wash the 'trash' off, sister," I said, my voice surprisingly calm. "We wouldn't want me to embarrass the family more than usual, would we?"
Seraphina paused, her eyes narrowing. The old Luciel would have stuttered and looked at the floor. I just smirked, a sliver of the old Samuel Massimo peeking through the fat.
"Whatever," she snapped, turning on her heel. "Ten minutes. If you aren't at the car, I'm leaving you behind to rot."
I watched her walk away, her hips swaying under that tight uniform.
"The Zenith Academy," I whispered, looking at my reflection again. "Fine. Let's go see what this world has to offer. And System? Prepare yourself. I'm going to make 'Vile' look like a compliment."