A black-haired boy opened his eyes.
For a moment, he did not recognize the ceiling.
Carved arches. Winged motifs. Silk curtains filtering morning light into disciplined gold.
He knew this room.
It was his room.
He knew it.
And at the same time, he didn't.
He inhaled—and memory shattered over him.
A hospital corridor.
A cramped apartment lit by a flickering monitor.
A noble banquet drowned in wine and laughter.
Two lives collided without warning.
He sat up too quickly. The world tilted. His pulse faltered.
This wasn't pain.
It was overload.
He grabbed his head and tried to scream.
Unfortunately, no sound came out.
He swung his legs off the bed. The carpet beneath his feet was thick enough to swallow sound. The furniture was dark, ornate, excessive. Decorative blades lined the walls—unused, polished, symbolic.
Privilege. Everywhere.
He approached the mirror.
The reflection unsettled him.
Dark black hair, cut by a single white streak.
Soft features paired with sharp eyes—a strange contradiction.
A face almost gentle, if not for the faint arrogance etched into its bones.
Not handsome.
Not striking.
Just a noble boy who had never truly struggled.
Broad shoulders. A soft waist. Indulgence written into flesh.
He touched the glass.
"…Anthony?"
The name felt distant.
Another rose naturally.
"Lucifer."
That one settled.
Suddenly, the door burst open.
A group of doctors rushed in, their robes swaying as they hurried toward him.
He raised a hand sharply, stopping them mid-step.
"Leave… now. Come later."
His voice sounded unfamiliar—even to himself. Deeper. Controlled. Not the voice he remembered.
He closed his eyes and sat back down.
The doctors hesitated, exchanging uneasy glances, before retreating silently.
The room fell quiet again.
Now seated on the bed, breathing slowly, Lucifer finally began to calm down.
Gradually, his memories aligned.
Not layered.
Aligned.
He remembered being twenty-two.
He remembered being born here.
He remembered writing a novel in a dim apartment while grief hollowed him from the inside.
He remembered humiliating servants because it amused him.
He remembered dying.
There was no second voice in his head.
No intruder in his soul.
No fracture in his mind.
He had not become someone else.
He had simply remembered more.
Abysscyra.
The name surfaced with ease.
This was the world he belonged to.
The same Earth—centuries after its collapse—renamed Abysscyra: the civilization that survived the Abyss. The one who conquered the Abyss.
A world ruled by Sovereigns and stalked by demons.
Anthony had known it differently.
In his novel, he had named this story Ashes of Divinity.
A story born from strange flashes that haunted his childhood—visions he never told his parents about, afraid they would think him unwell.
In the novel, events were linear.
Tragic.
Unforgiving.
The hero survived—
But only after losing something irreplaceable.
Later, it became a game.
The game fractured that certainty.
Different routes. Different variables.
Outcomes shifted depending on choice, yet cruelty remained constant.
And in every version—
Lucifer Obsidian Valcrest was disposable.
A loud, unawakened noble.
A sacrificial lamb for noble politics.
An extra erased for narrative convenience.
Sometimes he died early.
Sometimes he survived long enough to become pathetic.
But he never mattered.
He stepped away from the mirror.
"And that Lucifer Obsidian Valcrest…"
He exhaled slowly.
"…is me."
The room suddenly felt smaller.
He moved toward the window and looked over the Valcrest estate—stone paths, disciplined gardens, guards positioned with measured precision.
Power.
Structure.
Inheritance.
Everything Anthony had lacked.
Everything Lucifer had wasted.
He brushed his fingers against the mark at the base of his neck.
The black bird.
Wings spread.
Frozen mid-flight.
It was said that only those blessed by the Gods were born with such marks.
Lucifer had been one of them.
Unfortunately, in the story, it became his curse.
In the game, it was a branching variable.
Here—
It was warm.
Real.
He exhaled slowly.
"So I'm not the hero."
Not even the villain worth fearing.
Just expendable.
A stepping stone for someone else's rise.
Anthony had wished for a second chance.
Lucifer had squandered his first.
Now both memories rested inside him like twin weights.
A scandal would come out soon—one that would strip Lucifer of status, protection, and future.
The disgrace.
The exile.
The blade.
He knew the sequence.
He knew the end.
And for the first time—
He was ahead of it.
Awareness did not grant strength.
But it stripped away illusion.
He straightened.
If the script demanded his death—
Then the script would have to break.
Outside, the wind moved across the estate gardens.
Inside the room—
Lucifer Obsidian Valcrest stood fully awake.
Not reborn.
Not replaced.
Remembering.
And in this world—
Those who remembered the future were not meant to survive it.
They were meant to rewrite it.