The first thing I registered wasn't the cold stone beneath my knees, nor the heavy, rusted iron biting into my wrists. It was the smell. Copper, old sweat, and the undeniable, suffocating stench of fear.
My fear.
I blinked, my vision swimming through a hazy blur before snapping into horrifying clarity. I wasn't in my apartment. I wasn't staring at my computer screen. I was kneeling on a raised wooden platform in the center of a massive, cobblestone square. And surrounding me were thousands of people.
They weren't cheering. They were screaming for blood.
"Death to the traitor! Burn the shadowspawn!"
A rotting tomato struck my shoulder, splattering against a doublet made of velvet so fine it belonged in a museum. I stared down at my clothes. Gold embroidery. Crimson silk. This wasn't me. I wore cheap t-shirts, not the attire of a disgraced medieval lord.
Arthur, a name whispered in the back of my mind. Not my name, but a memory that suddenly crashed into my consciousness like a physical blow. Arthur Valerius. The youngest son of a fallen noble house. Arrogant, cruel, and completely, utterly doomed.
I had been transmigrated. I was no longer a normal guy from the 21st century. I was Arthur. And according to the fragmented memories bleeding into my brain, 'Arthur' had just been found guilty of practicing forbidden dark arts to usurp the throne.
"Silence!"
The voice cut through the roar of the mob like a blade of ice. It wasn't loud, but it carried a weight that made the air itself feel heavy. The crowd instantly went dead silent.
I forced my head up, my neck screaming in protest against the heavy wooden stock trapping me. Standing before me was a woman who looked like she had been carved from marble and starlight. She wore silver armor that glowed with a faint, ethereal light, but it was her eyes that pinned me to the spot. They were a piercing, unnatural violet. Cold. Unforgiving. Full of a righteous hatred that made my breath catch in my throat.
This was Elara. The Holy Knight. The prophesied savior of this world. And, unfortunately for me, my executioner.
"Arthur Valerius," she spoke, her voice devoid of any warmth. She drew her sword. The blade hissed as it left the scabbard, radiating a blinding white aura. "For crimes against the Light, for consorting with the abyss, and for the attempted murder of the Crown Prince... you are sentenced to immediate purification."
Purification. That was a nice word for getting my head chopped off.
Panic, raw and primal, clawed at my chest. Think! Think! I thrashed against the chains, but they were reinforced with glowing runes that burned my skin upon contact. I didn't want to die. I just got here! I hadn't even figured out how the magic worked, and I was already about to lose my head.
Elara raised the glowing sword high above her head. The light from the blade cast long, terrifying shadows across the execution block. I could see the disgust in her violet eyes. To her, I wasn't a human being; I was a disease that needed to be cut out.
"May the Light have mercy on your corrupted soul," she whispered, though the way her grip tightened on the hilt suggested she hoped it wouldn't.
The sword began its descent. The air whistled. I closed my eyes, bracing for the inevitable agony.
[DING!]
The sound echoed not in the square, but directly inside my skull. It sounded exactly like a startup chime from an old operating system.
Suddenly, everything stopped.
I opened my eyes. Elara was frozen mid-swing, her face locked in a mask of righteous fury. The spit flying from a screaming peasant's mouth hung suspended in the air. A bird was paused mid-flap in the sky above. Time had stopped.
A semi-transparent, glowing blue screen materialized directly in my line of sight.
[System Initialization Complete.]
[Host Identity Confirmed: Arthur Valerius (Anomaly).]
[Class Assigned: Reality Editor.]
[Mana: 10/10]
Reality Editor? I stared at the floating text. Before I could process what it meant, a new prompt flashed, blinking urgently in red.
[WARNING: Fatal Strike Detected. Estimated time to death: 0.2 seconds.]
[Action Required. Target: 'Holy Sword of Dawn'.]
[Do you wish to inspect the target's properties?]
I didn't have a voice to speak with in this frozen time, so I screamed the answer in my mind. YES!
Another screen popped up, branching off from Elara's frozen sword.
--- ITEM CODE ---
Name: Holy Sword of Dawn
Rarity: Legendary
Durability: Unbreakable (9999/9999)
Material: Divine Steel
Attribute: Holy (Instant Death to Dark Entities)
-----------------
Below the stats, a small, blinking cursor appeared next to a button that simply read: [EDIT - Cost: 10 Mana].
I had exactly 10 Mana. I didn't hesitate. I mentally slammed that button.
The screen shifted, and suddenly, the text became editable. I couldn't change the name, and I couldn't change the rarity. But my cursor hovered over the 'Material' line.
Divine Steel. I mentally deleted it. My mind raced. What's the weakest, most useless material I could think of? Glass? No, glass could still cut.
I typed in a new word.
[Material changed to: Rotten Plywood]
[Mana Depleted: 0/10]
[System Pausing... Resuming Reality.]
The blue screens vanished. Time slammed back into motion with the force of a freight train. The whistle of the descending blade turned into a roar.
Elara swung with all her divine might, expecting the legendary steel to cleave through my neck and the wooden block beneath it.
CRACK!
Instead of a clean, wet thud, a loud, pathetic snapping sound echoed across the silent square.
I didn't feel a blade. I felt a shower of splinters rain down on the back of my neck.
I slowly lifted my head.
Elara, the untouchable Holy Knight, stood frozen, her violet eyes wide with absolute, unadulterated shock. In her hands, she held the magnificent, jewel-encrusted hilt of her legendary weapon. But the blade—the unbreakable, divine blade of the heavens—was gone. In its place was a jagged, pathetic stump of crumbling, rotten wood.
For a fraction of a second, the entire world held its breath. The legendary Holy Sword of Dawn, a relic said to have been forged by the gods themselves to strike down the ultimate evil, was nothing but a handful of termite-ridden splinters scattered across the blood-stained execution block.
Elara stared at the broken hilt in her gauntleted hands. The holy aura that usually radiated from her armor flickered and died, matching the sudden, horrifying drop in her confidence. Her violet eyes slowly lifted from the ruined weapon to meet mine.
I was still kneeling, my neck covered in wood dust instead of my own blood. I didn't have any magical energy left—my mysterious 'System' had completely drained me just to change the sword's material—but I had something else: the element of absolute, reality-breaking surprise.
"What..." Elara breathed, her voice barely a whisper, yet it echoed in the dead silence of the square. "What did you do, demon?"
"Wood rot," I croaked, my throat dry. I forced a manic, desperate grin onto my face. "You really should take better care of your antiques, Holy Knight."
That broke the spell.
"Witchcraft!" an old priest in crimson robes shrieked from the balcony above, pointing a trembling, ring-covered finger at me. "The shadowspawn has defiled the sacred blade! Seize him! Tear him apart!"
The crowd erupted. It wasn't a roar of anger this time; it was a wave of pure, unadulterated panic. If the corrupted noble could destroy the Holy Sword with a mere look, what could he do to them? People began shoving, trampling over one another to get away from the platform.
Elara shook off her shock, her combat instincts taking over. She tossed the useless hilt aside and lunged at me with her bare hands, her eyes blazing with renewed, desperate fury. "You won't escape the Light's justice, Arthur!"
But I was already moving. When the wooden blade had shattered against the block, the impact had splintered the heavy timber where my chain anchors were bolted. With a surge of adrenaline I didn't know I possessed, I yanked my arms upward. The rusted iron bolts groaned, then ripped free from the damaged wood.
I was still in cuffs, a heavy length of chain connecting my wrists, but I was detached from the block.
I rolled backward just as Elara's armored fist slammed into the wooden planks where my head had been a second ago. The wood splintered under her raw strength. If that had connected with my skull, 'System' or no 'System', I would have been paste.
"Guards!" Elara commanded, spinning around smoothly, not missing a beat. "Form a perimeter! Don't let him reach the crowd!"
Armored soldiers were already pushing their way through the stampeding peasants, their spears lowered. I was trapped on the raised platform, surrounded by a sea of panic and a ring of hostile steel. I glanced frantically at the blue interface that still hovered faintly in the corner of my vision.
[Mana: 0/10. Reality Editing unavailable. Suggestion: Run.]
Very helpful, thanks, I thought bitterly.
I looked over the edge of the platform. Right below me, a group of guards was struggling to hold back the terrified mob. Beyond them, I saw it—an open iron grate covering a drainage tunnel that led into the city's ancient, labyrinthine sewer system. The Undercity. If I could get down there, their superior numbers wouldn't mean a thing.
But to get there, I had to get past Elara.
She stood between me and the edge, her violet eyes locked onto my every muscle twitch. She didn't have her sword, but her stance told me she was more than capable of breaking every bone in my body with her bare hands.
"It's over, Arthur," she said, her chest heaving slightly, the silver armor glinting in the afternoon sun. "Whatever dark trick you used, it ends here. Surrender, and I promise your death will be swift."
"You already promised me that once today," I replied, wrapping the heavy iron chain between my wrists around my knuckles like a makeshift brass knuckle. "And honestly? I'm starting to doubt your customer service."
She narrowed her eyes. She didn't understand the joke, but she understood the defiance. She lunged.
She was impossibly fast. A blur of silver and white. I didn't try to fight her—that would be suicide. Instead, I used her momentum. As she threw a devastating straight punch aimed at my chest, I dropped to the floor, sliding under her guard on the slick, blood-stained wood of the platform.
I swung my arms in a wide arc, bringing the heavy iron chain hard against the back of her armored knees.
It wasn't enough to hurt her, but it was enough to break her balance. Elara stumbled forward with a sharp gasp, her momentum carrying her past me.
I didn't stick around to watch her recover. I scrambled to my feet, sprinted to the edge of the platform, and launched myself into the air.
"Stop him!" Elara roared from behind me, the sound of her heavy boots thudding against the wood as she recovered.
I plummeted toward the sea of panicked citizens. I aimed for a pair of guards holding heavy wooden shields. I hit them feet-first, the impact knocking the wind out of me and sending all three of us crashing into the dirt.
Pain exploded in my shoulder, but the adrenaline drowned it out. I rolled off the groaning guards, ignoring the screams of the crowd around me. I scrambled on all fours, slipping in mud and discarded vegetables, until my fingers found the cold iron bars of the drainage grate.
I hauled it open with a desperate heave, the muscles in my back screaming in protest.
"Arthur!"
I looked back one last time. Elara was standing at the edge of the platform, looking down at me. The sunlight caught her face, framing her in a halo of golden light. She looked magnificent, terrifying, and absolutely furious. Our eyes locked again. I saw a promise in those violet depths—a promise that she would hunt me to the ends of this world.
I offered her a mocking, two-finger salute with my chained hands.
Then, I slipped into the dark, foul-smelling abyss of the Undercity, the iron grate clanging shut above me, plunging my new reality into total darkness.
The execution was canceled. The hunt had begun.