1
1389 Words
POV: Liam
The southern reaches of the Skyfall Continent were a desolate wasteland, a place where the sun felt like a physical weight pressing down on the earth. Amidst the swirling dust and the rhythmic thumping of heavy paws, a massive caravan snaked across the horizon. Four hundred soldiers, their armor clanking in a grim symphony, surrounded the central carriage with the vigilance of men guarding a tomb. Inside that carriage, my world began with a jolt of pure, unadulterated agony.
I woke up, but I didn't recognize the darkness. Every nerve in my body screamed, a white-hot fire coursing through my veins that made the simple act of breathing feel like swallowing shards of glass. I tried to gasp, to cry out for help, but my throat was a desert. Before I could even process the smallness of my hands or the strange plushness of the seat beneath me, a tidal wave of foreign memories crashed against the shores of my mind.
The force of it was violent. Images of a cold palace, the sting of a brother's palm against my cheek, the smell of a mother's indifference, and the terrifying void of blindness—it all poured in at once. My brain couldn't sustain the onslaught. With a final, silent plea for the pain to stop, I slipped back into the abyss of unconsciousness.
***
Several hours passed before the world returned to me. The searing pain had receded into a dull, manageable ache, leaving me to grapple with the aftermath of a "dream" that felt far too vivid to be a trick of the mind. In that dream, there had been no light—only a suffocating blackness where I could hear the cruel laughter of shadows and the whispered conspiracies of adults.
As I lay there, staring at the blurred ceiling of the carriage, the truth crystallized. I wasn't Mike anymore. Mike, the twenty-one-year-old otaku who had died in a spray of blood and digital vengeance, was gone. In his place was Liam—Liam Von Vermilion, the Ninth Prince of the Vermilion Empire.
I closed my eyes, searching the newly acquired memories. Liam was a tragedy etched in the annals of the royal family. Born to a maid who had been elevated to a concubine only out of the Emperor's fleeting whim, Liam was destined for misery from the moment he drew his first breath. When the physicians discovered he was born blind and devoid of any magical talent, the royal favor vanished instantly. He became an invisible stain on the Vermilion name.
His mother, the very woman who had gained a life of luxury through his birth, never visited him. Not once. He spent four years being the palace's ghost, a punching bag for his elder brothers who saw his royal blood as an insult to their own. They bullied him, beat him, and mocked the boy who couldn't even see the fists coming.
The breaking point came during the Empress Dowager's birthday gala. For the first time, the high nobles caught sight of the bruised, shivering four-year-old hidden in the corners of the palace. The whispers began—questions about the Empire's treatment of its own blood. Even the Empress Dowager, moved by a sudden spark of grandmotherly pity, demanded an explanation. The royal clan was shamed.
But the Emperor's "compensation" was nothing short of a death warrant. Theodore Von Vermilion, my so-called father, didn't feel guilt; he felt rage. He blamed the child for the shame brought upon the clan. In a display of cold, calculated cruelty, he granted Liam the Secluded State—a lawless territory teeming with vicious spiritual beasts and the Empire's most dangerous criminals—and ordered a four-year-old to "govern" it.
The nobles were horrified. Sending a blind toddler to the Secluded State was a public execution in everything but name. Even the Empress Dowager's influence hit a wall against the Emperor's decree. Once an Emperor speaks, the world must obey. All she could do was soften the blow with bags of gold and a guard of four hundred soldiers to accompany the boy to his inevitable end.
"How could they do this to a child?" I whispered, my voice sounding unnervingly high-pitched and fragile. "Sending him to a den of monsters? Not even letting him leave in one piece..."
I touched my ribs, feeling the bandages. Before being tossed into this carriage, Theodore had allowed his personal guards to beat the boy half-to-death, a final "lesson" in humility.
Suddenly, a cold realization gripped my heart. Theodore Von Vermilion... the Secluded State... the blind Ninth Prince...
"Wait," I gasped, my small fingers clutching the silken cushions. "Isn't this... isn't this the trash prince from my own novel? The one I wrote as a sacrificial pawn for the protagonist's rise? No way... I am inside the body of a cannon fodder character!"
Panic flared in my chest as I recalled the plot. In my novel, Liam was never meant to be a hero. He was the man executed to satisfy the main character's rage. He was forced into a political marriage with the MC's childhood friend, a woman who despised him. Later, it was revealed that Liam's own wife and the Crown Prince were lovers who had framed him for crimes he never committed. Liam died without ever knowing why, a puppet in a game he never understood.
"If I'm Liam... then I'm supposed to die."
I shook my head, trying to clear the fog. "But wait. If Liam was blind... how am I able to see the embroidery on these curtains? And my body... the pain is fading way too fast. What happened to the world I built?"
As if the universe were answering my question, a translucent blue screen shimmered into existence, floating in the air before my wide, childish eyes.
[Name: Liam (Mike)]
[Age: 4 (21)]
[Health: 100% (Recovery Completed)]
[Cultivation Qi: None]
[Cultivation Body: None]
[Skills: High Senses Lv. 5 (The ability to perceive everything within a 10-meter radius)]
[Servants: 0]
[Summon Tickets: 2 Low-Level Summons]
I stared, paralyzed by the sight. "A system? My novel didn't have a system. This must be the reason for my healing... and my sight." I felt a flush of embarrassment as I looked around the empty carriage. "Ahem. System... can you hear me?"
I waited for several minutes, my heart thumping against my ribs. Nothing. No mechanical voice, no AI assistant.
"Is it a silent system?" I mused, drawing on my years of reading web novels. "Maybe it doesn't have an AI. If it's command-based, I should be able to control it with my thoughts."
I focused my mind on the blue window. 'Close System'.
The screen vanished instantly. A small, triumphant smile crossed my face. I was on the right track. I was about to summon the screen again when a thunderous voice shattered the silence of the carriage.
"Open the gates! The Ninth Prince has arrived at the border!"
I scrambled to the window, pulling back the heavy velvet curtains. Outside, a gargantuan wall made of black stone loomed over us, its gates so massive they looked like the entrance to another world. But it wasn't the wall that caught my breath. It was the glowing, ethereal text floating above the gateway, visible only to me:
{ Secluded City: The Fallen Resting Place of the Sword Maniac's Inheritance }
My jaw dropped. I knew that name. I had spent three nights designing the 'Sword Maniac' and his legendary, hidden tomb. It was a secret I had tucked away in the lore of the Secluded City, a treasure meant to be discovered much later in the story.
A wild, hysterical laugh bubbled up in my chest and burst out of my throat. "It's all here... everything I wrote... every secret, every treasure, every shortcut... it's all mine!"
Outside, the soldiers heard the high-pitched, manic laughter echoing from the Prince's carriage. They exchanged glances of pity and fear, convinced that the trauma of exile and the beating had finally snapped the blind child's mind. They had no idea that the "trash prince" was no longer blind, no longer helpless, and certainly no longer planning to die.
The game had changed. And as the creator of this world, I was the only one who knew the rules.
- Writer
