Transmigrated into the Villan's Sect

THE VILLAIN'S BODY

Jaxon didn't remember walking back to his quarters.

The hallway blurred past him—black stone, crimson veins, the flickering light of dying candles. His legs moved on instinct, carrying him through the labyrinth of the outer disciples' wing while his mind spiraled somewhere far away.

His first kiss.

He tried to remember it again. The girl's name. The movie they'd watched. The exact flavor of her lip gloss.

Nothing.

There was a hole in his memory now. A perfect, circular absence where something precious used to live. He could feel the edges of it—the shape of what had been taken—but the content was gone. Erased. Like someone had reached into his skull with tweezers and plucked out a single, irreplaceable star.

Strawberries, he thought desperately. It was strawberries. I remember strawberries.

But he didn't. He was just guessing. The memory of strawberries was a guess now, not a recollection.

Jaxon stopped in the middle of the corridor. His hands were shaking. His breath came in short, ragged gasps.

"Okay," he whispered to himself. "Okay. Calm down. Think."

He pressed his back against the cold stone wall and closed his eyes.

The System had taken his first kiss. A small memory. A minor loss, in the grand scheme of things. But it had been his. A piece of Ethan that no one else could touch. And now it belonged to the System.

What else will it take?

The question burned in his chest.

He opened his eyes. The System screen was still there, floating in the periphery of his vision like a patient predator.

[HOST STATUS: STABLE]

[HUMANITY GAUGE: 97%]

[MEMORY BANK: 1 FRAGMENT LOST]

[CULTIVATION POINTS: 150]

[CURRENT REALM: QI CONDENSATION, LAYER 7 (DAMAGED)]

One fragment lost. Out of how many? How many memories made up a person? A thousand? Ten thousand? A million?

At 3% per mission, how many missions before he forgot his own name?

Jaxon pushed off the wall and kept walking. He couldn't afford to break down in the hallway. Not here. Not where anyone could see.

His quarters were exactly as he'd left them—sparse, cold, and smelling faintly of old incense and dust. The broken altar in the corner. The single window overlooking the perpetual twilight of Crimson Peak. The wooden bed with its threadbare sheets.

He closed the door behind him and locked it.

Then he sat on the edge of the bed and let himself feel for a moment.

The fear was a living thing—a coiled serpent in his chest, squeezing his lungs, whispering that he was going to die in this body, in this world, forgotten and alone. The original Jaxon had been a monster, but at least he'd been a monster with purpose. Ethan was just a chess player from Seattle who'd made the mistake of crossing the street at the wrong time.

No, he told himself firmly. No self-pity. Self-pity is a losing move.

He took a deep breath. Then another.

The chess board was in front of him. The pieces were scattered. But he could still play.

Assessment: The System was his primary threat. It offered power but demanded memories as payment. Every mission completed brought him closer to losing himself.

Countermeasure: He needed to find a way to use the System without paying its price. Or, at the very least, minimize the damage.

Immediate Priority: Understand his body. The original Jaxon's cultivation was damaged. The meridians were twisted. He needed to know exactly what he was working with before he could plan his next move.

Jaxon closed his eyes and turned his attention inward.

The cultivation world called it inner vision—the ability to perceive the flow of qi through one's own body. The original Jaxon had mastered this technique years ago. The muscle memory was still there, buried beneath layers of trauma and pain.

He reached for it.

And immediately wished he hadn't.

The pain was excruciating.

Jaxon's eyes flew open. He gasped, clutching his chest as a wave of agony radiated from his dantian. It felt like someone had poured molten metal into his veins.

But he'd seen it. Just for a moment.

His meridians were a wasteland.

The channels that should have been smooth, luminous rivers of energy were instead cracked and blackened—scarred tissue that barely functioned. Qi leaked from a dozen tiny ruptures, bleeding power into the void. His dantian, the core of his cultivation, was a collapsed star—dense and dark and radiating nothing but pain.

Demonic cultivation, the implanted memories whispered. The original Jaxon forced his breakthroughs by devouring the life-force of others. His body couldn't handle the strain. Every breakthrough tore his meridians a little more. By the time he reached Layer 7, he was already dying.

Jaxon laughed bitterly. "So I'm living in a body that's already falling apart. Great."

The System flickered.

[NOTIFICATION: HOST'S MERIDIAN DAMAGE IS SEVERE]

[ESTIMATED TIME TO COMPLETE COLLAPSE: 90 CHAPTERS]

[RECOMMENDATION: SEEK HEALING IMMEDIATELY]

[ALTERNATIVE: CONTINUE DEMONIC CULTIVATION. POWER NOW. DIE LATER.]

"Ninety chapters," Jaxon muttered. "That's... not a lot of time."

He had 129 chapters until the Heavenly Hero arrived. And only 90 before his own body gave out. That meant he had a 39-chapter window where he'd be dead before the Hero could kill him.

Unless I find a way to heal.

He stood up and began searching the room.

The original Jaxon had been many things—a murderer, a demonic cultivator, a pariah—but he hadn't been stupid. A man who'd survived this long in a hostile sect would have contingencies. Secrets. Leverage.

Jaxon searched the altar first. Nothing but ash and broken incense. Then the bed—lifting the mattress, checking the frame. Nothing. Then the walls, tapping for hollow spaces.

There.

A loose stone behind the altar. Jaxon pried it free and found a small leather journal hidden in the gap.

He sat back on the bed and opened it.

The handwriting was jagged, angry, and unmistakably the original Jaxon's.

"Day 1: They think I killed Master. They're wrong. But I can't prove it. Not yet."

Jaxon's breath caught.

"Day 47: The whispers started today. The miasma pools are calling to me. I can hear them in my dreams. They promise power. They promise revenge. I'm starting to believe them."

"Day 112: I broke through to Layer 5 today. The cost was... higher than I expected. I can feel something missing. A memory. Something about... a woman? A mother? I can't remember."

Jaxon's hands tightened on the journal.

The original Jaxon had experienced the same thing. The memory theft. The slow erosion of identity. But he hadn't had a System—he'd had the miasma pools. The cursed energy of Crimson Peak itself.

"Day 203: I found the source today. The pools are fed by something beneath the mountain. Something ancient. Something that hungers. It offered me a deal. Power in exchange for... everything. I said yes."

"Day 204: I regret everything."

Jaxon turned the page. The handwriting was worse now—shakier, more desperate.

"Day 300: I can't stop. The hunger is too strong. I've started hunting beasts. Soon, I'll hunt people. I know what I'm becoming. But I can't stop. The alternative is death."

"Day 447: I killed my master today. It wasn't my fault. He attacked me first. He said I was too far gone. He said he was going to put me down like a rabid dog. I defended myself. But the sect won't believe that. They'll call me a murderer. A villain. Maybe they're right."

"Day 448: I'm writing this in my quarters. They've confined me here until the elders decide my fate. I can hear them whispering outside. They're going to execute me. Or exile me. Or worse. But I have a plan. There's a ritual—a forbidden technique—that can transfer my soul into another body. If I can find a suitable vessel, I can escape. I can start over."

"Day 449: I found the ritual. It requires a soul that is... compatible. A soul that has already died once. A soul from another world. I don't know if such a soul exists. But I'm going to try. If this works, I'll be free. If it doesn't... well. At least I'll die as myself."

The journal ended there.

Jaxon sat in silence for a long moment.

The original Jaxon had chosen this. He'd performed a ritual to transfer his soul into a new body—and somehow, impossibly, he'd pulled Ethan from Seattle into his own dying shell.

But why me? Jaxon wondered. Why not someone from this world? Why not someone who actually wanted to be here?

The System flickered.

[NOTIFICATION: HOST'S QUESTION HAS BEEN LOGGED]

[ANSWER: SOUL COMPATIBILITY IS BASED ON TRAUMA]

[HOST 'ETHAN' EXPERIENCED SIGNIFICANT PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA BEFORE DEATH]

[HOST 'JAXON' EXPERIENCED SIGNIFICANT PSYCHOLOGICAL TRAUMA BEFORE RITUAL]

[TRAUMA RESONANCE: 94%]

[THIS IS WHY YOU ARE HERE.]

Jaxon stared at the screen.

"Trauma," he said flatly. "I'm here because I was traumatized?"

The System didn't respond.

He thought back to his life in Seattle. The lonely apartment. The failed relationships. The parents who'd died in a car crash when he was fifteen. The years of therapy he'd never attended. The chess games he'd played with strangers because it was easier than forming real connections.

He'd been broken. And the original Jaxon had been broken too. Two shattered souls, resonating across dimensions.

"That's..." Jaxon shook his head. "That's the saddest thing I've ever heard."

But it also made sense. In a twisted, cosmic way.

The original Jaxon had wanted a vessel that could handle his pain. A soul that wouldn't break under the weight of demonic cultivation. And Ethan—lonely, traumatized Ethan—had been the perfect match.

He chose me, Jaxon realized. He chose me because he thought I could survive this.

A bitter laugh escaped his lips. "Well, he was wrong."

But even as he said it, something stirred in his chest. A spark of defiance. The same spark that had kept him alive in Seattle, through all the loneliness and grief. The spark that had made him a chess champion—the refusal to surrender, even when the board was against him.

No, he thought. I'm not going to die here. I'm not going to let the System eat my memories. And I'm not going to become the villain they expect me to be.

He stood up and walked to the window.

The Crimson Peak stretched below him—a landscape of black stone and twisted trees, bathed in eternal twilight. Somewhere out there, the miasma pools were waiting. The source of the original Jaxon's power. The source of his corruption.

But also... the source of his healing.

The journal had mentioned something. A deal with something ancient beneath the mountain. The original Jaxon had accepted that deal—but the deal had destroyed him.

What if I could make a different deal?

The System flickered.

[NOTIFICATION: HOST IS CONTEMPLATING THE MIASMA POOLS]

[WARNING: THE POOLS ARE EXTREMELY DANGEROUS]

[WARNING: THE ENTITY BENEATH THE MOUNTAIN IS NOT A TOOL. IT IS A PREDATOR.]

[ADVICE: DO NOT ENGAGE.]

Jaxon smiled grimly. "Noted. But I don't have a lot of options."

He turned away from the window and began to plan.

The first step was information.

Jaxon spent the next hour exploring his quarters, searching for anything the original Jaxon might have hidden. He found a small stash of cultivation pills—low-grade, mostly useless for healing—and a map of the sect grounds.

The map was invaluable.

It showed the outer disciples' wing, the inner disciples' wing, the elders' quarters, and the forbidden zones. The miasma pools were marked in red—Restricted Area. Do Not Enter. The Obsidian Hall was at the center. The Healing Pavilion was to the east.

Alvina Cascade works there, Jaxon remembered. The healer. The one who knows I'm not the original.

He wasn't sure if that was a threat or an opportunity.

The System flickered again.

[NEW MISSION AVAILABLE: VISIT THE HEALING PAVILION]

[OBJECTIVE: OBTAIN A DIAGNOSIS OF YOUR MERIDIAN DAMAGE]

[REWARD: +50 CULTIVATION POINTS]

[PENALTY: NONE]

[WARNING: THE HEALER MAY ASK QUESTIONS YOU CANNOT ANSWER.]

Jaxon frowned. "No penalty for failure? That's new."

The System didn't elaborate.

He folded the map and tucked it into his robe. Then he checked the journal one more time, committing the key details to memory.

The ritual. The soul transfer. The trauma resonance.

The original Jaxon had been a victim too. A man manipulated by forces he didn't understand. The same forces that were now circling Ethan like vultures.

Someone fed him the forbidden techniques, Jaxon remembered. Someone wanted him to fall.

And that someone was still out there.

He walked to the door and opened it.

The hallway was empty—but not for long. He could hear footsteps approaching. Multiple sets. Heavy boots on stone.

Jaxon's hand drifted to his waist, where a small knife was tucked into his belt. The original Jaxon's weapon. A last resort.

The footsteps stopped outside his door.

A voice—cold, familiar, and utterly without mercy.

"Jaxon Veil. By order of the Discipline Hall, you are to be confined to your quarters until further notice."

Ezron Ashbrook.

Jaxon's jaw tightened. "On what charge?"

"Sedition," Ezron said. "You accused a member of this sect of conspiracy. That is a serious offense."

"I told the truth."

"The truth," Ezron said, "is whatever the elders decide it is."

The door rattled. Someone was unlocking it from the outside.

Jaxon took a step back.

The System flickered.

[WARNING: HOST IS BEING DETAINED]

[WARNING: DETENTION WILL PREVENT COMPLETION OF MISSION: VISIT THE HEALING PAVILION]

[NEW OPTION AVAILABLE: ESCAPE]

[REWARD: +200 CULTIVATION POINTS]

[PENALTY: HOST WILL BE MARKED AS A FUGITIVE]

[HUMANITY GAUGE WILL BE DIMINISHED BY 10%]

Jaxon's mind raced.

Escape would mean losing 10% of his humanity. A tenth of his memories, gone in an instant. But staying would mean confinement. Possibly execution. Definitely the end of his plans to heal his meridians.

Chess, he thought. What's the best move?

The door opened.

Ezron stood in the doorway, flanked by two enforcers in silver-rimmed robes. His smile was thin and sharp.

"Come quietly, Veil. Or don't. I've been hoping you'd resist."

Jaxon looked at Ezron. At the enforcers. At the hallway beyond, where freedom waited.

And he made his choice.