Victor Cruz opened his eyes slowly, a wave of dizziness coursing through his head.
Instinctively, he grabbed his head.
'Where am I?'
Despite his dizziness, he took a moment to observe his surroundings.
The place he was in was large, chairs spread across the room, resembling a private university lecture hall.
As his vision turned clearer, he saw students around him dressed in formal blue and yellow uniforms, listening with rapt attention.
Victor looked down and saw the same blue and yellow colors on himself. The Skysworn Academy uniform.
*Skysworn Academy...*
The name should have felt unfamiliar, yet somehow, it resonated with him as though he had known about it his entire life.
"Victor Cruz."
A middle-aged man at the front seemed to notice his strange state.
"Are you alright? You look deathly pale."
The entire room turned their gaze towards the man in question.
A pin drop silence suddenly descended in the room.
Victor was taken aback by the sudden attention.
But then, he narrowed his eyes. He sensed despise in every student's eyes.
'Despise…? Stra—!'
A sudden throb cut through his thoughts, causing him to groan in discomfort.
"Ugh…"
Perhaps it showed in his expression, but the middle-aged man's eyes flickered with concern.
"Student, what's wrong?"
"Professor Manhattan…"
Victor instinctively responded. He was about to reply, but the words died down his throat when the pain came crashing down.
The pain that was tolerable moments ago suddenly increased to unbelievable levels.
Pain continued to hammer his mind, making him dizzier and dizzier. Having the attention of everyone in the room certainly didn't help.
Victor felt nauseous.
'…I need to get out of here!'
He thought, about to stand up and run.
However, when he was about to take action in panic—the pain suddenly decreased.
Professor Manhattan asked: "Do you need to go to the clinic, Victor Cruz?"
Without the constant aching, Victor could finally think properly. He looked at everyone in the room. The pain was one thing, but something was strange with his situation.
He took a deep breath, trying to steady himself. *Waking up in an unfamiliar place, massive head ache, and carrying strange memories...*
His eyes widened.
Did he get drugged? No, that's impossible… drugs didn't give someone new memories.
Not to mention, his surroundings… He looked all over the place again while he supported his head.
Students were seated all over the hall, teenagers—how was he not getting strange glances with his appearance?
While he wasn't that old, he was certain he didn't look as young and immature as these brats.
'Age… appearance… wait…!'
An chilling idea flashed through his head.
'Could it be…!?'
A thought whispered in the back of his mind, one that chilled him. An outlandish idea, even he didn't dare believe it.
Facing everyone's stares, Victor suddenly stood up.
"Professor Manhattan, I'm not feeling well. Can I go to the clinic?"
Professor Manhattan seemed surprised and nodded. He gestured for him to leave.
"Very well. Do you need so—"
"No, I'll be fine myself, Professor."
Without wasting anymore time, Victor thanked the professor and left, trying to maintain control of his emotions.
---
Drip.. drop...
The bathroom was eerily quiet. Victor's eyes shifted to the mirror, where a face he didn't recognize stared back.
He placed his hands against the glass. The reflection mirrored him—calm and composed—but it wasn't his cold face that he saw.
'This is…'
Instead, it was an immature face with sharp green eyes. The face of a teenager stared back at him from the mirror.
'Who is this brat?'
Victor's mind reeled. Was this someone else's body? He blinked twice, unable to believe it.
'Is this… what they call transmigration?'
He rarely entertained in fiction, but he knew someone that made a living over writing such unbelievable stories.
If he remembered correctly, that person described "transmigration" as an event that only happens to unfortunate people who die in a miserable way.
'Miserable death…'
Victor thought back to his last moments in earth. He was on the verge of completing his final mission, but then he suddenly fell to his death inexplicably.
'… Poison.'
He thought instinctively.
He didn't know how and when, but he was likely poisoned to death. But the problem was that he made sure not to touch or drink anything beforehand…
Victor thought for a moment before his eyes widened.
No, he did touch one thing.
His final mission was to retrieve an ancient relic in the enemy's headquarters.
The last thing he touched was precisely that ancient relic.
Everything was going well, and he was about to escape with the ancient relic, but moments after he stepped out the place, he died instantly.
'… How ironic. The thing that was supposed to bring me out from a life of killing turned to be the one to kill me.'
Victor shook his head, finding it laughable. After completing that mission, he could finally retire and enjoy himself.
Stepping back from all the senseless killing was his goal, and he was on the cusp of achieving such a thing, only to be stopped by something so stupid…
Considering all that, he definitely died in a miserable manner.
'It seems to fit the bill. Did I get a second chance after dying? Why me of all people?'
Victor couldn't help but make a bewildered face. Back in earth, he was a top-ranked freelance assassin.
Throughout his life, he was described in many ways, but not a single one was about him being a good person.
If such a thing as transmigration existed, surely it was better off given to people who would actually do good with the opportunity?
He couldn't make sense of it so he just let it be. He'll just consider this new life as his retirement plan.
'Whatever, I'll just have to accept it. There's more important things to worry about, like my current situation.'
Victor closed his eyes, took a steadying breath, and delved deeper into the strange memories flooding his mind.
*Skysworn Academy...*
This place was Skysworn Academy, a prestigious institution that molded future beast tamers.
Beast tamers—the heroes of mankind, the defenders of tomorrow, the idols of society.
This wasn't just any school. This was one of the greatest academies in the 550th year of the Pulsing Sea Era.
This world had three distinct eras: the Skyreach Era, the Blackthorn Era, and now, the Pulsing Sea Era.
The Blackthorn Era ended after five hundred years of peace, shattered by a terrible calamity.
In the 240th year of the Blackthorn Era, the world changed. Humankind had just emerged from their first great war, finally uniting under a single person's banner.
But peace never came.
During the preparations for the world unification ceremony, something horrifying occurred.
The sky turned red for a brief moment.
The two eternal moons in the sky blinked, as though a pair of eyes waking up from a long nap.
The ancient beasts, long dormant, suddenly awoke—bringing terrifying magical creatures with them. These beasts hunted humanity, killing and devouring humans brutally.
All of a sudden, it wasn't humans who were on top of the food chain anymore.
The massacre lasted for years.
It was only in the 250th year of the Blackthorn Era that humanity discovered the key to survival: **Beast Taming.**
'Beast Taming…'
Something in him stirred when he thought of that word.
Victor's eyes flicked to the mirror, freezing on his tracks. For a brief moment, his reflection disappeared, replaced by two swirling orange voids.
At that moment, his surroundings changed.
Thump!
The world around him darkened. The air grew still, like a place beyond time.
At the far end of the room, an ancient black torii gate appeared, covered with chains glowing red and white.
One of the chains snapped, shaking the very fabric of reality. Mist poured from the broken link, seeping into the air.
Victor's heart raced as he recognized the voids—those weren't voids. They were the eyes of something alive, watching him.
A sudden throb cut through the hallucination, forcing Victor to clutch on the bathroom stall for support.
Pain surged up on his mind.
[Tens of thousands of eras will fade. Billions of worlds will perish. Even legends who walked the path to godhood will fade.]
[Only the Ancient Gate, separating reality from illusion, can withstand eternal time and the threat of erasure.]
Victor staggered back, the words echoing in his mind with inhumane cadence. His head throbbed painfully, and he stumbled into the corner of the bathroom.
"Argh!"
[The Ancient Gate welcomes its successor.]
A resounding voice filled his mind, and music—a symphony that seemed to transcend all existence—began to play.
The overwhelming pain intensified, and Victor screamed. He collapsed to the floor, his consciousness slipping away as the darkness overtook him.
Bam!