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.
Latest Chapter
25
I leaned back in my chair, the leather creaking softly under my weight, as I studied the woman standing before me. Captain Mareona held herself with a rigid, military poise, yet there was a flicker of something familiar in the set of her jaw and the sharp, attentive light in her eyes. It took a moment for my mind to sift through the memories of the past six years, back to the early days when my grandmother had sent a contingent of four hundred soldiers to ensure my survival in this desolate state."You look remarkably like Captain Ela," I said, my voice cutting through the silence of the office. "Tell me, what is your connection to her? Are you perhaps her mother? Or given the lines of experience on your face, perhaps her grandmother?"The mask of military stoicism on Mareona’s face shattered instantly. A vein throbbed visibly on her temple, and her eyes flared with a sudden, indignant fire. "I am her younger sister!" she barked, her professional composure momentarily eclipsed by pure
24
To the common observer, four years is a period of slow, rhythmic change. But within the borders of the Secluded State, these years were a whirlwind of divine intervention and industrial revolution. I had long ago realized that borrowed strength was a deceptive comfort; a sword lent by another can be reclaimed, but the strength forged in one’s own meridians is the only true sovereignty. Thus, while the world moved on, I anchored myself within the heart of the Spiritual Land, a sanctuary that had transitioned from a hidden valley into a fortress of unparalleled sophistication.Under my directives, the transition was surgical. I had tasked Elder 1 and Elder 5 with a monumental architectural feat: the creation of a base that would serve as both a sanctuary and a laboratory. I demanded that the true heart of our power—the scientific facilities—be buried deep underground, hidden from the prying eyes of heaven and earth alike. I wanted a self-sustaining ecosystem protected by a multi-layered
23
The atmosphere within the governor’s grand office was thick with a tension that felt almost physical. Three days had passed since the silver and white mists of the system’s summoning had receded, and the reality of my new cabinet was beginning to set in. I sat behind the massive mahogany desk, my fingers steepled, watching the silent play of power across the room. Across from me sat the "Three Legends"—Lynch, Nel, and Holt—their faces etched with the fatigue of two years of relentless labor. Next to them stood the three scholars I had chosen to remain in the city: Elder 2, the stoic elven mistress of agriculture; Elder 4, the calculating human master of economics; and Elder 5, the dwarven architect whose eyes seemed to constantly measure the structural integrity of the walls.The silence was broken by Old Nel, who, true to his lecherous nature, was staring at Elder 2 with a look of undisguised, pathetic longing. His eyes wandered over the elegant curve of her elven ears and the poised
22
The shattering of the talent stone had left a ringing silence in the clearing, broken only by the heavy breathing of the three legendary nobles. Old Holt looked at the sparkling obsidian dust at his feet, his eyes wide and shimmering with a mixture of reverence and absolute shock. He looked at me as if he were staring at a god descended from the heavens. I knew you were special from the moment I laid eyes on you, My Lord! he exclaimed, his voice cracking with emotion. But this... this is beyond anything recorded in the annals of history. You possess the greatest talent that has ever graced the Vermilion Empire!Old Nel, ever the one to boast once his fear had subsided into pride, puffed out his chest and looked at the others with a triumphant smirk. Hmph! Forget the empire! Nel shouted, gesturing wildly. He has the greatest talent in the entire world! Even those pampered prodigies from the Central Continent, who think they are the darlings of the heavens, aren't fit to carry our Lord’
21
The passage of time is a fickle thing; to the idle, it is a slow decay, but to those with a kingdom to build, it is a fleeting currency. Two years had bled into the tapestry of history since I first stood upon the broken gates of the Secluded City. Now, as I sat perched upon a thick, gnarled branch of an ancient oak tree that guarded the perimeter of my estate, I looked out over a landscape that had been utterly transformed. The air no longer carried the stagnant scent of fear and poverty that the Lamonia family had cultivated like a toxic crop. Instead, it was filled with the vibrant, chaotic hum of a burgeoning metropolis.I closed my eyes for a moment, letting the sensory data wash over me. I could hear the rhythmic clanging of hammers from the newly established industrial district, the distant shouting of merchants in the central square, and the steady marching of boots that signaled the changing of the guard. The Secluded State had undergone a metamorphosis that defied every law
20
The stench of the dungeon lingered in my nostrils as I ascended the stone stairs, the silence of the underground replaced by the chaotic symphony of a city in the throes of a violent rebirth. Veldora followed a step behind me, his expression unreadable, while Kurma trotted at my side, occasionally licking his chops with a disturbing sense of satisfaction.I had missed it. The grand spectacle of the siege, the clashing of steel on the battlements, the dramatic fall of a corrupt regime—all of it had happened while I was stuck in a damp cellar watching two divine beasts have a snack. I looked at Veldora with a flash of genuine disappointment.Are you happy now? I muttered, my voice echoing in the narrow corridor. I missed the entire show. My first real battle, and I spent it listening to those two screaming for mercy. Now, all I see is a massive game of hide-and-seek played by an entire city.Veldora offered a small, apologetic bow. My Lord, the quality of a meal is often determined by t
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