When I opened my eyes again, there were a few things I could immediately piece together.
First, I was no longer in my country. In fact, I wasn't even sure if I was still on the same planet. Everything around me was unfamiliar—too vast, too strange, too beautiful and terrifying all at once. The air felt cleaner, the light sharper, the sky impossibly blue. It was nothing like the tired, gray world I had spent thirty long years in.
Second, I was no longer… me. I wasn't trapped in the worn-out body of a thirty-year-old man anymore. Instead, I had awakened in the fragile yet exquisite body of a young boy. My hair was as black as the night sky on a moonless evening, soft and fine like strands of silk. My eyes burned a deep crimson, like freshly cut rubies, gleaming with a sharp light that almost startled me. My skin was white as snow, smooth as porcelain, cold to the touch yet delicate as glass.
The face staring back at me from the mirror near the small baby crib looked like it had been sculpted by the gods themselves—a flawless beauty that didn't belong to this world. Even at the age of one, it was clear I would grow up to be a man whose appearance alone could command a room. It was an unsettling realization, like wearing a mask too perfect to be mine.
Third, I knew without a doubt that I had died. Who could survive months of endless overtime, chained to a desk, living on bitter coffee and half-slept nights? If fate had been kind, perhaps I would have awakened in the body of some nameless young noble, blessed with a peaceful life. But reality had never been kind to me.
Instead, I was reborn as Erik Gariel Phantasma—a minor villain in the very game my company had created.
That game had been a massive project, our final hope to save a dying company. It was built on a single promise: a completely new, open world where every choice mattered. True to its ambition, the game offered countless characters and professions, each with its own destiny.
A player could become a wandering swordsman, a noble knight, or a powerful mage. Attributes and identities were randomly assigned to make the experience more immersive. And once you created your character, there were no second chances.
And I… was reborn as Erik, one of the most foolish and despised villain NPCs in the game.
Erik Gariel Phantasma had been the youngest son of the Phantasma ducal house in the Kingdom of Lumiere—a kingdom founded by seven great families: the Lumiere royal family at the top, and the six ducal houses—Phantasma, Freya, Jormungandr, Fenrir, Stuart, and Iasonas.
Each house had its own gift:
Lumiere bred legendary holy knights, wielders of light.
Freya forged icy warrior maidens feared on every battlefield.
Jormungandr forged divine weapons fit for gods.
Fenrir wove an intelligence network so vast that no secret could escape it.
Stuart trained snipers whose aim was absolute.
Iasonas nurtured healers and brilliant physicians.
And Phantasma—the Shadow of the Empire—produced unparalleled magical knights.
Erik's father, Grand Duke Aaron Draken Phantasma, led the Phantasma house. In the game, he was one of the major bosses Paladin-class players were destined to defeat. The Phantasma family was renowned for its terrifying mastery of magic, especially the kind that thrived in the dark.
That was one of the game's core mechanics: every choice shaped the story. Serving Phantasma made you an ally to mages but a sworn enemy to paladins and knights.
Yet unlike his father and siblings—brilliant mages celebrated across the kingdom— Erik had been born a failure. His mana reserves were pitiful, and he couldn't even perform the simplest of spells, and of course, his strength and stamina could never compare to that of a knight. Powerless and humiliated, Erik had grown bitter and twisted, a man drowning in envy. In the original storyline, Erik was infamous for scheming against talented mages, exploiting others to build a false image of genius. He was a cautionary tale—a minor villain meant to be crushed.
But there was something the players never saw.
Erik Gariel Phantasma was no ordinary NPC. He was what the developers called a "developing character"—a rare entity capable of growing, changing, and evolving beyond its original design.
I had always thought NPCs were bound by lines of code, destined to play out their scripts forever. But Erik was different. Every choice the player made around him shaped who he became. Every death he caused, every betrayal he witnessed, every path he crossed carved something new into him. He grew stronger, smarter, and more dangerous.
He was no ordinary boss. Unlike others with fixed rewards, the value of his existence was measured by time. The longer he survived, the more powerful he became. he would devour players and NPCs alike, growing into a shadow that blotted out the sun. At the height of his reign—when he stood as the King of Shadows—those who defeated him could claim a legendary weapon, the kind that could shape the world.
And of course, unlike other great and lesser bosses of the Phantasma bloodline, serving this house did not require destroying it. But across every storyline, there remained a single immutable truth: Erik Gariel Phantasma must fall.
But those who struck him down too early would face consequences far worse than death. Their impatience would trigger the hidden event "The Phantasma Family's Revenge." Curses. Debuffs. A storm of assassins. The wrath of the Phantasma house was absolute.
That was one of the game's most closely guarded secrets. Though Erik Gariel Phantasma had no talent for sorcery, he was still the only son of Grand Duke Aaron Phantasma and the woman he loved, Lady Diana Iasonas. For that reason alone, the House of Phantasma would never forgive anyone who dared to take his life lightly.
The trick to defeating him was not a blade at all but the slow, patient work of revelation. One had to investigate—trace the secret cruelties, unearth the lies he had sown, and lay bare every sin he had committed against the kingdom. If those stains were made public, the duke would find himself unable to shield his son; duty and shame would force the house to hand him over to the crown. In that moment, if one struck early, all the player needed was patience: await the royal sentence, watch the executioner's axe fall, and the quest would be complete.
Nevertheless, if one let him linger and grow, the path closed. By then, he would have become something else: bolstered by the power of the King of Shadows and propped up by the Phantasma clan, he could defy the crown itself. What began as a crime of cunning would end as a war of shadows—no simple justice could touch him once he had learned to swallow the light.
TBC