As soon as Astis regained consciousness he was already running, possessing a boy he didn't know.
'Why am I running? Simple. Stop moving, and that's game over.'
"Oh yeah, right. This must be the fucking trial from that damn page."
Astis sprinted through the towering rice stalks, parting the thick blades that blocked his path and sight. He pushed himself deeper into the seemingly endless paddies.
"So, I'm stuck in a rice field, fleeing from... who even knows what. How romantic."
"Ugh, seriously? My body's a mess—even though I work out daily. Okay, two minutes of planks. But still."
Mud clung to Astis's ankles like greedy hands, the paddy's water lapping against his shins with each desperate stride. Stalks of rice stretched endlessly, tall and dense, concealing the unknown—and whatever followed in his wake. Astis saw no path, just a tangle of wet blades slicing at his arms, every drag of breath raw in his throat.
Running felt pointless, but stopping had consequences he didn't care to explore.
'If I stop, I'll probably die. Wait, why do i feel like this.'
'Come on, just transmigrating me here like this, another classic trope of overpowered mc fantasy novel these days.'
That was the line of thought he had, maybe influenced by the previous owner of the body.
Distorted by distance, pursuer's voices rose from somewhere behind, along with the wet slap of footsteps and the crunch of stalks yielding under pursuit.
"Stop now, boy! I can't wait to throw you to the pit and there ain't a way for you to crawl up."
Astis barked a humourless laugh.
'Your encouragement is noted. So's the threat.'
'That confirm it I am being chased for whatsoever reason I don't know.'
Each gasping step sent his brain reeling—he didn't know how far he'd run, only that he was still inside the maze of rice, the world narrowed to motion and exhaustion making his leg ached.
At some point he stumbled on the muddy ground and gad no choice but to start crawling. Then a sudden throbbing memories began flooding his mind.
Memories he knew weren't his own.
'Migraine, ugh, seriously.'
He blinked, and the world shifted. The paddy water became the cavernous gloom of a mansion's bowels.
The tall stone arches loomed overhead, slick and heavy, exuding an air of oppressive power designed to intimidate. Their weathered surfaces hinted at age and abandonment, while in the center lay a vast pit—an abyss that seemed ready to swallow all hope.
The chilling void suggested a desperation that echoed through the air, creating a scene thick with tension and dread. It was a place where fear thrived, where the darkness whispered unsettling truths.
'Calm down, calm down.'
Chains clanked and rattled in the cold air, the harsh metallic sound echoing like a death knell across the forsaken ground. One by one, they were shackled — men with weathered faces and trembling hands, women clutching their children to their chests, and the children themselves, wide-eyed with terror, too young to understand yet old enough to feel the dread. The guards moved with brutal efficiency, their grips unyielding, while their eyes devoid of pity. The captives cried out, some begging in broken voices, others struggling with every ounce of their failing strength, their bodies twisting and straining against the pull. But resistance only brought harsher shoves, sharper blows, and cruel laughter that cut deeper than any wound. Step by step, they were driven to the precipice — the jagged edge where the ground seemed to swallow all hope. The air grew thick with panic, and the wind carried the stench of fear. Pleas turned to screams, screams to sobs, and then, with merciless force, each was pushed forward, tumbling helplessly into the abyss.
"Spare me, lord, spare me please."
"I will be your slave, anything, I will do anything please, please, no, no, please have mercy."
"Spare me , please."
Their cries, desperate and fading, were swallowed by the darkness below, leaving nothing behind but the echo of chains and the cold, ringing silence that followed.
Above them, strange priest-like figures floated in the air, their long robes waving like seaweed, chanting incantations in a language he didn't understand but sounded wrong and unsettling. It only fuelled his throbbing and headache.
'My head, ugh'
Astis barely had time to register the jolt of panic. He collapsed, arms buckling into muck and shallow water. But what surprised him most was what came next.
The vision twisted on, a searing portal of magenta, spiralling in the middle a black vortex. And it was gigantic.
'That must be a descent.'
Two girls stood in front of the massive portal.. One in priest's robes with both her eyes literally stitched shut with stark white thread woven joining her eyelids. She stood above rubble, stiffly, and her mouth parted as if in mid-breath. She was trembling.
However, his attention focused more on the other one.
The other, a girl with long, flowing pale blonde hair, loosely making it ripple behind her, was clad in white robes. Her grey eyes were strikingly cold. She held a slender, elegant sword with jewellery as designs were attached to it.
Furthermore, a circle of slender, gleaming swords hovers effortlessly in midair around her, each blade shimmering with a faint, ethereal glow that pulses like the breath of the wind. The swords orbit her in a slow, deliberate dance, and almost reverent—mirroring her poised and determined stance. She looked simply majestic.
'She looks straight out of a damn movie, umm..... yeah, I am a little calmer now.'
Then it all returned to him crawling on the muddy ground.
'Am I back, wow.'
Astis coughed, spitting out a blend of sweat and rice water. His hands and knees sank into the wet earth, each movement slow and laborious. As he pushed forward, his eyes caught something white floating half-submerged in the murky water— a crumpled piece of paper, its edges stained and curling from the damp. And with bold letters, it wrote:
'You have gone back before the first Descent.'
'Grant Ivansia Williams the answer and you shall pass.'
"Who the hell is Ivansia? Am I Nemo? How am I supposed to find this Ivansia?" Astis Zelrez shouted.
His pursuers closed in, voices louder, certainty in their steps. He scrambled upright, picking up the paper. He sprinted toward the clearing, long shadows of the tall plants stretched behind him. Just before crossing the edge, he reached out and swept aside the final tiller with a swift and desperate brush of his hand. In that instant, a wave of relief washed over him—he felt the weight of the muddy field lift, the open air rushing in, and a profound, exhilarating sense of freedom flooding through his chest.
'Strange, why do I feel so free and calm. Have I reached nirvana.'
Then he rolled his eyes to the side and saw it, and merely a split second later, he grimaced.
'Well guess it was the calm before the storm after all'
A beast was feasting on a dog.
A wolf-shaped beast, monstrous in scale, it loomed, jet-black fur shimmering with fractal blue shards that throbbed with a sinister, hidden luminescence. Its belly yawned grotesquely open, and its ribs glistening c ng to something dark, viscous, and unnameable. From above its gaping maw, a single eye, wild and inhuman, roved with savage anticipation, pinning its prey with a gaze as cold and sharp as the crystals bristling along its frame. Hearing the little noise, the beast's eye rolled to Astis.
'Ahhh'
But before Astis could run, it gave a low, chilling howl as it pounced. Beast claws were intercepted mid-air by Astis's bare hands. The air wretched from his lungs as the beast's weight slammed him to the ground, cold claws digging into his left hand.
"Aaaahh! Hnngh! Arrghh!"
"Aah—hnngh! Aaaahh!"
He could do nothing but scream as the wolf began chewing his left arm's wrist.
"Chomp....chomp....chomp."
'Someone save me, anyone, please, Mom. No, Mom, you shouldn't be here.'
'It hurts, it freaking hurts you godamn wolf.'
But he could not let out a sound other than his screams.
Suddenly, a sharp splash echoed through the still air. The wolf's head, which had been fiercely chewing Astis's hand, was sent flying backwards. Blood and its insides spattered from the beast's wounded nape, landing on Astis's handsome face, and even slipping into his open mouth.
"Hmph" his mouth was full of blood and little pieces of organs of the wolf.
Astis choked violently, his vision clouded by the blood blurring before his eyes. An internally raw scream tore from his throat as he collapsed to the ground, helpless and disoriented.
'Whaaaa..'
Just as darkness began to close in, rough hands gripped him firmly. Before he could react, he was lifted and carried toward the edge of the paddy field.
"Peasant, stay still."
The girl shoved his face deep into the muddy water of the paddy field. He struggled desperately, a harsh gak-gak and choking urk ripping from his throat as the foul, thick water filled his mouth and nose. However, his face was somewhat rinsed from the blood.
For a while, his visions were blurred, and later, after a few minutes, her face became clearer.
Pale blonde hair, with strikingly cold eyes and in a black robe, holding an elegant sword with jewellery as design embedded in it.
It was the girl he saw in his visions.
"Peasant, you are lucky to be blessed just in time, or your head would have been the one I sent flying."
She said mockingly.
One thing was clear for him, She must have saved him, but for a purpose.
'Awakened.'
Astis gasped for air, and for some reason, his hand was not bleeding.
***
After a few more minutes, Astis finally calmed down and with a tired gaze, he again gazed at her.
Few other men were also there, but most of them looked disappointed as if their prey was clutched away by someone else. Some of them were in awe. However, all of them were looking at him.
'Hmm, ...am I that handsome,.... no what is behind me.'
Behind him, several small spherical portals of magenta light floated just above them, spiralling gently in the air. Each portal pulsed with a soft, otherworldly glow, casting faint streaks of radiant pinkish-purple over the dark soil.
'What the...'
Astis's mouth gaped open.
"Peasant, you have now awakened and granted divine powers. You are now a Williams, the house that feeds shadows."
The girl said in a confident voice with a grin.