The Arcana Empire's old king had fifteen sons.
But only five of them had the right to compete for the throne.
The Crown Prince, the Third Prince, the Fourth Prince, the Seventh Prince, and the Thirteenth Prince. The empire's rules were strict. Only princes born to the queen or powerful noble consorts could truly enter the succession fight, and only those who had the title of Grand Duke were considered real candidates.
At the time, almost everyone believed the Crown Prince would win.
After all, he was born of the queen, carried the most "legitimate" bloodline, and had many nobles supporting her.
The Third Prince also stood close to him, acting like his shadow.
Meanwhile, the Fourth Prince and Seventh Prince formed their own faction, backed by powerful families.
As for the Thirteenth Prince… he was the youngest, the weakest, and the quietest. Most people didn't even treat him as a threat.
Sienna's father chose his side early.
She supported the Crown Prince.
It was a reasonable choice. The House Vale was not of ancient nobility.
They had risen too quickly through military achievements, and the old noble families never truly accepted them.
To those old aristocrats, the Vales were nothing but upstart dogs who had climbed too high. Sienna's father wanted the family to enter the real circle of power, to be treated as true nobility instead of "new blood."
If the Crown Prince became king, the Vales could rise again, maybe even become one of the empire's core families.
But Sienna's father bet on the wrong man.
The Crown Prince lost.
And the person who took the throne was the one nobody expected.
The Thirteenth Prince, Theodore Garcia.
The moment Theodore became emperor, the Crown Prince's faction was crushed. Those who had once laughed proudly in the capital were dragged down overnight. Sienna's father was arrested under a convenient excuse, thrown into prison, and later died there. Whether it was execution, poison, or quiet murder, no one bothered to explain.
The House Vale fell with her.
All of Sienna's past crimes were dragged out as well, like a pile of filth thrown into the open. Yet the empire didn't destroy Sienna completely. Not because they had mercy, but because Harold existed. Harold was strong, strong enough that even the royal family had to be careful. If they pushed too far, they risked an enraged expert seeking revenge.
So the empire chose another method.
They humiliated Sienna without killing her.
Her inherited Marquis title was stripped away and reduced to Viscount. Her fertile southern territory was taken and replaced with the Black Soil Wasteland, a dead land no one wanted. Then came the final blow.
Without even showing any mercy that Sienna is a woman, the emperor forced her to drink the Water of Nothingness.
After drinking it, Sienna became a complete waste.
No magic. No battle energy. No future.
And to make it worse, Sienna and her household were ordered to leave the capital within three days. They were also forbidden from leaving their new territory for the next three years. For nobles, this was no different from exile. It was a cage built out of law.
Sienna Vale's chest felt tight as the memories settled.
She finally understood something that made her skin crawl.
The emperor didn't send them away just to punish them.
He sent them away to bury them.
And there was another reason Sienna had been forced to drink the Water of Nothingness.
The House Vale possessed a powerful inheritance, a famous cultivation method known as the Mad Dragon Battle Spiritual Energy. It was legendary. It allowed warriors to train faster and strike harder than normal techniques.
Many noble families had secretly desired it for years. But unfortunately for them, Sienna is not a simple young lady. She is the heir of House Vale. She cannot marry into any Noble House. They were the ones who had to marry into her house in order to form any marriage relationship with her and no one would be willing to marry into a fallen house, obviously.
However, at the same time, no one wanted Sienna to learn it, as she could become dangerous.
Theodore would not allow that.
So he crippled Sienna before she could even try.
But Theodore still didn't kill her. Part of it was politics, part of it was fear. Harold was not someone this new emperor wanted as an enemy. Harold proved his threat the night he entered the palace alone and met Theodore face-to-face.
He offered the Mad Dragon Battle Spiritual Energy to the emperor and swore a poisonous oath that the House Vale would never practice it again.
It wasn't loyalty.
It was desperation.
Harold was trading the family's greatest treasure for Sienna's life.
Theodore accepted.
Not because she was kind, but because he was cautious. A newly crowned emperor had enemies everywhere. The last thing he wanted was an eighth-level warrior lurking in the shadows with murder in his heart.
So Theodore let Sienna live.
But he made sure Sienna could never rise.
As Sienna Vale absorbed these memories, she also learned something even more terrifying about the Water of Nothingness.
It didn't only destroy the drinker's power.
Its curse could pass down through blood.
If someone drank it, their descendants might be unable to use magic or battle Spiritual Energy for generations.
Ten generations, according to rumor.
That meant the House Vale's future had been poisoned along with Sienna's body. Even if they survived, their bloodline would slowly become ordinary, powerless, and forgotten.
That was why Harold had been forced to hand over the Mad Dragon Battle Spiritual Energy.
If the House Vale could not cultivate it anymore, then keeping it was meaningless.
Worse, it would become a death sentence.
As long as the emperor believed the Vales still held such a technique, the royal family would never stop hunting them.
Harold had made the only choice he could.
And yet, even after all that, something still went wrong.
Because Sienna did not simply become powerless.
After drinking the Water of Nothingness, Sienna fell unconscious and never properly woke up again. Even during the long journey to the Black Soil Wasteland, she remained half-dead, surviving only because Mirella used her water magic to keep her body stable.
And now, lying on that bed, Sienna understood the cruel joke of fate.
Sienna Vale had not awakened.
The one who woke up was Sienna Miller.
An ordinary woman from Earth, thrown into the body of a ruined noble heiress, trapped in a cursed wasteland, carrying the last breath of a family the empire wanted to erase.
Sienna Vale slowly opened her eyes.
This time, there was no stabbing headache, no dizzy spinning. Her mind felt heavy, as if she had slept for days, but it was clear. Too clear. The memories that didn't belong to her had already settled down, mixing with her own like water poured into water. She could no longer separate Sienna Vale from Sienna Vale. Both lives were now tied together inside one body.
She had really transmigrated.
Not the kind where she landed in a new body far away. This was the crueler kind. Her soul had taken over someone else's life, someone else's name, someone else's mess.
Sienna lay still for a while, staring at the thin gauze above her, her thoughts running quietly. As an otaku, she had read enough novels to know what "crossing over" meant. She had even imagined it before, late at night, when her room was silent except for the humming computer. But imagination was always exciting. Reality was different.
If she had to cross, why did it have to be like this?
A ruined noble. A cursed land. A future that looked like a dead road.
She exhaled slowly, then turned her head.
The old man was still standing beside the bed. his posture was straight, his face serious, but his eyes were not cold. There was worry inside them, carefully hidden behind his strict expression.
Sienna recognized him immediately now.
Harold Vale.
The old butler of the House Vale, loyal for decades. Sienna's grandfather had even given him the family surname, something that proved how much the Vales trusted him. In Sienna's memory, Harold had always been the annoying old man who nagged about manners and rules, always saying "no" to everything. Sienna hated him, but could never disrespect him.
Sienna Miller didn't share Sienna Vale's hatred.
She only felt relief.
In a strange world, surrounded by enemies and danger, having someone like Harold was like holding onto a rope in the dark.
She shifted her body, sat up properly, and spoke in a calm voice.
"Grandpa Harold."
Harold's eyes widened slightly. It was clear he wasn't used to hearing that tone from Sienna. But he quickly stepped closer, his voice turning urgent.
"Young Miss, how do you feel? Is your head still hurting? Do you feel dizzy?"
Sienna Vale shook her head. Her voice was steady, but there was honesty in it. "I'm fine. Better than before."
Then she paused and asked the question that mattered most. "Where are we?"
Harold looked at her carefully, as if trying to confirm whether this was truly her Young Miss speaking, then replied. "We have already arrived at your fief."
Sienna Vale's fingers tightened slightly against the bedsheet. Even though she already guessed it, hearing it directly still made her chest feel heavy.
"The Black Soil Wasteland?" she asked.
Harold nodded. "Yes. This is the Black Soil Wasteland."
Sienna Vale swallowed. She didn't panic, but she felt the weight of it. She forced herself to think like someone who had to survive, not like someone who had the luxury to complain.
"Tell me the situation here," she said. "Where exactly are we staying? How many people do we have? What resources are left?"