The sensation came first: the unpleasant drag of consciousness being yanked backward through layers of fog and static.
Then came the smell—jasmine incense so thick it felt like breathing through wet silk, undercut by the faint metallic tang of old blood that had long since dried into the wood.
Elliot Crane opened his eyes.
No, not Elliot Crane.
The face staring back at him from the oval silver mirror was not the unshaven, perpetually exhausted thirty-one-year-old who had spent the last six years churning out 1.8-million-word cultivation epics for an audience of seven loyal readers and one particularly vindictive bot.
This face belonged to someone younger—seventeen, maybe eighteen. Sharply elegant. Pale skin stretched over high cheekbones, lips the color of old wine, eyes the pale violent-gray of storm clouds just before lightning. Hair so black it seemed to drink the candlelight rather than reflect it fell in careless waves to his shoulders.
He looked like sin that had been taught table manners.
Elliot—no, the person whose body this was—raised a hand. Long fingers, nails filed to subtle points, trembled only slightly as they touched the cold glass.
The reflection copied the motion perfectly.
A soft, aristocratic laugh escaped his throat. It wasn't his laugh. It sounded like velvet wrapped around broken glass.
"So this is what being hated by the entire world feels like from the inside," he murmured.
He already knew the name attached to this body.
**Lucien Veyra de Luthaine.**
Second son of the Grand Duke of the Northern Marches.
Publicly acknowledged genius of sword and sorcery.
Privately known as: degenerate, sadist, blackmailer, sister-obsessed lunatic, and—most damning of all—the single greatest obstacle standing between the destined protagonist Elias Solhaven and his perfect harem ending.
In the web novel Elliot had published under the pen name "GraveyardShiftAddict," Lucien was never meant to survive past chapter 387.
He dies screaming, castrated by his own enchanted blade (which the hero turns against him), while every woman he had ever touched weeps in relief rather than grief.
That had been the plan, anyway.
Elliot had typed THE END six hours ago, posted it, downed half a bottle of cheap soju, and passed out on his keyboard.
Now he was here.
Inside the villain.
Inside the monster he had written to be irredeemable.
He looked down at himself. Black silk robe embroidered with silver ravens. Open at the chest far enough to show the pale scar running diagonally across his left pectoral—courtesy of his older brother during a "training accident" three years prior. Beneath the robe: nothing. Apparently Lucien slept like he lived—arrogantly bare.
Elliot exhaled slowly through his nose.
"Okay," he told the empty bedroom. "Rational breakdown time."
One: Transmigration. Classic. No truck-kun, no goddess, no truck goddess—just abrupt narrative cruelty.
Two: No system window. No [+100 Evil Points], no shop, no [Yandere Conquest Meter]. Disappointing, but not surprising. He'd never written those tropes into this particular story.
Three: He remembered every disgusting detail of Lucien's life because he had invented them. Every servant he had cornered in the wine cellar, every whispered threat to his half-sister Celine, every time he had smiled while watching someone bleed for his amusement.
Four: If the plot followed canon, Lucien had roughly four months until the Royal Academy's entrance exam, where Elias Solhaven would publicly humiliate him for the first time, setting off the chain of events that ended with Lucien's head rolling across polished marble.
Four months to either:
A) Somehow become strong enough to solo the protagonist + his growing collection of heroines, or
B) Derail the story so badly that the original ending becomes impossible, or
C) Die trying.
He dragged both hands through his hair and laughed again—genuine this time, bitter and tired.
"I'm going to need a hobby that isn't 'becoming a redeemable cinnamon roll,'" he muttered. "Because that would be boring. And also impossible."
Lucien Veyra de Luthaine was not built for redemption arcs. The scaffolding of his personality—cruelty, obsession, possessiveness—was too deeply mortared into every scene he'd ever appeared in. Trying to play nice would just look like a predator wearing a sheepskin rug.
But playing the villain the way the old Lucien had... that road ended at chapter 387.
So.
New plan.
If he couldn't escape being hated, he would make being hated *expensive*. If the world wanted a monster, he would give it one—but a monster that collected its obsessions like trophies, that turned the knives aimed at his back into loving embraces.
He wouldn't just survive.
He would **corrupt** the story from the inside.
Starting with the women who were supposed to adore Elias.
Starting with the ones who already hated Lucien most.
A faint knock sounded at the heavy oak door.
"Lord Lucien?" The voice was young, female, hesitant. "Your bath is prepared... and, um... Lady Celine asked me to remind you that breakfast will be served in twenty minutes. She... she seemed worried you might have... overslept again."
Celine.
His canonical half-sister. Sweet, gentle, talented mage, destined to fall for Elias after Lucien tries (and fails) to force her into an incestuous political marriage.
In the novel, she had wept when they read Lucien's death sentence—but only from lingering familial pity.
Elliot—no, Lucien now—smiled at his reflection. The expression was slow, almost tender.
"Worried," he repeated softly, tasting the word.
He rose from the cushioned bench. The silk robe slid off one shoulder as he walked toward the door.
"Enter," he called, voice low and languid.
The door opened a crack. A maid perhaps nineteen years old slipped inside, eyes firmly fixed on the floor. Her hands twisted the hem of her apron.
Lucien crossed the room in three lazy strides and stopped directly in front of her—close enough that she could feel the heat radiating from his bare chest.
He tilted her chin up with two fingers.
Her eyes were wide, hazel, terrified.
Beautiful, in that fragile prey way.
He studied her for a long moment.
Then he leaned in, lips brushing the shell of her ear.
"Tell my dear sister," he whispered, "that I will be down shortly. And that she needn't worry."
He paused.
"I slept wonderfully."
The maid swallowed audibly.
Lucien released her chin and stepped back, giving her space to flee.
She almost tripped over her own feet rushing out.
Alone again, he turned toward the steaming copper tub that had been wheeled in while he was distracted.
Steam curled upward like ghostly fingers.
He let the robe fall completely.
As he sank into the scalding water, he closed his eyes and allowed himself one single, honest thought.
*I wrote you all to be perfect,* he mused, picturing the faces that would eventually fill his future: Celine, the saintly crown princess, the cold sword saintess, the fiery alchemist, the beastkin princess...
*Now let's see how long it takes before perfection cracks.*
Water lapped against his chest.
A slow, predatory smile curved his lips.