DKIE CH1: Transmigration

Cloudy day, café.

A small round table, with flowers placed by the window adding a touch of charm. Seated at the table were the only two customers in the shop.

It was a weekday, and most people were still at work. Few would make a special trip to a café near a resort area.

A handsome young man with a baby face looked smugly at his peer across the table, boasting, “The company has decided to release an album for me. We’ll have fewer chances to meet up in the future, so let’s make the most of our time now.”

Among their batch of trainees, he was the only one who had made a name for himself. Seeing someone who once could have been the group’s visual now abandoned by the company and reduced to being a paparazzo gave him an even greater sense of satisfaction.

The person sitting across from him wore a slightly wrinkled shirt, with a few blades of wild grass still clinging to it—clearly, he had spent another night stalking some celebrity.

But every time the baby-faced young man saw this face, he couldn’t help but feel jealous.

The other boy had naturally reddish eyes, long and thin eyebrows, pale skin, and long hair. Each individual feature might not have been particularly striking, but together, they possessed an extraordinary allure that made it impossible to look away.

Faced with the bragging, the boy simply yawned lightly. “Congratulations.”

It was like punching cotton. The baby-faced young man deliberately added, “Luka, if you’re struggling financially, I can lend you some…”

Before he could finish, Luka’s phone, which was resting on the table, vibrated.

The baby-faced young man’s sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a transaction notification—followed by a string of zeros.

His mouth fell open. “This is…”

Luka replied indifferently, “Oh, I happened to get a shot of a D-list celebrity meeting a beauty last night. Their studio wanted to buy out the photos.”

It took a long moment for the baby-faced young man to process this. His voice instinctively rose, “D-list?! A single photo is worth that much?”

Luka responded flatly, “It’s alright, not too expensive. Da Zhuang from our trainee batch is working at the airport now, greeting arriving celebrities and selling autographs. He makes twenty or thirty thousand a month. Oh, and do you remember Xiao Mei? She starred in a GL film that didn’t really take off, but by hyping up her CP, she still made a few million.”

As for himself, he was well-known in paparazzi circles, though most celebrities wouldn’t necessarily know about him.

To avoid drawing too much hatred, he often sold his scoops to other journalists, letting them use the material to boost their reputations while he simply collected the money.

Still stuck in a phase of being exploited and making less than 120,000 a year, the baby-faced young man: “…”

The coffee in his mouth tasted unbearably bitter.

Even after stepping out of the café, he remained in a daze, mumbling, “How is this possible?”

The sky had grown even darker. Luka, irritated by his incessant muttering, scuffed his shoe against a pile of fallen leaves in a clockwise motion and asked, “What’s this?”

The baby-faced young man looked down at the uneven shape and mumbled, “A circle.”

“No, it’s a loop.”

Everything has its own loop—if you stand inside it, you get paid.

The baby-faced young man stared at that loop for a long time, recalling the string of zeros he had glimpsed on the transaction notification, and squeezed out a single phrase:

“Holy sh—”

But just then, Luka let out a soft sigh, shoved his hands into his pockets, and looked up at the sky.

“Sometimes I wonder—was it really worth it? I gave up my dream of being an artist in exchange for a luxury apartment in the city center, the latest X-Benz, and a lifetime of financial security.”

“Oh heavens, please give me an answer!”

Every single word struck straight to the soul.

The baby-faced young man nearly had a heart attack. How could someone be this insufferable?

If the heavens had any sense, they should strike him down with lightning.

BOOM!

A bolt of lightning shot straight down from the clouds, striking with terrifying precision.

The flash illuminated a face contorted in sheer horror. It took several seconds before the baby-faced young man finally reacted.

“An—an ambulance! Someone just got struck by lightning!”

Seeing someone get struck by lightning with his own eyes, the baby-faced young man was trembling like a sieve, his legs so weak he couldn’t move.

It took him a long moment before he finally cried out in shock, “…Luka! Luka, are you okay?”

Luka lay on his back, staring blankly at the sky, where countless eerie phantoms appeared.

One figure stood out the most.

A man with two horns on his forehead sat on a golden palanquin, his crimson hair flowing like a river of blood. Behind him followed an immense procession—tens of thousands marching in ritual formation, infernal warhorses wreathed in flame, fallen witches, wicked knights—all chanting praises to the Demon King.

“Demon King’s Procession! Demon King’s Procession—”

Just as Luka tried to see more clearly, the exalted man suddenly turned his gaze in his direction.

His long, narrow eyes held blood-red irises, incomplete, like an ill-omened blood moon.

Luka wasn’t even sure if that glance was truly directed at him.

It was cold, indifferent—ignoring him entirely as if he were nothing more than a roadside weed.

Damn it, what kind of horned freak was this? Even more pretentious than him!

Why didn’t the lightning strike him instead?

Luka’s eyelids grew heavy, powerless to stay open.

In his last moment of consciousness, one thought remained:
In my next life, I’ll never act like a pretentious prick again.

———

The sky darkened bit by bit.

Luka awoke, jolted by the overwhelming scent of blood.

He struggled to open his eyes and saw a world in utter ruin.

Corpses were everywhere. Severed limbs—massive beyond belief—lay scattered across the land. Countless streams of blood flowed together, all converging in one direction.

Luka couldn’t stand. After a moment’s hesitation, he chose to crawl along with the flow of blood.

He crawled and crawled—until a massive blood pool appeared before him.

A torrential flood of blood poured into it like a waterfall.

Floating eerily in midair was a blood-drenched bone. Strange, intricate patterns covered it, partially obscured by the thick blood. At the end of the skeletal hand, it cradled a grotesque, misshapen heart—one that ceaselessly devoured the blood flowing toward it from all directions.

The sight was terrifying.

“Treasure!”

An excited voice rang out.

A dwarf was frantically crawling toward the glowing mass.

Seeing him move, Luka instinctively did the same.

Face to face, they writhed through the mud, twisting and scrambling.

The dwarf was faster. Using both hands and feet, he mustered the last of his strength, throwing himself forward at the cost of further injury.

Luka’s heart clenched.

They were close enough now that he could see the killing intent on the dwarf’s face.

If it truly was a treasure, and the dwarf got it first, he would definitely eliminate any witnesses.

Since it could absorb blood on its own, it might even have some level of awareness.

Might as well take a gamble.

Luka took a deep breath and shouted, “Dear, pick me! I’m weak and easy to control!”

The dwarf had already touched the skeletal hand. The moment they made contact, strange runes appeared at the point of contact, as if forming a contract.

But after Luka’s shout, the hand suddenly hesitated in midair.

Then—
It actually believed him.

The bone recoiled.

It worked!

Luka’s eyes lit up, and he desperately played up his weakness.

“Oh, dearest treasure, I’m so weak I can’t even stand. What reason do you have not to choose me?”

The deformed heart atop the hand… thumped.

Thump. Thump.

It was tempted. It even thumped twice.

“No!”

The dwarf watched in horror as the heart wavered, then ultimately shot toward Luka.

The moment the light entered Luka’s body, searing agony ignited every inch of him, as though he were being burned alive. Before he lost consciousness from the pain, his hand grasped something hanging from his waist—

A quiver of arrows.

Noticing the dwarf’s twisted, hate-filled expression, Luka immediately pulled out an arrow and drove it toward the dwarf’s chest.

Out of the corner of his eye, he caught a glimpse of a scepter. A strange thought struck him, and for some reason, he deliberately aimed half an inch off.

The dull sound of flesh being pierced echoed.

The dwarf groaned in pain.

Through clenched teeth, Luka rasped, “You see… strength is the original sin.”

With that, his body gave out, and he collapsed.

For the second time that day, Luka lost consciousness.

———

Unfortunately, unconsciousness did not prevent him from dreaming.

Ever since he was a child, Luka had always had one recurring dream—and the dream always continued from where it had left off.

In it, his father was the Demon King.

His mother was a lofty, untouchable Saintess.

But eventually, the two turned against each other. Luka became their disgrace and was cast into exile in a barren wasteland.

He didn’t know how much time had passed before he awoke from his nightmare, gasping for breath.

His head throbbed violently, and he clutched it tightly. A flood of unfamiliar knowledge poured into his mind.

Soaring dragons, brutal and savage orcs, elves ruling over vast territories…

His mind was overwhelmed with strange information—along with memories that belonged to someone else.

Exile. Humiliation.

Many of those experiences… Luka had already seen it in his dreams.

The overlap didn’t bring much of a psychological impact.

Luka stared at his dirt-covered hands.

“I… couldn’t have…?”

Did I… transmigrate?

Did I just become the real Demon King’s son?

Luka was very familiar with this body. The reflection in the blood on the ground matched his own appearance, only younger—about seventeen or eighteen years old.

Suddenly recalling something, Luka looked around.

That terrifying scepter was right within reach, and nearby lay the dwarf’s corpse. The arrow in the corpse reminded him of what had happened.

Guided by the deformed heart, the remaining blood on the ground rearranged itself into a message:

[Now that you’re awake, come sign the blood contract.]

Luka searched his memories. A blood contract was a type of soul pact—once formed, neither party could betray the other. High-level blood contracts even allowed shared life force and power.

[Your body can’t withstand my power.]

So it had to be a low-level blood contract.

A blood contract could only be signed while fully conscious, which was why the heart had waited for Luka to wake up.

Luka frowned. Earlier, he had acted purely on instinct, forcing himself to hold on.

Now that he thought about it, the deformed heart was absurdly powerful—yet it was actively seeking to attach itself to someone who had nothing. That was strange.

The next second, Luka’s pupils shrank sharply.

No, he did have something. A good body.

His memories told him that once a soul was annihilated, the flesh would soon decay.

The skeletal hand was just a vessel—the real focus was the heart. If this heart wanted to steal his body, it would definitely aim to imprison his soul first.

A soul-bound blood contract would provide the perfect means for it to latch onto his soul.

A shadow fell over him. Countless crimson threads wove together like a web, encircling Luka. It was as if the slightest resistance would cause him to be sliced into countless pieces in the next instant.

With such a power gap, there was no real choice.

As long as he was alive, there was hope. Luka slowly exhaled and spoke a single word:

“Alright.”

He pinned his hopes on this body being special.

After all, both the Demon King and the Saintess’ blood flowed in his veins. On top of that, there was his own soul, which had crossed into this world.

A mix like this… surely it would be different from the rest?

Biting his fingertip, Luka complied with the contract.

The deformed heart was impatient.

There were barely any other survivors left in this barren land—this boy was its best option. Weak as a stray cat, he was far easier to control than a more powerful being. Once the contract was sealed, it could easily imprison his soul.

A surge of runes poured forth, flowing like liquid as they merged at the point where their blood mixed.

The heart had already noticed the unusual nature of Luka’s blood. The clash of two powerful bloodlines had made him a failure.

But since this body was only meant as a temporary vessel, it didn’t mind.

Until the most crucial moment—

The deformed heart suddenly swelled, its surface veins bulging as if startled.

If a normal person’s soul was like a smooth boiled egg, then Luka’s soul was a scrambled mess—completely broken!

Forget imprisonment—if it applied even the slightest external force, his soul would disintegrate!

It could exploit loopholes in the contract to endure the backlash of imprisoning a soul, but if it actually killed the other party… it, too, would be doomed.

This wasn’t a blood contract.

This was the worst luck of its entire existence!

In the end, the countless runes condensed into two tiny sigils—one sank into the core of the deformed heart, while the other drifted around the ‘scrambled egg’ that was Luka’s soul.

Failing to find a solid core, the sigil dispersed automatically, breaking into countless tiny particles. Even so, it still couldn’t cover every fragment of his shattered soul—any more and it would disintegrate into dust.

The restrictions Luka faced from the blood contract were less than one ten-thousandth of what they should have been.

When the contract finally completed, he felt no discomfort whatsoever.

If there was one problem—

Gurgle.

Luka’s hand landed on his stomach.

“…I’m hungry.”