Chapter 1: Prologue – 0

(A/N: So, just a note for all those new readers that are about to start my novel, after clicking on my totally clickbait title of course ????. Please stick with the novel for the first 11 chaps. I am fully aware that I did a lot of info dumping in these first few chapters, but I tried to balance it with as much action as possible, while at the same time, giving you, the reader, all the information you would need so that there would be no plot holes later on in the story. So, please stick with me, and pardon my assumption.)

My life's ambition had been finally filled.

'How many years has it been?'

'Ahh, right, it was a little over 15 years ago.'

Back then, I had been a little boy, not much older than 10 years old.

I had been drawn to a musky, old scent, the scent of lots and lots of leather.

When I finally arrived at the source, my 10 year old self had looked up in wonder at the old bookstore before me.

Walking into the store was like walking into a whole different world, a world that contained only wood, leather, and paper, but one that contained many different little worlds in it.

And then, I had grabbed my first book.

It was like a shockwave had just overturned my entire brain, as the existence of books realigned my view of the world.

"Beautiful... so beautiful." My little self had murmured, flipping through the old, yellowed pages.

And that was when my reading addiction began.

Now, I had finally succeeded in finishing over 100,000 books, all across different genres, not neglecting the books of any country.

I had read until my eyes hurt, up to 3 a.m. every morning, neglecting my homework, neglecting my studies, neglecting my family.

My parents had thought that this was a normal teenage phase, but then they started to worry when I chose to neglect necessities like eating and drinking just to read.

My body grew pale, I had become thin to the point that the skin on my body drooped down, and my height stagnated.

But I continued reading.

And then I set a goal for myself.

'Read more books than any other human being, ever!'

And that was what I had just accomplished.

I leaned back in my chair, cracking my sore neck.

'Wow, I can't believe I finally did it.'

...

Wait, why can't I use my voice?

"Kkk, ckkk"

'Ugh... too dry... need water...'

I stood up, but my legs, devoid of any energy, immediately gave out under me.

"Thud!"

'Water... water...'

I reached my hand out towards the kitchen, but my body refused to move any further.

Finally, darkness engulfed me as my eyes closed by themselves...

...

I woke up in a strange room.

Clutching my head as I sat up groggily, I closely observed my surroundings.

'Am I in a hospital?'

But I quickly dismissed that thought as I was in a room with wooden walls, the only source of light being the sunlight that was filtered through the blinds of a window next to my bed.

'Where am I?'

The last thing that I had remembered was falling onto the floor and feeling a pain in my throat and stomach as my heartbeat slowed.

'Did I die?'

A thought suddenly occurred to me as I quickly rushed to the water basin on the other side of my room, wanting to check if my face still looked the same.

And when I looked at the reflection in the water, I realized that what I had feared the most, had come to.

Staring back at me in the water was not the face of a plain 30 something Asian adult, but the face of a beautiful teenage youth who had long black hair that was dripping wet, each strand falling into the water.

'Th-this isn't my face!'

And just as those words went through my mind, a sudden pain assaulted my head.

'These memories... they're not mine?'

I started experiencing things that I had never experienced before in my life.

Each memory of this boy played out in front of me like a never ending film.

Due to the influx of information, I fell down onto the floor, knocking over the water basin and spilling it all over the floor, as I writhed in pain, soaked in the water.

It was then that I noticed a particular symbol on an admission letter from the boy's memories.

You see, I never forgot a single thing in any of the books that I ever read. People might call this a photographic memory, but a perfect photographic memory was impossible. I knew this because I had obviously just read a book on it. Well, it seemed like my photographic memory only applied to things that I had read, which I thought was nice considering my reading addiction.

'Wait, that symbol was the symbol of the academy in the book, "My Side of Midnight".'

I was only able to get these thoughts out before I was buried under the memories of this boy again.

His, or my name now, was Kurayami Akimitsu.

'Shit, this isn't good.'

'I mean, this really, REALLY isn't good.'

You see, the circumstances surrounding Kurayami Akimitsu's life, were just really horrible, and that was a huge understatement.

If I had to put it in the most descriptive way possible, I would say that both the past, present, and future of this Kurayami Akimitsu guy were all FUCKED.

But, to understand his life, you first had to understand the setting of this world.

"My Side of Midnight" was set in a world that was set about 1000 years in the future from my time on Earth.

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About 500 years ago, there had been a huge battle between the angelic and demonic forces, reducing the number of angels and demons to only 7 on both sides.

During the great war called the "War of Havoc" the angels and demons had chosen humanity as their champions and had descended onto the human plane.

Not used to the supernatural powers, the human plane "Earth" reformed, changing the shape of the world itself.

The continents reversed time, and became a single continent again, called Esgardia.

Then, the fight began.

And, with their newfound powers, humanity essentially destroyed themselves.

The world's population dropped more than 75% during the war, and chaos ensued.

But then, after 200 years of fighting, the peace treaty was signed.

This split the continent of Esgardia into two, with half the continent being reserved for the followers of the demons, named Raikato, and half of the continent being reserved for the followers of the angels, named Laramil.

Of course, the war had actually reversed a lot of the progress that humanity had made in those 1000 years, so they were now only at a technology level at about 200 years in the future from my time back on Earth, although now, they had supernatural powers that the angels and the demons had gifted them.

A person would know if they had a supernatural power or not if they had a certain stigma on them, which changed depending on which champion of an angel or demon you inherited those powers from.

You see, during the war, both sides had gifted powers in the form of stigmas to their champions and had made them fight each other.

This was done as humanity had the innate inability to control mana, something that only humans had, so instead of manipulating mana to produce magic, humanity had to force their "spiritual power" through their stigmas, which then converted the "spiritual power" to a manifestation of mana.

(A/N: If you guys were reading too fast and got confused just now, it's because the sentence above says "innate INability", not "ability".)

At this point, humanity figured out that modern weapons like rail guns and lightsabers wouldn't work with their new stigmas, so humanity's weapon progress regressed back to the time of using swords, shields, and bows.

Now, 300 years later, the world was ruled by the strong.

The power on the side of Laramil was split, with the first faction being the queen and her family, who had been direct descendants of the one hero that had been given every single angelic stigma, totaling to 7 superpowers.

The other side of power in Laramil were the 7 noble families, who each descended from a hero that had been one of the direct champions of one of the 7 angels. Their blood had been mingled with the other families, so most nobles had 2 or more stigma's now, but the direct descendants still had enough power in their stigmas to rival the power of one stigma from a descendant of the royal line.

On the other hand, the power on the side of Raikato was solely in the hands of the "Monarch of Darkness", who, like the royalty on the Laramil side, possessed all the stigmas of the 7 demon lords, it was just that he had been alive the whole time since the war, and the only reason he hadn't attacked yet was due to the treaty that he was bound by.

Below the "Monarch of Darkness" were the heads of the 7 demonic clans, which, although were named clans, were still as technologically sound as the people on the Laramil side.

The names of the 7 angels were Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Evangeline, Laila, Nathaniel, and Michaela representing elements Earth, Wind, Fire, Water, Space, Life, and Time respectively. When a human used one of these supernatural powers through their stigma, it was called "magic".

On the other hand, the names of the 7 demon lords were Pride, Wrath, Greed, Gluttony, Lust, Envy, and Sloth with powers Gigantification, Water Walking (speed), Skin Transformation, Accelerated Healing, Illusory Power, Necromancy, and Foresight. When a human used one of these supernatural powers through their stigma, it was called "demonic transgression".

Each power had a different shape for their stigma that was more powerful the brighter the stigma was when injected with a person's soul power, and/or more powerful the more obvious it was on a person's body.

Well, this was my current knowledge of the world from combining the information in the book and the information from Kurayami Akimitsu's memories.

Now, I'll tell you why I'm fucked.

It was simply because I was born from a union between the current queen of Laramil and the "Monarch of Darkness".

How did this happen you say? Well, it goes something like this.

The "Monarch of Darkness" had sacrificed one of his best spies in the Laramil Empire and had him steal 3 eggs out of the queen's ovaries, using a specially made device, and then had him send them over to Raikato.

He then made his scientists take some sperm out of him and fertilized the eggs, raising them in specially made incubators.

The first egg died after a week, having exploded after not being able to contain all that power. The second egg had accidentally split, resulting in twins that each only had half the amount of powers. Both of the first two were considered failures, but the final egg was a success, resulting in Kurayami Akimitsu, a person that had every single supernatural power in existence.

As a baby, I had been sent over to the Laramil empire as a child, in a trade for another one of their discovered spies. My demonic stigmas and most of my angelic stigmas had been made unnoticeable, as the "Monarch of Darkness" had given me a skill book when I hadn't even been able to think yet and had forced his soul power into my baby body, taking control of it and forcefully making me learn the skill "Concealment [SS]".

When they saw a baby boy that had an angelic stigma, but had been born on the demonic side, they took pity on me. After the trade, the Laramil authorities had arranged a home and daily deliveries of food and clothes for me and had even hired a nanny for me when I was younger.

I was now 15 and about to be enrolled into THE Laramil Academy, the best academy on the Laramil side that trained stigma users, and it was also the setting for what I guessed was the first half of the series.

Now, the reason that I was fucked was due to my character profile. I mean, isn't this just the perfect final boss character profile? An overpowered ability, check! A dark and twisted past, check! A position that was perfect for betraying the protagonist which would lead to a tearful final battle in which the protagonist just HAS to kill me while crying and asking why I betrayed them, check!

Well, now that I think about it, I probably was a mob character that died early on in the book, most likely during the entrance exam when that incident happened, and didn't get a chance to grow my powers.

I mean, I didn't want either of the possibilities to happen as I valued my life very much. Just remembering how I died in my past life made me shiver.

'My only goal now in this world is to not die, and I will do anything to not die.'

So now, with only 1 month left until the admission test, I could only get stronger and ready myself for this unfamiliar, yet familiar world.

And my first priority, would be to get the fuck out of this body, as I already knew a way to separate myself from Akimitsu.

Right when I was starting to formulate my plans, something unexpected happened.

[System restarting...]

[Initiating final transmigration.]

[Synchronization - Kurayami Akimitsu: 100%]

[Attempting synchronization with past memories.]

[Synchronization - "Swordfell": 0%]

[Synchronization - "Second Life Murim Hero": 0%]

[Synchronization - "The Blood of the Monarch": 0%]

[Synchronization - "The Great Archmage is Reborn": 0%]

[Synchronization - "A Civil Servant's Life Reborn as an Emperor": 0%]

[Synchronization - "The General Games": 0%]

(A/N: "General" meaning the rank in the military.)

Again, a severe pain assaulted my head again, but instead of seeing the memories of another person, I saw my own memories that I didn't remember getting.

But the phenomenon passed as soon as it came.

[Synchronization failed, host's brain is too weak. Will begin procedural synchronization.]

[Procedural synchronization successful!]

I waited a little bit but no other messages showed up.

'What the hell?'

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