The scent of wolves and wet soil clung to his nose.
He blinked.
The soft mechanical hum of his gaming PC was gone, as was the grainy ambient music of The Witcher 3's Velen map. In its place: stillness.
Cold, unnatural stillness.
He sat at a worn wooden desk, illuminated by the dying flicker of a gas lamp. Walls of aged stone surrounded him. A thick velvet curtain flapped softly at the window, revealing black skies beyond. He could hear the distant rumble of thunder.
His hands rested flat on the desk. Calloused. Scarred. Rough in a way that didn't belong to him—not the person who'd just been complaining about mouse lag and potion menus fifteen minutes ago.
And still, his heart didn't race.
That should've terrified him.
Instead, he observed.
His breaths came slow and shallow, measured like a sniper's. His mind calm. Focused. The part of him that belonged to Earth screamed that this was wrong—but the body, or something deeper inside, responded with brutal, composed readiness.
He was different.
Altered.
And then he noticed the swords.
Two blades leaned against the desk. One glimmered faintly in the low light—silver, moonlit, elegant. The other was dark, dense, with ember-like runes shifting beneath its surface. He didn't reach for them yet. But he felt them—like extensions of muscle and bone.
Familiarity without memory.
He stood.
The room shifted with him.
The flame on the gas lamp trembled. Shadows leaned toward him as though stretching to whisper.
A sudden pressure pressed against the side of his skull—cold and sourceless, like someone exhaling over the nape of his neck.
He turned.
There was nothing.
But he knew something was there.
Not seen.
Not heard.
But sensed.
A pulling at his nerves, a distortion in the air. As if gravity itself was slightly bent in one corner of the room. As if a predator's breath lingered just outside the boundary of sight.
The corner near the mirror.
He moved slowly, instinct guiding him more than thought. His mind wanted to ask questions, to rationalize. But his body—this new, responsive shell—felt the threat before he could explain it.
A noise.
Soft.
Like fingernails scraping wet glass.
His hand moved to the silver blade—Lunaris—before he knew why. His fingers curled around the hilt. Cool. Perfectly balanced. It thrummed faintly in his grip, like a tuning fork struck under water.
The sensation in the room shifted again.
Thicker now. Tighter. The cold pressed into his lungs like ice, and the gas lamp's flame thinned to a flicker.
Still, he saw nothing.
But he could smell it.
Rot. Mold. Faint copper and candle wax. It wasn't a smell the living carried.
It was death, hanging like fog.
He lowered his stance.
He didn't need to see it.
A voice inside—not a memory, not a thought, just instinct—whispered:
It's bound. Near the mirror. Anchored. Kill the anchor.
He followed the pull of intuition, not logic. His eyes darted—no movement. But every fiber of his body screamed the direction. The mirror was wrong. Too silent. The shadows too dark beneath it.
He crept closer.
The cloth that hung over it quivered—just slightly.
Again, no breeze.
The mirror didn't show his reflection.
Nothing did.
He should be panicking.
But he wasn't. And that frightened him more than the thing itself.
What have I become?
The ghost attacked.
Not a blur. Not a leap.
Just—pressure. Like a scream with no sound. A strike to the spirit.
He ducked, twisted, slashed.
The blade sang. Not in sound, but in vibration. The cold recoiled.
Still nothing visible.
But he could feel the thing falter.
Weakness.
The mirror.
He turned to it, slashing downward in a two-handed arc. Glass cracked. A pulse of freezing wind surged through the room—and the pressure vanished. Just like that.
Gone.
No ash. No scream. No dramatic flare.
Just emptiness.
And silence.
He stood alone.
Sweat dampened the back of his neck now—finally.
The blade in his hand dulled again, quieting like a living thing retreating into rest.
He exhaled.
Stepped back.
Looked at the cracked mirror.
There was no reflection.
And still, no fear.
Not real fear.
His mind began catching up.
He stepped toward the desk again. The chair. The documents. The wardrobe near the corner. Everything old, but real. Authentic.
He looked at his hands again—these weren't just cosmetic changes.
The senses, the speed, the way the sword moved with him…
A Witcher.
Not cosplaying. Not imagining.
He was one.
And the memories began to bleed in—like water through fabric.
Not just instincts now, but lives.
Flashes of marble halls. A baron's voice discussing factories and trade. A woman's laughter in a sunlit room. A little sister singing to herself in the garden. And then... death. One by one. Each of them.
Until only Leonel Dusk remained.
Sitting at this very desk.
Then... nothing.
And now... him.
They hadn't been reincarnated.
They had been merged. A new thing. A new soul.
He opened the drawer. Found a diary. Scrawled entries, familiar handwriting.
"Eliya cried again. The thing is getting closer. Father thinks it's the servants. But they're dead too."
"Mirror watches me when I sleep."
"I don't want to be last."
He closed the book.
Too late for the old Leonel.
But not for what he had become.
He turned slowly, eyes scanning the room again.
And it hit him.
The mirror anchoring.
The smell of spirituality. The spirit not being visible to the naked eye. The concept of "spiritual sense." The layered structure of noble families and ancient houses.
The tone of the language in the diary.
The coins on the desk—not dollars, not pounds.
The sword's hum.
The diary's mention of servants "dying of fright."
And the ghost whispering, "You weren't afraid... this time..."
It all came together.
His eyes widened slightly.
Not fear.
Realization.
He murmured aloud:
"...This is...."
He turned to the cracked mirror again, his voice lower now.
> "No. This is Lord of the Mysteries..."
A breath passed his lips.
Slow. Measured. Almost a laugh—but not quite.
This world was full of secrets. Of madness. Of ancient gods and Sequences of power.
And he had arrived early.
But he wasn't helpless.
He had two things no native Beyonder could understand:
The instincts of a Witcher...
And the blades to match.