Transmigrated as the Cuck.... WTF!!!

"Anyways, let's get her back to base." Art's finger jabbed at Zyon like it was an order sealed in stone. "You take her back, while I search for Leon. He must not have gone far… at least I hope so."

"Ahm… actually…" Verena's voice slipped out, softer than a whisper, hesitant, like she wanted to fold into herself and disappear.

Art's brow twitched upward. His face darkened. "What is it? He hasn't run away, has he?" His tone was sharp, already cutting.

Verena swallowed a knot in her throat, her fingers fidgeting against one another, rubbing knuckle to knuckle as though she could wring the guilt out of herself. "Actually…"

"Can you hurry it up?" Art's voice cut colder, sharp enough to bite the air. His patience was thinning, his eyes narrowing in irritation. "We don't have much time, Verena. If Leon is in danger, I'll head straight there. So speak."

She bit her lip, nodded once, and finally exhaled a breath she had been suffocating on. "Yes. He is in danger. I… left him there. Alone. He was turned into a statue, like Celeste and Evelyn. And I—I chose to help them instead. I let him stay behind."

The confession dropped like a boulder. Verena's head lowered as if she wanted to sink into the earth. The guilt was crawling inside her, chewing holes in her stomach, writhing like maggots feeding on her conscience.

She waited for the inevitable backlash—his scolding, his wrath, his disappointment sharp enough to slice her apart. Her fists clenched so hard her nails dug into her palms. But instead…

"I get it," Art said evenly. A calm, flat tone that carried its own weight. "It was your choice. I won't pester you for it. It was life and death, and you decided to save the others. Don't tear yourself up over it. Leon will be angry, yes… but me? I'm not."

Verena blinked, startled. The maggots didn't stop writhing, but they quieted. Slightly.

Art turned to the others, his voice returning to steel. "The plan is simple. You all go back to base with Zyon. I'll search for Leon. I don't want advice. I don't want discussion. Just follow the plan."

Zyon's glare shot like a dagger, but he didn't argue. Instead, he crouched low, his arms scooping Evelyn's chained form with rough efficiency. He hoisted her over his back, adjusting her weight as if she were little more than an unpleasant load to carry.

Then he spoke, his voice steady and cold. "We move now. Night is falling. You don't want to be out here when the dark swallows the desert. The cold is crueler than the beasts."

No one spoke against him. They didn't need to. The night's dangers were common knowledge. Not just the monsters that prowled in the dark, but the bone-splitting cold that froze marrow and stiffened breath.

That was why they always lit campfires, burning brighter than they should, fighting the freezing grip of the desert's night.

Art's gaze slid to Verena. "Which way did you leave him? Details, Verena. Don't get vague with me now."

Her hand trembled slightly as she pointed south. "That way. I ran in a straight line. If you head there, you shouldn't struggle to find him."

"Good." His single word was sharp, decisive. Then his right hand moved, casual yet final, and his body erupted into motion. Golden light flared around him as his figure blurred. His feet tore into the ground and he launched skyward, a comet of radiance streaking across the horizon.

The others stood in silence, heads tilted back, watching the shrinking glow of Art's departure. Their eyes followed him until he vanished, leaving only expectation and unease in the silence that followed. Then slowly, all eyes shifted to Zyon.

"I'll take Evelyn first," Zyon said flatly, his tone carrying no room for debate. "You move toward the base together. I'll come back and carry the rest, one by one. If you don't mind."

None of them refused. They all nodded their heads in unison.

Celeste stepped forward, her voice softer but steady. "Do what you think is best. Evelyn does need help. Maybe being away from this place will calm her… if anything can."

"I hope so," Zyon muttered, the words sounding more like a curse than hope. He adjusted Evelyn's chained body once more, her convulsions subdued but not forgotten. "Stay together. Stay alert. I'll be back in a heartbeat."

The others hummed in silence as Zyon's figure ripped through the sandy ground, his body blurring and then vanishing as if the earth itself had flung him away.

"We should move on too," Celeste advised, her tone steady but weary.

Verena and Mia exchanged glances, neither daring to voice their lingering worries, and then nodded in unison. Together they fell into step behind her, each foot pressing slowly into the shifting sands.

Their progress through the Deathland was cautious, their silence pressing down heavier than the desert air itself. The ground crunched beneath their boots, each step echoing the unspoken thought that lingered in all their minds.

While on the other side, far above their heads, Art soared.

The evening sky had already begun to drown in shades of orange and violet, but his figure blurred from one place to another like a streak of light too fast to be bound by color.

His eyes cut through the world with hawk-like precision, scanning the dunes, cliffs, and shifting sands below. Each glance was sharp, focused, searching.

Then, from the edge of his periphery, he caught sight of it.

A storm. But not any ordinary storm.

Sand twisted and churned in the far horizon, climbing into the sky as if the desert itself was trying to swallow the heavens. The storm rolled forward, its presence suffocating, unnatural in its rhythm and intensity.

Art's pupils contracted, his gaze sharpening until it felt like his own eyes were cutting glass. His voice rumbled low in his throat. "So that's the Sand Globe. This monster… this thing… it's way above my league. I can't defeat it. There is no chance. I should only focus on saving Leon."

His thoughts turned practical first. Leon was too valuable to lose. Not just because he was powerful—one of the strongest of their generation, a cornerstone in the shaping of what was to come—but because his potential was tied to survival itself. The coming war would demand people like him, assets sharpened into weapons by necessity.

But beyond all that, there was something else.

"He's a friend," Art admitted to himself. "Even if we haven't known each other long, he looks after people. He's the kind to protect, to care. In that short time, I've seen it. I've felt it. Losing him would be like…"

His thoughts snagged, the memory of Cassius pressing at the edges of his mind. "Like repeating that tragedy all over again."

His lips curled into a grimace. "Though… no, his death wouldn't hurt that much." The words came bitter, forced honesty grinding against his chest. "But it would still hurt. Enough."

With that, he surged higher, his figure hovering above the monstrous storm, his eyes narrowing as he tried to pierce its depths. Within the churning wall of sand, he sought the faint silhouette of Leon, the slightest sign of his friend trapped inside.

But the longer he tried, the more his body rebelled.

A weight slammed into his mind, invisible yet unbearable. His thoughts fractured, spiraling like broken glass shards whirling in his skull. His vision distorted, blurring between real and unreal.

A sickly nausea gripped his stomach, bile threatening to rise. His heartbeat skyrocketed, pounding against his ribs with painful intensity, each thump louder than the last.

"Fuck… what is this?" His voice rasped, breath uneven. "Is this what Evelyn meant? Those screams… incomprehensible voices tearing into her head… Fuck." His chest heaved, his lungs refusing to fill properly. "This is really bad. Really… bad."

Cursing under his breath, Art forced himself to veer away, tearing distance between himself and the Sand Globe. The air howled in his ears as he propelled himself back, not stopping until a full kilometer separated him from the monstrosity.

Only then did the pressure lift, the nausea receding, his vision clearing. His body steadied, though the phantom ache still gnawed at him.

"This is bad," he muttered again, more deliberate this time. His voice was cold, sharp. "How the hell does one deal with a creature like that?"

The fact he couldn't even look at it without breaking apart filled him with dread, a weight that sank deep into his chest. Defeat, at least, was something he could grasp, something he could calculate and accept.

But this? Not being able to look at it, not even able to endure its presence? That was worse. That was nonsense.

Still, he had no choice. He needed Leon. He would not leave him there.

"I'll try something else," he muttered, pressing his palms together as if anchoring himself.

By something else, he meant [Projection].

The ability wasn't a simple extension of senses—it was the tethering of consciousness to space itself, the bending of awareness until the world became one's eyes.

The body would be left behind, but the mind would slip into something higher. A third-person gaze of the world, detached, as if peering down from a place beyond time. A fourth-dimensional vantage.

That was what Art sought. That was what he prepared for.

He closed his eyes, steadying his breath, and reached inward. He tapped into his source, drawing on the core of his being until the physical world peeled away. His body stilled, but his mind was pulled elsewhere, engulfed by the vast emptiness of the Astral Plane.

When he opened his eyes again, they were not his eyes.

His irises had drowned into void, bottomless and alien, and through them he gazed upon the living world with a clarity not bound by flesh.