Transmigrated as the Villain Between the Heroine and the Villainess

The cold steel on Kaelen's neck was a final, undeniable fact. It was over.

But as the word "yield" left his lips, something inside him refused to break. The shame of being beaten, the fury at his sister's betrayal, the helplessness he felt watching Seraphina almost die it all twisted together into a raw, new kind of power.

A deep, guttural roar ripped from his throat.

It was not a sound of surrender. It was a sound of defiance.

A blinding golden light exploded from his body. The sheer force of it sent Selvara stumbling backward, her sword knocked away from his neck. Isolde was thrown back several feet, shielding her eyes from the sudden, intense glare.

Kaelen stood in the center of the clearing, no longer just a boy in a uniform. He was a pillar of pure, golden energy. His injuries seemed to fade, his exhaustion burned away by the fire of his own will. His eyes were no longer blue; they were solid gold, burning with a light that was not entirely sane.

"You think this is over?" he bellowed, his voice echoing with a power that wasn't his own. "This is not over until I say it is!"

He lunged. Not at Isolde, the trickster, but at Selvara, the powerhouse. He moved with a speed that was impossible, a golden comet of pure rage.

Selvara's eyes widened in shock. She brought her sword up to block, but the impact was like being hit by a mountain.

Clang!

Her blade was knocked aside, and Kaelen's fist, wrapped in golden light, slammed into her stomach. She flew backward, skidding across the ashen ground and crashing into a burnt tree trunk. She coughed, a trickle of blood appearing at the corner of her mouth.

'He's stronger,' she thought, her mind reeling. 'This is beyond what the skill should allow. What is this feeling?'

For two years, she had been at this academy on a mission for her clan. Find the one with the potential. The one with the will strong enough to be a vessel. She had watched hundreds of students, tested dozens. All of them were disappointments.

But now, looking at the boy burning with golden light, she knew.

'I've found him.'

The thought brought no joy. Only a hollow, empty feeling. Two years of searching were over. Her mission was complete.

'And what comes next?' her mind whispered. 'Do I hand him over? Will I finally be free? Or is this just the end of one cage and the beginning of another? What do I even want anymore?'

Kaelen didn't give her time to think. He turned his golden gaze on Isolde. "Now it's your turn, sister."

Isolde's sweet smile was gone, replaced by a thin, tight line. This was not part of her plan. She sent a blade of sharp wind at him, but he just walked through it, the golden aura around him shredding it to nothing.

"Your little tricks won't work anymore," he snarled.

He was right. Brute force was overwhelming her strategy. Isolde backed away, her mind racing. 'This is bad. He's lost control. At this rate, he'll burn himself out, but he'll take us down with him.'

Selvara pushed herself to her feet, wiping the blood from her lip. She looked at Isolde, a silent question in her eyes. Isolde gave a single, almost invisible nod. It was time for a new plan.

Selvara slammed her hands on the ground. A forest of black ice spikes erupted around Kaelen, trapping him in a cage of sharp, dark points.

"You think this can hold me?!" he roared, and began to punch the ice, shattering the thick walls with his bare hands.

He was distracted. That was all they needed.

"Now, Princess!" Selvara shouted.

Isolde's hands moved, weaving the air. She didn't attack Kaelen. She focused her wind on the thousands of ice shards that had been shattered by his rampage. The razor-sharp pieces lifted from the ground, swirling around the clearing like a swarm of angry hornets.

"A little trick I've been working on," Isolde said, a real, predatory smile finally appearing on her face.

With a flick of her wrist, she sent the swarm of ice shards flying at Kaelen. They weren't a straight attack. They moved with the wind, coming at him from every direction at once, a chaotic, inescapable storm of frozen daggers.

He destroyed dozens with his golden aura, but there were too many. Shards cut into his arms, his legs, his back. They were small cuts, but there were hundreds of them. The golden light around him began to flicker.

He roared in pain and fury and unleashed one last, massive pulse of energy, clearing the air around him. But it was too late. Selvara was already there, moving through the last of the swirling shards.

Her sword, coated in a thick layer of black ice, struck his sword arm. A deep cold spread through his limb, numbing it instantly. His grip loosened.

Clang. His sword fell to the ground.

At the same time, Isolde appeared behind him, her small dagger back in her hand. She pressed the cold tip against his neck.

Kaelen stood there, bleeding from a hundred small cuts, his sword arm frozen, his body finally starting to fail him. The golden light around him faded completely, leaving him just a tired, beaten boy.

He looked at his sister's cold, determined eyes in the reflection of Selvara's blade. He had lost.

A final, brilliant flash of white light erupted from his pendant. He was gone.

-- -- -- -- --

Azrael's eyes snapped open.

The first thing he felt was an itch. An intense, maddening itch that covered every inch of his skin, like a thousand ants crawling just beneath the surface.

He was in his own bed, in his own room at the Ashveil mansion. The morning sun was streaming through the large window. The air smelled of clean linen and healing herbs, not antiseptic.

He tried to sit up and his muscles protested, a dull ache spreading through his body, but the sharp, broken pain was gone.

"My lord, you are awake."

He turned his head. It wasn't an academy healer. It was one of his personal maids, a young woman named Lily. She rushed to his side, her face full of relief.

"I will inform the Matriarch at once," she said.

"Wait," he said, his voice hoarse from disuse. He looked down at his arms, pushing back the silk sleeve of his pajamas.

The deep, angry burns were gone. In their place were faded, silvery-pink scars that looked like they had been healing for weeks. The skin was itchy, a sign that the last of the magic was still knitting him back together.

"How long?" he asked. "How long was I out?"

"One month, my lord," Lily replied softly. "The Matriarch had you brought here from the academy the moment the test was over. The family's best healers have been working tirelessly. They said the energy that burned you was… unusual. It fought against the healing spells. It took a long time to cleanse."

One month.

The words were a gut punch. A month of his life, gone. A month of the new academic year, missed.

The shock was so great, he almost didn't notice the familiar blue screen that popped up in front of his eyes.

[ !! URGENT QUEST COMPLETE !!]

[Objective: Achieve victory in the Annual Ranking Test.]

[Status: SUCCESS]

[Cleared Path: ]

[-> Path of Survival (Be the last team standing.)]

[Reward: 50,000 P.]

He stared at the number. Fifty thousand points.

After all that pain, all that struggle, he had gone from having next to nothing to being incredibly wealthy in the system's currency.

A wave of pure, greedy joy washed over him, pushing away the frustration of the lost month.

Then his eyes scanned the interface again. He remembered the other options for the quest. The Path of Contribution. He had 140 points. He needed 150.

'I was so close,' he thought, but a bitter, greedy part of him still surfaced. 'Still, if I had just managed one more elimination, that would have been another ten thousand points.' The thought was stupid, but he couldn't help it.

His mind was already racing, the possibilities spinning like a wheel. All the things he could buy. All the power he could get. A month was a setback, but this reward… this was a massive head start.

His eyes, burning with a new, intense light, fixed on the system screen. The shock was gone. The frustration was gone. All that was left was a single, overwhelming desire.

'Shop.'