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

The wretched abomination of the sky continued its descent, twitching and spasming as if in defiance of the inevitable. Its grotesque form, spiraled slowly—agonizingly—toward the blood-colored sea below.

Each convulsion was weaker than the last, every movement a pitiful, dying echo of the malice it once carried.

Art watched from his vantage, expression unreadable. At first, a rush of satisfaction flared in his chest—ecstasy at the sight of that thing falling. But it didn't last. His eyes narrowed, and the flicker of a grin faded. 'So, I won't be the one to end this bastard…'

There was disappointment, sure. But also something else. 'No matter. At least it's being given a fitting end. Slow, cruel, and well-earned.'

Still, a pang of frustration lingered. Even if he wanted to intervene he couldn't. Not with the Red Sea. That place wasn't something he could tamper with. Even hiding in a fold of space, a sliver between existence and the void, didn't grant him safety from the aftershocks radiating below.

He felt it. The pull.

His mind quivered under the weight of it. As if his consciousness itself was being magnetized toward the Red Sea. Only sheer willpower held him together. Just a little less, and he would've joined the fate of that twitching husk.

'Tsk… Tsk… Where the hell were these freaks hiding all this time? Why were they stagnated all the time?' he thought bitterly.

'Why now of all times? What changed? Did someone finish a ritual? Maybe a sacrifice… like the merfolk?'

But speculation offered no answers. He had nothing but questions, theories chasing each other in frantic circles.

The Rift's Descent. The appearance of unknowable beings, monstrous and mad. The suddenness of it all.

'When I first shook hands with Isolde… I never imagined it would end like this. Did reviving the White Dragon of Grief really cause this cascade? A chain reaction from a single touchpoint?'

As his thoughts raced, the abomination finally reached the surface.

And then—

The Red Sea moved.

A violent, colossal surge erupted the moment the creature made contact. A wave, no—a towering mountain of blood—rose up and swallowed the creature whole.

Then came the struggle. Predictable, but still grim to watch. Like the countless other lost things within the Sea, the abomination writhed in protest. It thrashed, screeched, tackled at the invisible boundary. It tried to escape. To pierce through the membrane. To rise again.

But it couldn't.

Its defiance meant nothing.

Time passed. Its movements slowed. The convulsions faded, until even the smallest twitch fell still. Silence.

'...Now what?' Art muttered inwardly.

The Red Sea continued to boil and rage. Crimson tides crashed upon themselves, like tsunamis at war. But it never extended beyond its invisible cage. It didn't spill past the 200 km boundary. The violence was confined.

Contained.

'Interesting…' Art's mind clicked into motion. 'Is it obeying rules? Are there constraints placed on it? Chains, maybe designed to bind entities like this? If that's the case… then I might just have a way forward.'

He needed information. Desperately. More than ever now.

And he was certain—Cassius was beneath that ocean. Somewhere below the Red Sea, surrounded by the merfolk. They must have saved him. They had to.

Because the merfolk, from what Art knew, had always been a compassionate race. The man they killed… he must've sacrificed himself willingly. As a final plea to protect his kin from the horror that fell from the sky.

'Cassius is down there. I'm like 95% sure. But I should move on and collect information, I'm betting the group is still on the Eastern Continent.'

Art exhaled slowly. Then closed his eyes.

In an instant, the world fell away.

Gone was the searing sky, the blood-drenched sea. Gone was the smell of death, the buzz of maddening energy in the air.

What replaced it was silence. Stillness. The veil between thought and being.

He had arrived at the Astral Plane.

A realm that didn't exist in the way normal space did. Just layers of infinity, folding upon themselves like dreams within dreams. Only those who had reached Rank ★★★★★★ could step here. A dimension beyond reality—one that allowed him to travel, to weave open portals and shift his presence.

…

Art drifted through the Astral Plane; a plane untethered to time, space, or logic. It was a ripple in existence itself, a liquefied void suspended between reality. Yet despite the absence of natural laws, it exuded a haunting serenity. Beautiful, almost reverent. Quiet, but not empty.

Then, without a sound, the void trembled.

A fracture tore open in space, and a glowing portal burst to life, carving a connection straight to the mundane world—specifically, to the desolate remains of the campsite.

That was the nature of portals. They didn't fold distance through the real world—they slipped through the Astral Plane, where distances lost meaning. That shortcut, accessible only to high-ranking people like him, made travel instantaneous.

But the Astral Plane was far more than a simple transit route.

It was a realm draped in myth and cloaked in fear. A world that connected the past, present, and future in impossible ways. A dimension so deep and elusive that even the most powerful people treated it with reverence… and dread.

'The Astral Plane links all of existence—but to wander freely through it, one must possess strength comparable to Lucian Lancaster.'

Even then, no one dared to delve too far. Not even Lucian himself.

The Astral Plane was nicknamed The Dead Man's Land. A forbidden space so treacherous that the strongest figures throughout history had skirted its edges but never dared explore its depths.

Theoretically, it was divided into three concentric layers—Outer, Mantle, and Inner.

The Outer region was relatively calm. People like him used it to form portals and create dimensional shortcuts. It was the only part safely charted.

The Mantle was… different. Dangerous. Rumored to be infested with creatures and entities so far beyond the ★ system that even legends spoke of them with trembling tongues. No records existed of successful exploration there, aside from a single incident.

Only one man—the founder of the ★ system—had ventured into the Mantle region.

And he had returned broken.

After that day, he locked himself away, vanished from the public eye, and never uttered a word about what he encountered. No one knows what he saw, only that it was enough to silence the greatest power in recorded history.

And as for the Inner region? There were no stories.

Just silence.

It was this silence that made it terrifying.

A place feared even by monsters who could bend worlds.

A flicker of strain danced across his brow, but his expression stayed composed. The moment his foot landed beyond the portal, the campsite greeted him with absolute silence.

His mana spiked on instinct, reacting to the gnawing unease. The air around him began to shimmer with heat and pressure, his aura sizzling with restrained fury.

'…Don't tell me. Something happened here too? FUCK!'

His thoughts burned hotter, fury and panic swirling in his chest, ready to detonate—

"Art, stop. Nothing happened here."

A familiar voice.

His aura stalled mid-surge as his eyes snapped forward. There, just a few feet away, stood a short girl with unkempt black hair and weary emerald eyes—Evelyn.

He blinked, confused. "Evelyn… If nothing happened, then why is this place so dead? Where is everyone?"

Her expression was heavy. She looked like she hadn't slept in days—shoulders drooped, face pale, eyes swollen and bloodshot.

"They all left," she said quietly, voice low and brittle. "Just like you told us to. They went to your estate, Ah and yes even Kaelira tagged along. Cassius's sister Mia went to her friend Verena's home. The other students left for their respective houses. This place… just ended up like this."

A breath of wind passed between them, carrying only silence and smoke from an extinguished campfire.

His tone was more biting than usual. "Then why are you here? There's nothing left for you here, Evelyn."

He didn't mean it cruelly, but the frustration in his voice was real. Ever since the news of Cassius's death, he hadn't been able to keep up the usual theatrical calm. His temper was leaking through the cracks.

But Evelyn didn't flinch. She just gave him a bitter smile.

"I stayed because I was waiting for you."

Art's eyes widened.

"And?" she asked, voice soft. "Did you find anything? Any signs of Cassius?"

He hesitated.

His gaze dropped to the ground, jaw clenched. He wanted to lie. To say he was close, that hope still lingered. But when he looked up again, Evelyn's eyes were already brimming with a truth neither of them wanted to say out loud.

So instead, he asked something else. Something that had weighed on him since the beginning.

"You loved him, didn't you?"

******

Discord Link People ~~

Be sure to check it out, I should inform you in advance the server isn't well developed cause... 1st, I don't have much members... 2nd, I'm lazy because there are like 6 members.

So, please make sure to join it and give me motivation.

[Also! sorry for breaking the immersion~~ I swear it won't happen again... Bye!!]