Apocalypse Transmigration - The Card Captor System

[Ding!]

The mechanical chime sliced through his head like a razor.

[System uploading...]

[System binding to the soul...]

[System synchronizing with host...]

[Warning. Body and soul mismatch detected...]

[Initiating forced assimilation...]

"Aaargh!"

Leo’s eyes nearly burst from their sockets as a white-hot agonizing fire erupted from his core.

This wasn’t a flesh wound. It wasn’t broken bones. The agony clawed outward from the very center of his soul. His fingers clawed at the concrete floor, his nails ripping until blood slicked his palms.

Zombies. Don’t attract the zombies.

The instinct tore through his agony. Even as his body violently convulsed, he snatched a filthy strip of cloth from the floor and shoved it between his teeth, muffling his scream into a low, guttural grunt.

Rival agencies had tortured him for days in his past life, but that was a joke compared to this.

For sixty agonizing seconds, he burned alive.Then, the fire vanished, leaving him hyperventilating in a puddle of his own sweat.

[Assimilation of body and soul completed.]

[System synchronization with host completed.]

[Welcome, host. Congratulations on successfully binding with the Card Captor System.]

[To check your status and system functions, please close your eyes.]

Leo lay panting, his jaw aching from biting the cloth.

A system? Like a video game? Am I hallucinating from the blood loss?

[Ding! Host, the system is real.]

He forced his racing thoughts into absolute lockstep. He had already died and woken up in a dead kid’s body; a talking voice in his head wasn’t even the strangest thing to happen today.

If this was his transmigration insurance policy, he’d take it.

He closed his eyes, waiting for a holographic screen. Nothing happened. Just darkness.

[Okay, the system has confirmed. The host is not very smart. Must be a birth defect.]

A vein throbbed violently in Leo’s temple. He snapped his eyes open.

"Didn’t you just tell me to close my eyes?"

[I was kidding with the host. Didn’t think you would fall for it so easily.]

[To access system features, you must first complete a mission. Let the system collect some essence first.]

[System generating first task...]

[Ding! First task generated: Kill a zombie.]

The voice abruptly vanished, leaving a cold silence behind.

​"Hey. Answer me," Leo demanded, his teeth gritted. Only his own voice echoed back from the damp walls. The entity had gone entirely silent.

​He stared into the empty air. Kill a zombie.

​A cold, dangerous smile tugged at his lips. He might not understand this apocalypse, and he certainly did not appreciate a mocking system, but killing was his forte.

​He braced his hands to stand, but halfway up, the world spun violently. His knees buckled, sending him crashing back down to the concrete.

​He had forgotten the physical limitations of his vessel. This body had been starving for two weeks, and the soul-melting pain from moments prior had completely drained his remaining stamina.

​Leo sat cross-legged and closed his eyes. He forced his lungs into a strict, four-count rhythm, pulling air deep into his diaphragm. It was a specialized breathing technique from his old agency ,not magic, but a brutal, efficient method to force oxygen into deprived muscles and suppress adrenaline spikes.

​Slowly, the trembling in his limbs subsided. Strength trickled back into his veins.

​He pushed himself up, his eyes scanning the pitch-black basement for a weapon. In the corner, a rusted crowbar lay discarded. He picked it up and tested the weight; it was heavy and biased toward the tip, but a few practice swings proved it would fracture a skull well enough.

​"This will do."

​He did not rush up the stairs. Instead, he spent the next two hours pushing his new twenty-year-old body to its limits, testing its reach, its flexibility, and the severity of its hunger pangs. He knew how to fight through agony; he had done so in far worse places than this.

​Once his muscle memory aligned with his new height and weight, Leo gripped the crowbar tightly, turned toward the basement door, and stepped into the apocalypse.