The Unwanted Genius Escapes Her Dark Fate
Seraphina was the greatest mage of her generation. Then she saw her future: betrayed, broken, and left for dead.
She woke up with a new plan: do absolutely nothing.
Trip on flat floors. Cry magical floods. Tell professors her only goal is "three meals and eight hours of sleep."
Let Elara steal her glory. Let the system target someone else. She just wants to nap.
But no one will let her fail.
The strictest professor calls her breakdown "enlightenment." The potion genius turns her scribbles into "divine wisdom." The more she acts like trash, the more they worship her.
She didn't choose to be a legend.
She chose to be useless.
Why is that so hard?
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Chapter 1
"Empathy, Seraphina! You lack even a single ounce of it!"
Professor Alden's voice bounced off the mahogany walls of his office. He slammed his hand flat against his desk. The impact rattled the inkwells and sent three pieces of parchment fluttering to the floor.
Seraphina stood perfectly still. Her spine was rigid. Her jaw locked so tight her teeth ached.
A few feet away, Elara stood with her shoulders hunched. Her fingers dug into the fabric of her uniform skirt, twisting the material into tight knots. A single, perfect tear welled in her wide eyes and tracked slowly down her cheek. It was a calculated display of vulnerability.
"She broke my beginner's wand, Professor," Elara whispered. Her voice trembled. It sounded like glass cracking under pressure. "I know I'm not as gifted as her, but she didn't have to destroy it."
Seraphina opened her mouth to speak. She had logic on her side. She had proof.
But before the words could leave her throat, her brain split open.
A blinding, tearing pain ripped through the center of her skull. It felt like a physical blade carving into her gray matter. Her breath hitched. Her vision went completely black.
Images violently shoved their way into her mind. They weren't just pictures; they were memories of a future she hadn't lived yet. She saw herself screaming. She saw her magic being ripped from her veins, leaving her hollow and bleeding on a cold stone floor. She saw Elara standing over her, smiling a cold, dead smile while everyone Seraphina had ever trusted turned their backs.
The pain vanished as quickly as it hit.
Seraphina gasped, her lungs burning as she sucked in the stale office air. She blinked hard. The room came back into focus, but something was different.
In Seraphina's vision, a glowing, translucent blue screen materialized above Elara's head. It wasn't a physical object, but an overlay in her mind's eye, a lingering phantom from the prophecy that only she could perceive.
Target: Seraphina Vanguard. Jealousy Level: 85%. Anticipating outburst. Reward: 500 System Points.
Seraphina's stomach dropped to her shoes. The blood drained from her face, leaving her skin icy and numb. It wasn't a hallucination. The prophecy was real. The system was real. If she maintained her pride, if she fought back, she would die.
"Your silence speaks volumes," Alden said. He rubbed his jaw, a habit he leaned on when he was stressed. "I am cutting your mana stone quota for the month. Perhaps that will teach you humility."
Elara's eyes gleamed. The blue screen above her head flashed. Anticipating target's rage.
Seraphina looked at the screen. She looked at Elara's fake tears. Then, she made a choice.
If pride meant death, she would become the most pathetic creature in this academy.
Seraphina let her knees buckle.
She didn't brace herself. She let her full weight crash onto the thick carpet. The dull thud echoed in the quiet room.
Alden's mouth snapped shut. The lecture died in his throat. He stared at his top student, the untouchable prodigy, now crumpled on the floor.
Elara's fake tear stopped mid-track. The blue screen above her head flickered. Error. Target behavior anomalous.
Seraphina buried her face in her hands. She forced her breathing to turn ragged. She hiked her shoulders up and let them shake violently. She didn't have real tears, so she pressed the heels of her palms hard against her eyes until she saw stars, making her voice thick and wet.
"You're right," Seraphina sobbed. The sound was loud, ugly, and entirely pathetic. "You're so right, Professor. I'm a monster."
Alden stumbled backward. His knee clipped his heavy leather chair. "Seraphina? What are you-"
"I did it because I'm jealous!" Seraphina wailed, peeking through her fingers to gauge their reactions. "I look at Elara, and she's so pure. So innocent. The pressure of being the best... it's crushing my chest. I can't breathe! I ruin everything because I'm so terrified of failing!"
Elara's jaw dropped. Her fingers released her skirt. Those were her lines. Seraphina was stealing her exact script.
Alden's anger evaporated. His face paled with sudden, heavy guilt. He stepped around the desk, his hand reaching out. "Seraphina, please. Breathe. I didn't realize you were under such immense strain."
Seraphina slapped his hand away. She shrank back, curling into a tight ball.
"No! Don't touch me! I don't deserve your forgiveness!" She reached into her pocket with trembling fingers. She pulled out the heavy gold key-the symbol of her status as the Chief Apprentice.
She held it out with shaking hands.
"Take it," she choked out. "I resign. I need to be punished. I can't handle the high-level rooms anymore. I'm too weak."
Alden stared at the gold key. "Seraphina, this is an overreaction. We can get you counseling. You don't have to give up your status."
"Take it!" she screamed, her voice cracking perfectly.
Above Elara, the blue screen turned a violent red. CRITICAL ERROR. Target has surrendered status. Plunder logic failed.
Seraphina saw Elara's face twist into genuine panic. It took every ounce of Seraphina's willpower not to smile.
She dropped the gold key. It hit the floor with a sharp, metallic clink.
Before Alden could speak, Seraphina scrambled to her feet. She swayed heavily, acting as if the gravity in the room had doubled. She dragged her feet toward the heavy oak door, her head hung low.
"Seraphina..." Alden whispered. He slumped back into his chair, rubbing his jaw furiously, his eyes wide with shock.
Elara reached for the key, but a sharp, stabbing pain shot through her head, forcing her to recoil. A system penalty. She hissed in pain, cradling her temples as if struck by a sudden, violent migraine, and left the key untouched on the carpet.
Seraphina pushed the door open. The cool draft of the hallway hit her face.
The moment the door clicked shut behind her, Seraphina dropped her hands. Her shoulders straightened. The fake sobs vanished instantly. A slow, easy smile spread across her lips.
A group of first-year students walking past stopped dead in their tracks. They stared at Seraphina's red-rimmed eyes and messy hair, their mouths hanging open in shock.
Seraphina ignored them. She rolled her neck, feeling the tension bleed out of her muscles.
If being trash kept her alive, she was going to be the absolute worst student this academy had ever seen.
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7.1
I was the top commander of a black-ops military program. After slaughtering my way through a hellish mission, I reached the extraction helicopter, trusting my second-in-command to watch my back.
But the moment our hands locked, he didn't pull me up. Instead, he plunged a syringe of lethal neurotoxin directly into my neck.
He aimed his gun at my chest, coldly stating that I was too dangerous to live. My lungs stopped, and I died in a pool of my own blood. But the endless blackness suddenly shattered. My consciousness violently forced its way into a new, broken shell. I woke up in a freezing alley, soaked in muddy rain.
This body belonged to seventeen-year-old Eliza Wyatt. A massive wave of foreign memories crashed into my brain. Her own younger sister had just stood at the top of the stairs with a mocking smile, watching street thugs beat Eliza to death.
"Take good care of the Wyatt family's eldest daughter. Tonight is the night she finally disappears."
The endless humiliation, the cold stares of her family, and the brutal betrayal by her own blood flashed before my eyes. Why was this fragile girl treated like garbage and pushed to her death by the very people who should have protected her?
I looked down at my pale, trembling hands. The top commander was dead, but in this bleeding shell, Eliza Wyatt was very much alive. I picked up a switchblade from the bloody puddle and stood up in the storm. It was time to hunt.
9.7
Elara Voss was rejected by her Alpha on the night of the Blood Moon - cast aside as a nobody with no wolf, no rank, and no future. She ran. But fate had other plans.
In the human world, she collides with Damien Crest - cold, ruthless billionaire by day, the last living Shadowking by night. He offers her a contract marriage. She has nowhere else to go.
But ancient markings are awakening on her skin. A god is whispering her name. And Kael, the fearsome Werewolf High King, has declared across all supernatural realms that she is his fated mate.
Two kings. Two worlds. One woman who was never supposed to matter.
They all rejected her once. Now they'll burn their empires down to claim her.
7.6
He hated my gut!
I detested his arrogance!
I was supposed to be his ex-stepmother,but I hated pack politics and returned to the human community after Alpha Holt's death.
I was forced back to heal the wounds of the one that hated me the most, my stepson Adrian.
To the world he was the famous NHL golden boy of hockey and to the Frostfang pack, their feared Alpha.
But the moon goddess had another plan.
On the night he was crowned as Alpha, his father's mark faded from my neck and Adrian's mate bond burnt harshly on my skin. But fate wasn't done yet.
We were expected to team up to fight a common foe when we could barely stand each other.
Was our fate strong enough to overcome physical hatred?
8.8
Alaia Dudley spent her life playing the devoted partner, completely unaware that her fiancé Austen was sleeping with another woman.
She thought the worst he could do was break her heart, until she found herself pinned to a cold operating table.
Austen held her down with a cruel smirk while a scalpel sliced through her sternum.
They cracked her chest open while she was still fully conscious.
The agonizing pain of her heart being cut out burned into her nerve endings.
She realized then that to him, she was never a lover—just a spare organ, a boring piece of wood to be discarded the second his true love needed it.
She died in excruciating agony, choking on her own blood while the man she loved walked away with her heart.
Until her last breath, she didn't understand why she had to suffer so brutally.
Why did she waste her life begging for a monster's attention? Why did they get a happy ending while she was carved up like an animal?
But then, ice-cold water flooded her lungs, and Alaia violently broke the surface of her bathwater.
Her trembling fingers touched her smooth, flawless chest. No scars. Her heart was still beating.
The date on her phone glared back at her: it was exactly five years ago.
Tonight was the exact night Austen first took his mistress to a hotel room.
This time, she wouldn't just expose them. She would use Wall Street's most terrifying tyrant as her personal weapon to strip them of everything they had.
7.9
Cora Foster was a brilliant archaeologist, but a jagged burn scar across her face made the world treat her like a contagious monster.
During an elite excavation of a Gilded Age crypt, touching an ancient artifact triggered a terrifying memory. She remembered being Seraphina Beaumont, a socialite brutally buried alive by her vain, cruel sister, Isolde.
When the team pried open the crypt's pristine mahogany casket, they cheered, believing the mummified corpse inside was Seraphina. But Cora recognized the onyx hairpin and the angular jawline. It was Isolde. The sister who had stolen her life, mocked her agony, and left her to suffocate in the dark. Her colleagues scoffed at her forensic proof, dismissing her as a scarred, delusional liability.
Worse, the ruthless billionaire funding the expedition, Julian Montgomery, was the spitting image of Alistair—the man Seraphina had deeply loved. Why was Julian staring at her ruined face with such intense, inexplicable recognition? And why did Isolde take Seraphina's most precious silver ring to the grave?
Driven by a century of agonizing grief, Cora secretly pried the tarnished ring from the mummy's stiff, dead fingers and dropped it into her pocket.
"What are you looking at, Foster?"
Julian's deep voice vibrated inches from her ear, his cold, predatory eyes locked directly onto her half-open pocket.
8.0
Eloise Ferguson was the legitimate daughter of a powerful Senator, yet she was treated like a hysterical burden by her own family.
In her past life, her parents forced her to marry a sadistic billionaire for political funding.
When she resisted, they locked her in a psychiatric facility, drugged her, and left her to die in restraints while her "fragile" cousin Jaylene stole her life.
She never understood why her mother hated her so fiercely.
Why did her mother treat her brother Cortez and her cousin Jaylene like absolute royalty, while throwing her own flesh and blood to the wolves?
Opening her eyes again, Eloise found herself back at age twenty-two, trapped in a restroom at a charity gala.
Escaping her abuser, she used her awakened mystic abilities to look at her family's life forces.
What she saw made her blood run cold.
Thick, red biological cords connected her mother directly to both Cortez and Jaylene, intertwining in a perfect symbiotic bond.
They weren't cousins. They were illegitimate twins born from her mother's secret affair.
Eloise was the only true outsider in her own home.
The realization hit her like a physical blow. Her entire life of abuse was just a cover-up for a nest of parasites stealing her father's name and her inheritance.
But this time, she refused to be their victim.
Armed with an unchallengeable executive order she blackmailed out of the United States President, Eloise crushed the hidden microphone in her bedroom.
"Game on, Mother."