———

  Prologue | Rip Entry

  Warmth. Heat. Suffocating air. Pain.

  Memory was an unreliable thing. She could not recall where she was or what she was doing. She was only vaguely aware of the thunder that heralded the final coda of her elation and the overture of her misery.

  "… And now on the platform, Yugao Xia Lanyue from Neo Asia!"

  She tried to move her arms. A twitch and a trembling arm answered from below the vehicle's detritus.

  "She's attempting the legendary Reverse 4? Somersaults in Pike! With a breathtaking Degree of Difficulty of 4.8!"

  She tried to move her legs. No response. She tried harder. Only numbness answered.

  "Look at that form! The tuck is tight and the entry is razor-sharp! Even cleaner than her gold-medal performance four years ago!"

  That numbness was now receding, fading into a screaming, staticky fire. It came from her hips and ended… nowhere. She tried to see. Only blurred unfocused vision returned to her corneas.

  "… And she rips into the water! A blade-like entry! The water barely protests! It's as if the pool had parted for its queen!"

  She became aware of a viscous liquid clogging her throat. With each passing moment, it rose higher. Soon, it reached her teeth, then her lips, before it welled up and spilled over.

  "A spectacular success! She's surfacing now, climbing from the pool! And look at Coach Lǐ Jìng— absolutely radiant! That's the smile of a woman who knows her athlete has just made history!"

  She tried again to feel her legs. With each struggle the numbness became more apparent, as did the pain. It was slowly making its presence felt, hiding in the frayed edges of her consciousness.

  "The judges have made their decisions! 10, 10, 10, 9.5, 9.0, 10, 9.5! A total of 29.5! And look at Lanyue herself— that absolutely mesmerising confidence as she awaits her other scores!"

  A soundless cry tore from within her throat. The pain was now out of hiding. It was excruciating. Agonising. Searing from a place that should not exist. Every twitch, every movement and every heartbeat hammered her agony deeper.

  "All that's left is the Hydro-Acoustic Index! The Splash Displacement Volume and the measured Acoustic Peak Frequency will determine history! The highest record in the past five decades was her own 9.7! What will today's achievement be?"

  She was in so much pain. She weakly turned her irises around the ruined limousine. Debris. Dark liquids. Something was burning to her left. Gusts of wind were entering from the window, beyond which the world was a shapeless musk of vague shapes.

  "The HAI Index is revealed! And would you believe it… a perfect 10! Maximum score! Perfection! A new world record, a new history!"

  She tried to form a word, to call out, tried to move her tongue, but each movement only caused more liquid to spill out. It tasted metallic. She realised it was blood. Her blood.

  "Her final score is 29.5 × 4.8 × 10.0 = 1416 points! This… this is a historical moment! The highest score ever achieved in Continental Neo Olympic Diving History!!"

  A wet, gurgling cough wracked her body, spraying a fine mist of crimson across the shredded leather in front of her.

  "… Yugao Xia Lanyue, second Gold medal! Back to back! She's made history once more…"

  Her eyelids shuddered, no longer capable of upholding the weight of her consciousness. Perhaps… this was it.

  And then…

  "なんで… 大陸の選手が… こんなところに…"

  (Nande... Tairiku no Senshu ga... konna tokoro ni...)

  "Why... a continental athlete... in a place like this..."

  A voice. Muffled, close. Whispers of panic in its otherwise professional tone.

  "まずい… こっちだ! 早く！"

  (Mazui… Kotchi da! Hayaku!)

  "This is bad… Over here! Hurry!"

  She heard sounds piercing through the haze. A metallic clang, the groan from twisting metal. Shouts, footsteps, the whine of machinery. She heard the sound of her punctured airbag being ripped away. Sudden, bright, and blinding symphonies of light pierced her vision.

  "かわいそうに… しっかりしろ! 目を開けて! "

  (Kawaisō ni… Shikkari shiro! Me o akete!)

  "How awful… Stay with me! Open your eyes!"

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Someone had been talking for a while. Loudly. Shouting. Was this help? What was he saying? The words were familiar, the cadence of a language she knew, but her mind could only grasp at the sounds, unable to stitch them into meaning. With a final, weak effort, she adjusted her head. She wanted to see.

  "選手, 夏夕顔 選手!"

  (Senshu, Ka Yugao Senshu!)

  "Athlete Xia Lanyue! Athlete!"

  The voice was now even louder. Urgent. She felt it was coming from right next to her. A pressure descended upon her shoulder.

  "Look at me, look at my light!"

  She could not resolve his face nor make out his light, but she noted the language had changed. Right now, everything was blindingly bright. It was so tiring to fight against its luminance, to hold onto her searing agony. Would it not be easier… to just let go?

  "だめ！ 目を閉じるな！"

  (Dame! Me o tojiru na!)

  "No! Don't you close your eyes!"

  She recognised his rising anxiety. She wanted to reassure him, that it would be easier to close them, but her lips refused to move.

  "Senshu! Do not close your eyes! Look at me! Stay with me, please!"

  Stay? Stay… where?

  There was only the pain and the light. And they were both beginning to fade, replaced by a deep, welcoming numbness. Her muscles went slack, and the comforting darkness rushed in, enveloping her in its velvet embrace.

  The last coherent thought to surface was a memory: the promised dinner celebration with her brother, Ka Masayoshi. The entire Neo Asia Continental Olympic team would be there, toasting her second Gold Medal. A faint smile approached her lips. It seems, she thought, I'm going to be late, Brother.

  ———

  SLAM!

  A loud percussive impact jolted Lanyue from her slumber and awareness soon returned in fragments. First she could see, then she could hear, and finally after that, she could feel again. Her senses were slowly illuminating her world, and with it came the agony that remained anchored to her broken being.

  She caught a blurred glimpse of double doors swinging shut. She was moving. She had a ceiling. It was white. It streaked past. A wall of blurred figures surrounded her— most in white, a few in a bright, urgent orange, and one, frantic figure in a familiar light-blue, fighting to stay close.

  They were yelling, and this time, she understood the language. Japanese, her second tongue. Her mind sluggishly began to translate.

  "Heavy trauma alert, OR 3, now!"

  "She's crashing! Get me a pressure, now!"

  "SISTER, STAY WITH ME! PLEASE! YOU HAVE TO SAVE HER!"

  "Sir! You can't be in here! You have to wait outside!"

  A white blur moved to intercept the blue. There was a brief struggle, and then both vanished from her narrowing field of view.

  "GCS is down to a 7 again!"

  "Her eyes are open but not tracking! Unresponsive to sternal rub!"

  Lanyue realised she was being ferried on something. Was she on a hoverbed? The lights looked so bright—

  SLAM!

  "Out of the way! Clear the hall!"

  "We're handing her over! Please, save her!"

  The orange blurs receded. The motion felt faster now, a rushing forward that left her stomach behind.

  "We'll make sure of it! What of the tourniquets?"

  "Applied to both thighs! But we are still losing her!"

  "SHIT. She's in hypovolemic shock! Get me the blood packs, now! Two lines, wide-bore!"

  SLAM!

  A third impact reverberated through her body. She noticed the ceiling was now higher, soaring away from her. She felt a brief moment of weightlessness as she floated towards a cluster of really white bubbles of light. They hovered, soft and blurry, like the fat plushie she kept on her bed at home.

  "Get her on the Synaptic Weave Monitor!"

  "Sir! Her temperatures are still falling! We can't stop the hypothermia!"

  A sharp pinch in her right arm and the twist of rubber drew her attention away from the comforting lights. She realised the air now felt sterile.

  "Status report, now!"

  "Bilateral mid-thigh amputations. Comminuted femur fragments. Bleeding's controlled with tourniquets, but the wounds are heavily contaminated. Temperatures are still plummeting."

  "Alright, listen up! This is a damage control lap and a guillotine amp. Our only goals are to stop the bleeding, debride the wounds, and pack her for the ICU. We are NOT doing any repairs today. Anaesthesia, how's she holding?"

  Lanyue tried to make out their words. She understood she was in a hospital, but what were they not repairing? Why was she being packed?

  "Terribly. BP is 65/palp. Heart rate 140. She's acidotic and hypothermic. I'm pushing blood and vasopressors, but she's on the edge. We need to be fast."

  "Understood. Get the Bair Hugger on her. I need a warming blanket stat. We have to get her temp up or she'll bleed out from coagulopathy."

  A blurry outline blocked several of the white bubbles, holding in his hand something glinting in the luminescence.

  "Knife. Suction ready. Let's get these tourniquets off and see what we're dealing with. The moment we see a bleeder, clamp it. I want ligatures and vessel-reconstructors on standby."

  Lanyue's eyes fluttered open for a final, blurred moment. She saw the remaining bright bubbles, the unresolved silhouettes, felt the cold dread solidify in her chest.

  "She's tachycardic. Pushing regenerative-propofol now."

  A icy rush flooded into her. The voices, the beeps and the bright lights shivered for a moment as they dissolved into a silent, deep shade of absolute black.

  ———

  A Note From Me:

  Hello & Welcome!

  I originally intended to write an original story featuring my Original Character in a Xianxia/Three Kingdoms/Ancient China original universe, but then after binging a truly heroic number of historical dramas, I realised my main takeaways were a deep appreciation for excessive eye shadow, an insatiable desire for harmoniously coloured flowy dresses, and absolutely zero understanding of imperial succession or its many many dynasties.

  Since I prefer my worlds to have slightly more structural integrity than a house of cards in a hurricane, I've temporarily shelved that project.

  So, I've retreated to the comforting, well-documented dystopia of Overlord instead. Consider this a training arc (or vacation) until I'm confident enough to build a kingdom that won't immediately collapse under the weight of its own anachronisms.

  For the most part, the original cast remains gloriously (mostly) intact, with one significant exception. I've also taken some liberties to carve out a niche for my OC in yggdrasil's history, so you'll encounter original arcs and ideas. Think of it as a mostly slightly modded server. And given the casual nature of this story, you'd probably see a more loose adherence to writing norms as well as expect very elaborate descriptions, sometimes for even the most mundane of details.

  My OC is heavily inspired by my own elezen in FFXIV, so expect some Eorzean flair mixed in with the Nazarick aesthetic. My hours in BDO were another source of inspiration for this altered Yggdrasil world, so I'll be peppering the story with references from both games throughout.

  As for canon, this story is based loosely (from memory) on the Overlord Light Novels (1-14). Later volumes (elf kingdom) have been discarded. The manga, anime and spinoffs have also been declared non-canonical by the Supreme Being and summarily ignored. Some Yggdrasil elements have also been streamlined/dramatised.

  As a final note: I'm writing this as a hobby for myself in my free time. Since my artistic skills are roughly on par with a goblin's charcoal scribbles and my creative budget is… well, let's just say it wouldn't be impressing Pandora's Actor or any of the guardians anytime soon, I've used AI to generate the character artworks. I've also done my best to create character sheets in the spirit of the originals, but consider this your warning that my ability to make text boxes align is still stuck on the tutorial level.

  Anyhow, I hope you enjoy the story. Long Live Ainz Ooal Gown!

  P.S. You should probably check the informational threadmarks, assuming I remembered to post them ^^