Darkness.
The first thing he became aware of was the absence of light.
'Great start.'
A quiet, heavy dark that felt less like night and more like being buried beneath something vast and endless.
Kael tried to move, but his limbs didn't respond the way they should. They felt distant, as if he were wearing a body that wasn't his—too soft, too heavy, uncooperative.
'Fantastic.'
Then came the memories.
The alley. The shouting. The sudden burst of pain in his chest like fire and ice fused together.
Then... nothing.
Or so he thought.
'Did I finally get that coma I always wanted?' he mused dryly.
'Though I swear, if this is some kind of cosmic prank, I'm not laughing.'
He tried to open his eyes. Nothing changed. No light. No shapes. Just a deep, pressing blackness. No hospital hum, no scent of antiseptic. No sense of time.
Just him—and the slow, unsettling awareness that something wasn't right.
His thoughts drifted to the life he'd known.
University—unfinished. A future, once full of potential, left slowly unraveling. Parents who had already started to look at him like a disappointment they didn't want to name aloud.
There hadn't been a plan, not really. Just motion. One day after another, trying to outrun the sense that he was wasting something important.
And now?
Now, everything felt... distant. Not gone, but unreachable.
His body stirred, slow and stiff, like roots breaking free from frozen earth. A faint pressure built behind his eyes.
Then—light. Pale, uncertain. The kind that filters in through shuttered windows at night.
Kael blinked. His eyelids felt heavy, the simple motion a struggle.
The world came into focus, soft at the edges, like an old photograph still developing.
A ceiling above him. Not white tiles or water stains. Stone—smooth, curved, and faintly glistening in the glow of a dying fire. Shadows danced lazily across carved beams. The scent of old wood, cold stone, and something herbal hung in the air.
He was lying in a bed too large, beneath sheets that felt too fine.
Nothing was familiar.
The walls were draped in dark fabric, patterned with crests and curling embroidery. A tall window stood partly ajar, letting in moonlight and the distant sound of hooves on cobblestone.
'Where... am I?'
His limbs ached, heavy with fatigue. Each breath took effort, as though he'd been asleep for far longer than any nap should allow.
Panic threatened to rise, but it stalled—caught in the throat of a mind still fogged by confusion. He pushed himself up slightly, hands trembling. They weren't his.
The fingers were too slender. Skin too smooth. No scars. No calluses. No trace of the person he remembered being.
And then—without warning—the memories came.
Not his own.
A name.
Kaelion Drenlor.
Third son of Duke Thelran Drenlor, lord of the western province of Velmora. A land once known for its soaring mountain libraries and stormglass towers—now fading under the weight of neglect and fractured loyalties.
Kael sat in stillness, trying to breathe through the rush of alien memories crowding his mind. They came not as sharp flashes, but as a quiet tide rising within him—familiar and foreign all at once.
He swung his legs over the edge of the bed. His feet touched a stone floor, smooth and cold beneath his skin. It took effort to stand. His muscles, though lean, felt weakened—like a man waking from a season of sleep.
The fire in the hearth had long since guttered into embers. Silver moonlight spilled through the parted curtains, casting soft illumination across the chamber.
He moved slowly—cautiously—toward the window.
Each step echoed in the silence.
Drawing back the heavy drape, he looked out.
The world beyond stole the breath from his lungs.
The courtyard below glowed in pale blue luminescence from flowering nightlilies—plants that pulsed faintly like stars nestled in soil.
Above, in the sky, not one but two moons drifted—one wide and silver, the other narrow and red. Far off, towers bent impossibly in shapes no architect in his old world could have imagined, strung with lights like constellations caught in their own orbit.
Beyond the city's outer walls, he glimpsed forests veined with veins of green fire, and mountains that shimmered like crystal under the night sky.
A world of magic.
Of wonders.
Of ...dangers.
Kaelion Drenlor had grown up in this land, though Kael had not. And with each breath, more of that former life settled into place.
He had no magic.
Born into a world of spellcrafters and elemental pacts, Kaelion had been the one son who could not summon flame, nor bind wind, nor heal with a touch.
And for that—he had been disregarded.
Mocked by the other noble heirs.
Scorned by his brothers.
He remembered—vividly now—the way they smiled with blades hidden behind every word.
The eldest, Veyran, already commanding soldiers.
The second, Aerik, cold and calculating, with a talent for blood-magic and backroom dealings.
Kaelion had kept to books. History. Law. Diplomacy. Skills few valued in a world obsessed with arcane power.
And then came the whispers. The sudden illness.
The maid—soft-spoken, gentle-handed—who brought his tea.
The one his brother Aerik had personally recommended, as a gesture of "reconciliation."
He remembered the sickness creeping in like frostbite. The sluggishness. The weight in his limbs. The slurring of his voice.
And finally, that night—when he realized he could no longer speak.
He had known.
But by then, it was too late.
Kael gripped the stone of the window frame, breathing slowly through the storm building in his chest.
He wasn't meant to survive.
And yet… he had.
Someone else had taken his place in this broken body. In this cursed inheritance.
Kael remained by the window, the weight of the moonlight casting him half in shadow, half in pale silver.
He breathed in deeply, the unfamiliar scents of nightbloom and distant forge-smoke curling in his lungs.
"So this is it," he muttered, voice low and rough.
"A life without magic. In a world built on it."
His reflection in the glass flickered, fragmented by the warped pane. He stared into his own unfamiliar eyes—Kaelion's eyes—marked by quiet suffering and resignation.
A bitter smile ghosted his lips.
"Your life was more pathetic than mine," he whispered, not without a touch of reluctant sympathy.
"Born into nobility… and still powerless. Still unwanted. Even I had more freedom than that."
"Haa... I guess this is my new life now."
The words left him with an odd finality.
Not despair, not hope. Just… acceptance.
And then—shattering glass.
The sharp crack of porcelain echoed through the quiet chamber, too loud in the stillness of night.
Kael froze.
He didn't turn right away. Instead, he let a slow breath escape, his expression darkening, sharpened by something that had been dormant far too long.
'So it's starting', he thought.
His lips curled—not in fear, not in surprise, but in a smile that didn't belong on the face of a sickly noble son.
It was the kind of smile that belonged in alleyways at midnight, in the eyes of someone with nothing left to lose.
Demonic.
If someone had seen him then—standing there, framed by moonlight, his face half-lit, half-shadow—they would've stepped back on instinct alone.
But then—
It vanished.
A blink. A breath.
His features softened like wax warmed by sunlight. The eyes lost their edge. The spine curled just slightly, as if the weight of confusion had returned. The corners of his mouth lowered into something uncertain.
Lost.
A perfect transformation.
From devil to dazed.
The shattered cup behind him clinked faintly as a shard rolled across the floor.
Kael finally turned.
At the door stood a young maid, her hand still raised to her mouth, eyes wide with shock.
The moonlight spilling through the window caught in her dark hair, and for a moment, Kael saw her as Kaelion had—beautiful, almost gentle in her stillness, a softness that once stirred something innocent in the boy whose place he now filled.
But memories were crueler than they seemed.
This was the same girl—the same delicate hands that had sweetened his tea, changed his linens, smiled when she passed him in the halls—and fed him poison, drop by patient drop, until his body failed and his mind dimmed.
Her breath hitched.
"H–how did you—" she stammered, the words tumbling out before she could catch them. Her hand flew to her mouth, as if silence could rewind time.
Too late.
She was trembling now—not from the cold. No, this was fear. Raw and choking.
She knew.
Knew that he knew.
The poison hadn't been subtle. Not over time. And now the one she thought safely drifting toward the grave was standing, breathing, looking at her like a stranger... or worse, like a judge.
Her gaze flicked downward for a heartbeat—toward the small blade sewn into the folds of her skirt. A final, desperate insurance.
She moved, barely—a shift of fabric, a breath.
And then—
"Do you know me?" Kael's voice broke the silence like a blade through still water.
Light. Innocent. Almost... curious.
The question froze her in place.
Her hand stopped, suspended inches from the hidden knife.
Eyes wide, she stared at him, blinking as if trying to refocus.
"What…?" she whispered.
Kael tilted his head slightly, his expression one of gentle bewilderment.
"I just… woke up," he said softly. "Everything's… foggy. I don't even remember my name."
A long pause.
The silence hung thick between them.
Then she blinked again—hard—and something shifted in her gaze.
Confusion, now. Cautious hope.
"Y-you don't remember m-me?" she asked, voice cracking.
He blinked back at her, eyes wide, innocent.
"Should I?"
And just like that, the tension in her shoulders eased—not completely, but enough. The trembling dulled. Her hand slid back from the knife.
Kael smiled again, like a candlelit angel.
"Could you… help me back to the bed?" he asked gently.
"My body still feels weak."
She blinked, hesitant, but nodded. Her lips curled upward, just barely.
In her eyes, he was no longer the poisoned heir. Just a dazed boy who'd forgotten everything.
Pathetic. Easy prey.
She stepped forward.
One hand reached toward his arm.
Her fingers had barely brushed his sleeve when Kael's hand shot up and caught her wrist.
Firm. Icy.
She blinked, startled.
"Wha—"
But she didn't finish.
With a swift motion, precise and practiced—far more than a noble should've known—he turned, twisted, and pulled.
The momentum carried her weight toward the open window. A heartbeat later, glass and wind rushed past her ears.
She fell.
Time slowed. Her eyes locked on his, wide with disbelief.
In that fleeting descent, realization hit her harder than the wind tearing at her dress: he had played her.
"You bastarddddddddddd!" she screamed, fury and fear mixing into a single, broken cry.
Kael stood at the window, watching her fall with cold detachment. His expression held no regret—only grim finality. As her form shrank below, he raised one hand slowly.
Middle finger extended.
"Dumb bitch," he muttered, voice low and venomous.
Then—impact.
A dull, distant thud. Final.
[You have fulfilled the hidden condition: "Break the Chains of the Past."]
[Conqueror's System initializing…]
***