Gasp!
Asher jolted upright, his small hands clutching his chest where his mana core was supposed to be fully formed. He panted heavily, coughing as his lungs desperately pulled in the crisp, cool morning air.
He was sitting on a narrow, creaky bed. The room was small, filled with morning sunlight filtering through a dusty attic window. Everything around him looked massive. The wooden desk, the bedframe, even his own hands. They were the soft, uncallused hands of a child.
He scrambled out of bed, his bare feet hitting the cold wooden floor, and rushed to the cracked mirror in the corner of the room.
Staring back at him was a ten-year-old boy with unkempt black hair and wide, trembling gray eyes.
‘I did it… I returned.’
It was the year 812 of the Kranian Empire, exactly ten years before the main plot of the novel would begin.
But the relief he should have felt was completely swallowed by a suffocating, icy terror. His hands gripped the edges of the washbasin until his knuckles turned white. He could still hear the agonizing screams of the sacrificed mages echoing in his ears. He could still smell the blood.
She had followed him. Elara de Artois had sacrificed countless lives to force her way into his regression. She was here, in this timeline, possessing the memories of her obsessive, twisted love.
‘If I just run away and hide, it won't be enough,’ Asher realized, cold sweat trailing down the back of his neck. ‘She is the sole heir to the Duke of Artois. She has the wealth and influence of the entire empire at her disposal. If she finds me... if she realizes I remember... she will lock me in a cage before I even reach adulthood.’
A dark, freezing resolve settled in Asher’s young gray eyes.
In his past life, he had tried to save Elara. This time, he would not make that mistake. Elara was currently ten years old. Her political power was not yet absolute, and her monstrous mana core had not yet fully matured.
There was only one absolute solution to guarantee his freedom.
‘I have to kill her. Now.’
Assassinating a ten-year-old noble girl, the future Duchess, was madness. But Asher retained the advanced magical knowledge of a Grand Mage, even if his current child's body severely limited his mana capacity.
He knew exactly where she would be. In three weeks, the capital would host the Imperial Foundation Banquet, a massive event where children of the high nobility and exceptionally talented commoner prodigies were gathered. It was the exact place where they had first met in his past life.
In that life, he had offered her a handkerchief when she tripped, sparking her twisted obsession.
This time, he would offer her a fatal, untraceable curse.
Three weeks later. The grand hall of Altein Palace.
The ballroom was a sea of glittering chandeliers, opulent silk dresses, and the suffocatingly strict etiquette of the nobility. Even though Asher was currently an unranked commoner, his status as a newly discovered "magic prodigy" had earned him a place in the outer wings of the hall.
He stood perfectly still in the deep shadows of a grand marble pillar, his ten-year-old body tense like a coiled spring. His gray eyes coldly scanned the bustling crowd, hunting for the familiar flash of silver.
There she was.
Elara de Artois. Ten years old. She was surrounded by a swarm of fawning noble children, looking like a fragile, immaculate porcelain doll. Her large violet eyes were downcast, her expression shy, pure, and innocent. She looked completely harmless.
‘It’s all an act,’ Asher reminded himself, his heart pounding a cold, steady rhythm against his ribs. ‘Beneath that angelic face is a demon who will chain me to a bed for eternity.’
He silently channeled a thread of dark, invisible mana into his fingertips. It was the 'Breath of the Void'—an arcane, high-tier poison spell. It required almost no raw power, only absolute precision. Just a brief brush against her skin, and her heart would quietly stop beating in her sleep three days later, mimicking a natural, tragic illness.
Asher took a deep breath, stepped out of the shadows, and began to walk toward her.
He expected her to ignore him. He was dressed in cheap, simple clothes. He was a nobody.
But the moment his foot crossed the invisible threshold into her vicinity, Elara’s head snapped toward him. Across the crowded, noisy room, her violet eyes locked onto his gray ones.
For a fraction of a second, the shy, innocent demeanor vanished completely. Her pupils dilated, and a terrifying, suffocating intensity flashed across her young face. It was the exact same look she had given him right before she locked the dungeon door.
Then, just as quickly, the mask slid back into place. She smiled. A bright, sweet, breathtakingly beautiful childish smile.
She politely excused herself from the surrounding young nobles, picking up the hem of her white dress, and began walking directly toward him.
Asher froze, his poisoned fingertips hidden behind his back. The scent of sweet roses washed over him, making his stomach heave with a mixture of trauma and adrenaline.
She stopped exactly two feet away from him, tilting her head with perfect, practiced innocence.
"Hello," Elara said, her voice like chiming silver bells. "I don't believe we've met. I am Elara de Artois. What is your name?"
Asher swallowed hard. He looked at her small, outstretched hand, covered in a pristine white lace glove.
‘Just take her hand,’ he told himself. ‘Release the spell into her pulse, and this nightmare ends tonight.’
"I am Asher," he replied, his voice deliberately smooth and subservient.
"Asher," she repeated softly, tasting the syllables as if they were the sweetest delicacy in the world. "It is wonderful to meet you. I feel like... we are going to be very close."
He reached out, his fingers trembling with deadly intent, and took her hand.
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