The moment the last shard of glass hit the floor, the door burst open.
Maxwell, my butler, a man built like a retired prizefighter, with hands too rough for silverware and eyes too weary for his age, charged in, pale as a corpse.
"Master Kain, are you—oh my God. What happened here?"
His fingers brushed my arm, checking for wounds. Too familiar. Too bold. But his eyes, they held that desperate, dog-like loyalty. The kind that doesn't break, just bends until it bleeds.
Perfect.
If anyone could help me make sense of this nightmare, it was him.
He guided me to what passed for my study, a crumbling room of mildew and rot. Warped shelves leaned like drunks, and the desk looked like it had been gnawed by time itself.
God, I wish I could forget who I used to be. The more I forget who I was, the better. Because everything is driving me insane
Because here, in this filth-stained place, Kain Kluvert was no longer a man. Just a name. A ruin. A ghost haunted by the weight of a world he didn't belong to.
"Maxwell give me the current ledgers and documents about my barony."
Maxwell handed me a stack of yellowed documents: land deeds, tax records, and the brittle remains of a fallen barony. But then, something else slipped free.
A single parchment fluttered to the floor like a dying moth.
English.
Not the snarling dialect of this backwater realm, but my language—crisp, modern, and utterly alien in this place.
> To the man from another world
If you're reading this, the ritual worked.
The forest whispers your name.
Do not trust them. Do not trust anyone.
Burn this after—
The rest had been torn away. Ink smeared like it had been written in fear... or while fighting for breath.
The last Kain had known.
Know I was coming. Known this body would be mine.
My vision turned into a tunnel of red. The parchment crumpled in my fist, the truth boiling up my throat like bile:
I wasn't some victim of cosmic chaos.
I was a pawn.
Placed.
Used.
"Maxwell." My voice came out cold enough to kill spring.
He took a step forward, the loyal hound caught between instinct and fear. "Master Kain, if we just—"
"Get out."
Soft. Flat. Worse than a scream.
"Before I peel the skin from your bones to see what secrets you're hiding."
He fled. The door slammed hard enough to shake the rafters. Dust rained like ash.
Alone in the choking silence, I pressed my forehead to the desk. The wood groaned beneath me. My teeth clenched tight enough to crack stone.
I had sworn to rip the bastard who brought me here into this place. I don't know what the fuck went wrong, but I just know someone is going to get gagged by his own leg.
To feed them their own heart.
To whisper their sins as they drowned in themselves.
But how do you kill something that plays with death like a child plays with toys?
The rage in me didn't burn—it froze.
It crystallized.
Sharper than steel.
Colder than any mercy.
They thought they'd trapped me.
Thought they'd broken me.
Let them.
Every game has rules.
Every ritual has cracks.
And when I find mine?
I won't just kill my captor.
I'll become the monster even the gods fear
I decided to go back to my room and watch the sun actually rise from the east; at least that might calm me down.