Pain.
Pure pain.
Lionel felt like somebody cracked his skull open, shoved fire inside, then stitched everything back together with rusty nails.
His eyes snapped open.
"—Fuck!"
He shot upright from the bed gasping heavily.
Cold sweat covered his body.
For a few seconds he couldn't even breathe properly.
His crimson eyes scanned the room instantly.
Dark ceiling.
Golden curtains.
Fireplace.
Expensive furniture.
Imperial bedroom.
Lionel froze.
"…What?"
His voice sounded younger.
Way younger.
Slowly—
he raised his hands.
Smooth skin.
No scars.
No burns.
No missing fingers.
His breathing became uneven.
"No fucking way…"
Lionel stumbled toward the mirror beside the wall.
Then stopped completely.
Silver hair.
Crimson eyes.
Young face.
Sixteen years old.
Prince Lionel Ashbourne.
Third prince of the Ashbourne Empire.
The same prince who died at the hands of the protagonist.
Memories slammed into him instantly.
War.
Fire.
Collapsed cities.
His undead army getting erased.
William standing before him with that holy sword while everyone looked at him like some chosen savior.
Lionel remembered laughing while coughing blood.
He remembered asking William one final question.
"Do you even know why I hate you?"
And William—
that bastard actually looked confused.
Lionel grabbed the mirror tightly.
CRACK.
"…You killed my family."
His voice came out low and cold.
One by one they died.
Fenrir.
Kael.
Seraphina.
Lucien.
Even his mother.
And in the end—
William killed him too.
Lionel laughed quietly.
Then louder.
Until he had to stop himself.
"…I actually came back."
A sharp pain exploded inside his skull.
"Ghk—!"
Dark smoke slowly spread across the floor.
The shadows inside the room twisted unnaturally.
Then a lazy voice echoed inside his head.
[Bro calm your dramatic ass down.]
[You woke up thirty seconds ago and already looking like a future war criminal.]
Lionel froze.
"…Who the fuck said that?"
[Look down genius.]
A black screen appeared before him.
Not blue.
Not holy.
Black.
Corrupted.
Like somebody made a system inside a haunted cemetery.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ ☠ ABYSSAL MONARCH SYSTEM ☠ ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Soul Recognition: Complete.
Cause of Death: Killed by Protagonist.
Mental State: Unstable.
Personality Analysis: — Petty — Violent — Shameless — Chronic hater — Potential disaster to public society
Evaluation: Qualified.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel stared blankly.
"…A system?"
[Unfortunately.]
[And now I gotta babysit your mentally exhausted ass.]
Lionel rubbed his forehead slowly.
"…I'm hallucinating."
[You died.]
[Time traveled.]
[And now talking to magic screens.]
[But THIS the part your brain rejecting?]
Another screen appeared.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ HOST STATUS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Name: Lionel Draven Ashbourne
Race: Human
Age: 16
Rank: Bronze Rank — Stage 1
Classes: ☠ Necromancer ☀ Solar Tyrant ☠ Soul Harvester ☼ Familiar Creator (Locked)
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Physique: ☀ Solar Tyrant Physique (Dormant)
A physique born from the fusion of imperial sun blood and Valkyra battle instincts.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Skills: ☠ Raise Skeleton — Lv 1 ☠ Death Sense — Lv 1 ☼ Solar Breathing — Lv 1
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Lionel frowned slightly.
Four classes.
That was absurd.
Most geniuses awakened:
one main class
maybe one subclass
Four classes was monstrous.
Then again…
he wasn't exactly normal anymore.
The system spoke again.
[Your rank kinda trash though.]
"…I literally just woke up."
[And somehow you still look underleveled.]
Lionel ignored him and walked toward the balcony.
Cold night air hit his face.
The capital spread beneath him beautifully.
Lights.
Walls.
Towers.
The strongest human empire on the continent.
The Ashbourne Empire.
Lionel's expression darkened slightly.
He remembered seeing this same city burning.
He remembered corpses filling the streets.
And at the center of everything—
William.
That damn protagonist.
Lionel clicked his tongue.
"Where even is he right now…"
[Probably accidentally pulling future heroines without trying.]
Lionel's eye twitched.
Unfortunately…
that was probably true.
William had always been like that.
Talented.
Lucky.
Liked by everybody.
Even heroines Lionel once cared about slowly gathered around him.
Especially Evelyn Ravenhart.
Lionel physically cringed remembering her.
The system instantly noticed.
[OOOOOH.]
[You thinking about the "we're just friends" girl.]
"…Don't start."
[Brother she folded you spiritually.]
Lionel covered his face.
"I'm gonna lose my damn mind."
[Honestly that process already started.]
"…Fuck you."
This life would be different.
No obsession.
No chasing people.
No wasting himself over someone who never truly chose him.
And most importantly—
no losing his family.
Lionel slowly looked at the moon above the empire.
This time he knew everything.
Future dungeons.
Hidden treasures.
Bloodlines.
Legendary weapons.
Future disasters.
A slow grin spread across his face.
"This time…"
Dark mana slowly gathered around him.
"…I'm taking everything before William gets there."
The system went silent briefly.
Then—
[OOOOOH.]
[Badass as fuck actually.]
Lionel smirked slightly.
Good.
He wanted to be dangerous.
Then suddenly—
KNOCK. KNOCK.
A gentle voice came from outside.
"Lionel?"
Lionel froze instantly.
"…Mother?"
The door slowly opened.
And there she was.
Elena Ashbourne.
The empress.
Silver hair.
Golden eyes.
Elegant posture.
Alive.
Lionel stared at her silently.
Because in his previous life—
she died protecting him.
For the first time since returning—
his chest tightened painfully.
Elena walked closer carefully.
"You had another nightmare?"
Lionel opened his mouth slightly.
Then stopped.
Because suddenly—
he remembered something.
Three years from now…
his mother dies from poison.
And nobody ever discovers who did it.
Lionel's eyes slowly darkened.
Not this time.
Never again.
Elena gently touched his forehead.
"You're sweating."
Lionel looked at her quietly for a few seconds before speaking softly.
"…Can you stay for a bit?"
The empress blinked in surprise.
Because Lionel almost never asked for things directly.
Then she smiled warmly.
"Of course."
Meanwhile the system spoke quietly inside his head.
[…Damn.]
[…That actually kinda nice.]