Father had really gone out of his way to show me his love this time. I’d barely opened my eyes when I was greeted by the sight of his pale, handsome face and his soulless black eyes as he stood over me.

“Thank Khavura,” he said, invoking his patron god for no reason, “you’re awake.” He offered the same shadow of a smile I used to mistake as affection. “Thought you’d look bigger—stronger—by now, but you still don’t look like much, Geram.”

He’d knocked me out while I was asleep, hadn’t he? Explained my growing headache.

We were still in my dorm room, so he hadn’t taken me anywhere. If there were more space in here, [Forgotten Son] might’ve worked to slip his attention away from me. I’d have to find another way to get the hell away from him.

I mirrored his smile. “Hard to look like much when my hands and feet are tied to a chair.”

His eyebrows pushed together. On any other face, maybe it was a look of concern. On him, I wasn’t sure, especially in the flickering candlelight. “Don’t pretend like you have no idea why I didn't have any other choice.”

“What if I’m not pretending like I don’t know…and really don’t know?”

Father said nothing to that—usual for him, as a man of few expressions and fewer words. He paced a circle around me with his arms crossed over his chest, and my eyes followed his feet to find a rune drawn out in black sand around my chair.

Was it the same rune he’d used to bind Mother when he killed her?

Was he here to kill me?

He stopped in front of me, the wood floor giving a creak. He was as tall and imposing as ever, the difference in our strength a palpable tension between us. A pressure that made me want to cower, avert my gaze, obey his command.

“I will humor you,” he said, tone low and menacing. “If only because I want to believe you don’t know for a little longer. I have some questions for you. Particularly about what happened to Lando.”

The brother I killed two years ago who very much deserved it for the part he played in Mother’s murder?

“What happened to Lando?” I asked.

His merciless gaze met mine, and something sparked in his eyes. A skill. “Try again.”

My chest tightened, and dread clawed around my throat.

He knows.

He was going to kill me like he’d killed Mother. I’d be found dead in the morning. He’ll put a dagger through my heart and watch me bleed out. Or choke me to death, throat bruised from his grip. Or slice my head clean off my shoulders—

No, stop panicking.

I activated [Cold-Blooded Nature] to stop myself from begging for my life.

【NOTICE】

You have activated Cold-Blooded Nature [Uncommon].

Your senses have sharpened to maintain complete clarity in any situation, giving you control over your mind and body and making you immune to experiences of pain, paralysis, mind control, and brainwashing for one hour a day.

Clarity slammed into me like a fist of ice: I hadn’t been as careful as I’d thought about hiding my involvement in Lando’s death, and now I was reaping what I’d sown.

Even though I’d done nothing worse than what they’d all done to Mother.

My memories of her death were a little hazy, especially since I’d been only eight years old. Back before I’d completed the tutorial stage or got a class. When I’d lived with Mother in the countryside so she wouldn’t be alone while she was sick. Father had said he’d found a doctor to treat her, and instead, he’d killed her with his own two hands.

Up until a handful of years ago, I’d wanted to believe it’d been a nightmare. But eventually I’d pieced together enough of what’d happened that I had to face reality. I’d been living with murderers.

Planning revenge for her death had come quickly after that. All about the right target, right place, right time. Lando, in his own bedroom, when he took his bitter nightcap to help him sleep. There was no evidence that I’d been the one who’d acquired the poison or put it into his drink. Nothing to indicate that I’d been involved in his death at all. I was sure of it.

“Why would I know what happened with Lando?” I asked.

Father squared his shoulders and looked down on me with disappointment. He didn’t get to be disappointed in me, though. He needed to die just like Lando.

“Try again,” he repeated himself, this time in a husky rasp.

Lando had only been the first because he was the easiest. Just had to ask him if he’d help me debut in high society. Of course he’d agreed so that he could take credit for how well I did. In exchange, I’d learned how to poison him in a way that couldn’t be traced back to me.

Even with all my training the last two years, I was still only Level 20. Father was at Level 92 because of his decades of experience raiding dungeons as the duke. That meant he had better stats than me, nearly twice as many skills as me, and he’d been able to evolve them far past where I’d been able to evolve mine.

That didn’t factor in the large discrepancy in how much magic we could use because the quality of his soul was significantly better than mine at SSS-Rank. And there wasn’t anything I could do to close that canyon of magical potential between us.

Two years in the north wasn’t enough, even with Helas teaching me how to fight.

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Still, I needed to escape if I didn’t want to die.

“Why would I know anything more than you do about his death?” I asked instead of answering him again.

“Khavura give me patience,” Father mumbled under his breath. “You’re still my son, and so I’ll give you one last opportunity.”

I glanced at the rune on the floor. Now with a clear head, I recognized it: dio rakaz—destroy magic in the language of the gods. The anti-magic spell. Panic crept down my back like a cold drop of water. I clenched my teeth against it.

If I couldn’t use magic to escape, then I’d rely on my skills. I activated [Revenge Best Served Cold]. The skill had helped me plan one perfect murder already. I just needed to know one of Father’s weaknesses—anything that I could exploit to get out of this.

【NOTICE】

You have activated Revenge Best Served Cold [Uncommon] for the first time today.

Your awareness broadens to uncover up to two of your target’s weaknesses if they possess any. Please concentrate on your target...

“If I’m going to be interrogated anyway,” I said, trying to stall, “then I might as well tell you everything.”

“Good.” Father’s tone lifted, talking to me like I was still a child, which churned my stomach. Why was I looking at him and still finding no weakness to exploit?

“Where should I start?” I asked.

“Let’s work backwards. Where have you been for the last two years?”

If he was here, didn’t he already know? “Right here where you found me. Bolstaor University, in the capital of Sørgentsen. It’s not your first time here, right?”

“What have you been doing here?”

Not training hard enough to kill you or even escape you, unfortunately. I gave him my cover story—or at least half of it. “Studying potions. What about you? Doing everything a father should do for his sons?”

He didn’t need to know about Helas. Even if putting him on her trail might get him killed by her, I couldn’t risk it if I wasn’t even going to be around to be sure.

“Why did you come to Sørgentsen, Geram?”

So maybe he already knew about her. That I’d tracked her here to train with her so I could kill him and my other brother Boyet, Father’s little sword master protégé. How long would he let me stall without giving him the answers he wanted?

“Because Bolstaor is known for its potions program?” I said. “I figured if I was going to study potions, I should learn from all the best.”

Father stamped his wooden cane in front of him—a familiar move. He didn’t need it as a walking aid, but because it was by his side all the time, it was easy to forget that it was his favorite weapon. A threat if I’d ever seen one.

“Or…not?” I faltered on purpose, pulling my gaze from the cane he clearly wanted to beat me with. “Help your youngest son out a bit here. What answer are you looking for from me here?”

Why was [Revenge Best Served Cold] taking so long? An old injury, a fleeting feeling of inferiority or fear, or even something as simple as the urge to check my bindings.

Just one weakness. Any weakness will do.

“I’ll rephrase,” Father said. “Why did you move here to study potions after Lando’s death? And I will caution you here. You’re going to answer me with the truth because anything else will get you executed. By me. I’ll cut your lying tongue out myself.”

Great image.

【NOTICE】

Unfortunately, your target has no weaknesses that you can exploit.

You may activate Revenge Best Served Cold [Uncommon] once more today.

I could’ve laughed. So he had no weaknesses. Or I was too weak to exploit any of them. No one would be fast enough to save me even if I screamed—not even Helas. What did I have to lose if I was going to die anyway?

“I’ll start from the beginning,” I said, nodding as if I’d decided to suddenly cooperate.

“Fine.” Father raised his eyes to the low ceilings. Probably praying to Khavura for even more patience.

“Maybe not at the very beginning because, I’ll be honest, I don’t remember much from before Mother got sick. Too young probably. Or just nothing worth remembering?”

He made no reaction, which wasn’t satisfying at all.

“So I’ll start with my most important memory from when I was younger. I’d have you take a guess, but you haven’t answered any of my questions so far. Should be obvious anyway. It’s the day Mother died.”

Something in the room shifted.

“Don’t you remember?” I continued. Still no reaction. His angled features were stone. “You were there. So were Boyet and Lando. We had a nice family dinner for the first time since Mother got sick before we all gathered in the reception room to meet this doctor you’d found who could cure her. That was not what happened though, did it?”

This time I chuckled. “Who knew you were the doctor and that your cure was killing her? You choked her until she fell at your feet. And if that wasn’t enough, you stabbed her in the heart and then cut off her head. Were you scared she’d come back to life?”

Father said nothing. I could not possibly hate this man any more. I wanted to smile at that, but I managed to keep it off my face. Lando had taught me well.

I kept going. “Let me guess. Why would you know what happened with Mother? Why would you know anything more than I do about her death? At least I had a reason for what I did. I wanted revenge. What did you want?”

Father kicked over my chair, and I fell backward with a grunt, my bound hands crushing into the small of my back. The impact sent a sharp stabbing pain into the joints in my shoulders and arms. Vials on my potion table rattled against their metal holders.

He put his boot on the seat of my chair between my legs, leaned over his knee until our eyes met. His long black hair fell over his shoulder and into my face. “So you do remember that day. Lando, though, had nothing to do with that woman’s death.”

That woman?

The terror of my impending death faded into anger quickly.

“Lando and Boyet both watched you kill Mother and did nothing to stop you.”

Father cracked his neck, the movement and angle inhuman, the sound far too loud. His fair skin reddened like burning flesh, crimson ram horns growing from his forehead and twisting into shape. The face of a demon—something I’d only seen in the nightmares I’d written off as fiction.

But how?

The little sounds I’d registered without much notice before joining the ear-splitting buzz of [Cold-Blooded Nature] warning me of danger. The wind rattling the windows above my potions table and the snow fluttering against the glass. Father’s hoarse breathing and the aberrant beating of his heart.

“I don’t care about Lando,” he said.

“Then why are you here?” I had to laugh. Now that was satisfying. Couldn’t remember when I last laughed like this. The sound rolled out of me without effort, bursting from the part of my soul that ached for revenge the most.

Father lifted his boot away and rounded the chair. Breathless, I struggled against the rope binding my hands and feet to the chair as he kneeled at my side.

“I needed to assess whether you know too much,” he whispered.

His mouth started tearing at the corners and splitting across his face. His rare smile accompanied pointed teeth.

Had a demon possessed my father?

How could that have happened?

When could it have happened?

Silent realization cut through the noise, replacing it with an overwhelming sense that I had the answer—answers. That I’d had them all along. My nightmares had been screaming at me that there had been one last ugly truth I had to remember.

But it was too late.

Father slid his red-scaled clawed grip down the length of his cane to the opposite end. He raised it above his head as he stood and brought down its rounded handle with all his weight.

Pain exploded across my face. My skull cracked along my forehead with the first hit. The second shattered a cheekbone. The third burst through my eye socket. I lost track after that.

I shouldn’t have been able to stay conscious, but [Cold-Blooded Nature] ensured that I did until he’d finished, cleaned off the handle of his cane, and walked out of the room.

My final breath came quickly after that.

But I didn’t want to die. I wasn’t ready.

No, I had to survive this—no matter what it took. I refused to die with my entire being. Even after my heart stopped beating, I willed something else to pulse within me.

And something did.

〖NOTICE〗

You have successfully started to tether your Demon Core [1%].

You now qualify to become a Slayer [Transcendental].

Do you accept this Class change?