The acrid stench of blood and burnt flesh clung to the air, mingling with smoke rising from the wreckage of twisted fighter jets—red-and-blue flagged machines from another world.
It was a graveyard.
Bodies of soldiers in unfamiliar uniforms lay strewn across the battlefield, eyes wide in death.
Among them, shattered dragon corpses littered the ground—once-mighty kings of the skies, now broken by relentless metal projectiles from beyond the gates.
Even beastkin—foxes, wolves, elves—were caught in the slaughter. But this wasn't a battle between worlds.
It was a massacre centered around one man.
A man, seated like a fallen god within the remains of a blackened palace atop a cliff. The sky above hung heavy with dark clouds, the earth beneath dead and cold from the nuclear wrath of the modern world invaders.
The sun had long been smothered.
Yet, through the irradiated ruin, a small group crept through the palace corridors.
Silent. Focused. Except for one.
"Can we really kill him?" whispered a shaken voice.
"He killed dragons and otherworlders alone," came another, quieter still.
A third, firm and calm, said, "He's wounded. And we have the Ghost Saintess with us."
None argued.
Leading them was a woman cloaked in silence, her grip tight around a hidden dagger. Amethyst eyes locked forward, though doubt gnawed at her. They trusted her to end this—but the closer they came, the heavier each step felt.
The grand chamber doors appeared, cracked and scorched, barely clinging to their hinges. She pushed them open.
Inside: a vast room, candlelit and draped in fading luxury. The untouched bed at its center gleamed pale in the light.
She approached, heart thudding, dagger glinting.
"I will repent my sin—"
Lifting the covers, she struck.
But—
A pillow.
Her breath hitched. Then—a voice, low and tired, cut through the stillness.
"You will not be alive to do that, Ruvina?"
She turned.
There, seated on a darkened throne, was the man.
His robe hung loose, exposing a bloodied, scarred body. A black, web-like wound pulsed across his chest, seething with dark energy. His eyes were shut—but somehow, he saw her.
He was still alive.
And watching.
[Rich AF System]
'Is this some kind of hallucination?'
Dryn's thoughts splintered, torn between the present—where he sat as a corrupted emperor—and flickering memories of another life: a game developer in a modern world. A life he'd only just remembered days ago.
And then, moments earlier, a translucent window had appeared before him—glowing text and strange prompts. Something he'd only seen in fiction.
A system.
He sat unmoving, half-embedded in the black, veiny demonic seed that crawled across his chest. It had consumed nearly half his body, shielding him from the radiation that suffocated the world outside.
"System, show me your features—" he muttered, voice low.
The white cherry blossom sword rested weakly in his left hand.
Then—they struck.
"Attack him!" a voice cried.
Four assassins launched forward, while their leader froze, eyes locked not on the man—but on the sword.
"You monster!" one shouted, blade arcing toward Dryn's head.
He didn't move.
Splash.
In an instant, the attackers burst into mist. Blood sprayed the chamber walls, rained across the polished floor, and splattered onto Dryn's exposed chest. His robe hung open, streaked in red.
Beneath the gore: scarred flesh, lacerations, and the pulsing parasite of the demonic seed, still alive and writhing.
He wiped the blood from his brow with one hand.
The metallic scent filled his nose. The sticky warmth reminded him—it was real.
"Let me deal with them first," he murmured.
Then, his eyes lifted.
"Ruvina... So you betrayed me too?"
His tone was distant. No anger. No sadness. Just resignation. His gaze drifted to the woman still standing. The Ghost Saintess. Frozen.
Her comrades lay in ruins around her. Shredded cloth. Nothing left but blood and silence.
Yet she didn't look at them.
Her wide, trembling eyes were fixed on the sword in his hand.
"N-Natalia's sword…" she whispered, her voice breaking. "You killed her…?"
Tears formed, red veins blooming across her sclera as emotion surged. The sword—white blossoms etched into its blade—had belonged to her sister. The one who had once loved him.
Dryn's eye opened.
His right sclera was pure black, with a single red dot glowing at its center. Cold. Inhuman.
"…Haa. The only one who stayed loyal."
His voice was bitter now. Not with pain—but memory.
They had all turned on him the moment they saw the seed.
All but her.
All but Natalia.
She was better than the others, yet not strong enough to live longer.
"You've truly become a devil, Dryn!" she shouted, taking a step back—not out of fear, but to tighten her grip on the dagger.
Without warning, she vanished, reappearing in front of him, dagger aimed with intent, plunging it directly into his chest.
[Finally! Host, the use of ghost dash has been detected. Does the host want to add it to the mirror shop? Y/N]
Schlt!
And he let her do it, ignoring the system's voice, as he believed he didn't need external help to deal with bugs.
Just to hear and remove any speck of mercy his heart might have.
"Cough… Haa, I told you all so many times…"
Blood ran from Dryn's lips as he allowed the dagger to sink into his chest. He could have dodged—easily—but chose not to. The blade lodged inches from his heart, Ruvina's fury trembling at the hilt.
"Ruvina… I'm in control. The seed doesn't own me."
His voice was ragged, but steady. Eyes locked on hers, expression void of emotion—too calm, too human, for someone half-devoured by darkness.
She didn't believe him.
"Liar!" she screamed. "You're brainwashed! You murdered so many!"
She pushed the blade deeper. The steel cracked through flesh, bone—straight into the heart that once beat for the world he tried to save.
Still, he did not resist.
'Naive…'
A faint, bitter smile curled his lips. Blood spilled freely from his mouth, and with it, the last ember of feeling in his chest. His heart was dying—but his mind remained sharp, clinging to one thought:
"Why did everyone betray me?" He swayed, eyelids heavy, as if slipping into unconsciousness. But even in his fading state, he searched her eyes—looking not for anger, but reason.
A hint of information to clear doubts that might become hurdles for him in the future.
"No one trusts a devil!" she cried. Her tears weren't fury. They were grief. Killing him hurt her far more than she'd ever admit.
"I see…" he whispered. "So none of you ever had a real reason."
And then—he moved.
With unnatural force, his hand closed around hers.
A cold, impossible strength pulsed through his veins. He pulled the dagger from his chest—not in pain, but with agility.
His right eye darkened, the last flicker of white vanishing.
His transformation was complete.
His human heart was gone—replaced with something else. Something demonic. Something belonging to devil.
"…Sweet dreams, Ruvina," he muttered, rising.
"Y-you—?" Ruvina's voice cracked in horror as she stumbled back.
But too late.
His sword—white-blossomed and blood-soaked—shot forward, plunging through her chest with a cruel, final whisper.
Schlk—!
Her body convulsed as blood splattered from behind her mask. She was lifted into the air, impaled and suspended, the sword humming with unnatural energy.
He held her there effortlessly, one hand on the hilt. Her dagger slipped from her fingers.
In that moment, realization dawned.
The sword.
Natalia's sword.
The only weapon capable of wounding her, even with her ghost ability. The only relic that ignored her soul nature.
She had walked willingly into her own death.
"Cough… I should've listened to the princess…" she choked, suspended by her sister's blade. Her voice faltered, not in pain—but in betrayal.
Dryn's gaze darkened.
"Princess? She is the one who killed Natalia. Not me, idiot."
His words were not angry, just exhausted. He didn't care to explain anymore. The betrayal of Ruvina, of his generals—it was always the same: blind trust in someone else, never in him.
And now, they would pay the price.
[Hey, Host, do you want to add the Elben Sword to the Mirror Shop? Y/N]
Another system prompt blinked faintly in the air.
He ignored it.
'!'
"Urgh, y-you're lying—" Thud.
Her words crumbled into the floor alongside her body. Her wide, trembling eyes mirrored thunderstruck disbelief—unable to accept that the princess held no enmity toward her.
Dryn said nothing. He simply grabbed a fistful of her hair and dragged her down the corridor, toward the ritual site he had prepared—an arrangement set in place using memories he now believed were fragments of a former life.
Those memories were making him see the world from a new perspective compared to how he did in the present, while also achieving something called a system.
However, he wanted not to use it, at least at a time when this world had nothing left to save.
"Krghh… y-you—" she gasped, the sword's curse freezing her limbs, her body little more than a ragdoll scraping against the palace floor.
Dryn didn't glance at her. His mind was elsewhere.
Too much chaos…
He weighed whether to access the System's interface now, or wait. Time was short.
In that former life, he'd been a game developer—and now, with those memories returned, he understood this world.
It was a loop. A cruel one. But he had found a crack in it. A cheat.
He passed a window. Flames devoured the horizon, once the proud domain of his kingdom. Ash drifted like snow. He paused only a moment to stare at the ruins—then moved on.
No regret. Just calculation.
He'd uncovered a loophole—regression magic. A forbidden ritual buried beneath centuries of theory and madness. The kind of thing his rational mind would've dismissed outright.
But the other him… the him who once knew this world inside and out… had found a way.
The cost, however, was apocalyptic.
Seven days.
A million souls.
And a sacrifice of those bound to his heart.
His body was already crumbling. The demonic seed writhed inside, devouring him slowly. Only sheer will kept his consciousness tethered.
There wasn't enough time to explore the System he had just awakened. Not with the darkness crawling deeper.
---
"Ugh… am I dying like this…?"
Ruvina's awareness faded in and out as her body was dragged through the blood-slick halls. Finally, they reached the training grounds.
Her blurred vision barely made out the crimson circle etched into the earth before she was hurled into its center.
Thud.
"Kurgh—!" Her body convulsed, and tears leaked down her face as she turned her head… and saw them.
Four corpses.
One man. Three women.
Each face familiar. Each expression frozen in anguish.
"Aarghhh—n-no, no…"
Tears blurred her vision. Her heart, paralyzed by horror, ached more than her body.
Dryn stood outside the circle, draped in a white bathrobe, hands in his pockets, unmoved. Waiting.
"Just one more," he muttered, his eyes turned upward toward the sky.
BOOM!
Thunder split the sky.
A radiant blur—a four-winged angel—plummeted through the heavens, locked in battle with a shadowy humanoid force. The two collided mid-air.
The angel was thrown from the heavens—hurtling straight toward Dryn.
BANG!
The impact split stone. Her glowing body skidded across the ground and crashed into a wall, crumpling like paper.
Clap. Clap.
"Well done, Noir."
Dryn clapped lazily, watching as the dark figure transformed into a man in a pristine butler uniform.
The demon knelt. "I have fulfilled my task, Master."
Dryn gave him a nod and was about to walk toward the bloodied angel before he once again heard the same mechanical voice
[ Do you want to add Summoned Archdemon in Mirrror Shop? Y/N ]
'...do it..' However, this time he did not reject it.
Given these notifications, he was able to understand that the system referring to a mirror shop seems to have a feature for storing items that might be profitable if they are retained when he return to the past.
If there was really something he would like to have accompany him, it would be this.
But the question was whether this would reset once he regresses back.
The angel coughed, spitting crimson, yet her lips curled upward. Amused.
"You finally beat me, Darling~♡," she crooned, voice still sweet despite the blood. Her gaze burned with seductive madness.
Dryn scoffed, scratching his ear with a pinky as if not even giving value to this obsessed psycho woman. Then he grabbed her by the wings—his brother's wings, now hers—and dragged her toward the circle.
"Oh my, Darling~♡, you'll ruin these pretty wings if you're that rough, hehe~♡."
Ruvina watched, barely breathing.
'Pri...ncess…?'
It was her. The famed fairy-blooded princess—now broken, smiling through blood and madness.
Ruvina had never seen Princess like that, giggling even after being nearly killed by that man.
"See what the world has become because of you, psycho bitch?" Dryn yanked her into the circle. She landed hard on her back, her wings limp.
"Hehehe… the sky… looks just like your eyes darling—"
SWOOSH
Her voice was cut off as the ritual circle pulsed. Darkness surged.
She smiled as the world darkened—her last sight the same color as Dryn's eyes: no longer yellow, but dark, cloudy.
Dryn stood at the edge of it all.
'Should I kill them the moment I return?'
No.
'Nah… they need to suffer.'
And with that thought—he activated the forbidden spell.
Regression.