Fifteen broken ribs. Both hands shattered. Dislocated shoulder. Fractured skull. A concussed brain. Left leg gone. Right leg is in surprisingly good condition. Destroyed vertebrae. Herniated discs. Painful ligaments. Aching joints. Torn muscles. A punctured lung.

I was doing well, all things considered. I should have expected this outcome. A one-sided fight against a damn demon. Both in the figurative and literal sense. Sure, I was a genius in magic and swordsmanship, but I was 13, for God's sake.

Daemons have the natural capacity to live at least 200 years. I'd fought someone way out of my league. If I was maybe ten years older, I might have stood a chance, but not in my current situation.

I was, and still am, the best magician and fighter my age, but plenty were older and better than me. Being able to control mana innately at the age of 1, I recognized my uniqueness. People called me hardworking, talented, and innovative, among other things.

By the time I was 12, I had become a fifth-circle mage, a feat that even the best of geniuses could only reach in their 20s. I can use all eight elements at an advanced level. I can also manipulate mana in ways never seen before—a bona fide magical genius.

I was also an upcoming swordsman and had already reached the third tempering stage. Tempering was the magic fighters used to reinforce their bodies.

The public knew this as the fantastic feats of Alexander Bellmont, the heir to the Bellmont Duchy.

Yet that was all the public knew. Not only did I achieve all those remarkable feats, but I was unique in another way. I had memories of my past life. A secret I would keep to the grave.

I didn't remember who I was or even what I did in my past life, but I had all the knowledge. I remembered a world of technology, math, art, and electricity, sharply contrasting with this world of magic and monsters.

It was like learning a lot of stuff at a very young age but having no lived experience to accompany it.

I was fully conscious by the time I was 6 months old. To think with clarity and perceive with the vividness of an adult brain.

I have no memories of my past name, family, or friends, but all I had learned and thought about the world carried on. My personality was me, but my knowledge was inherited.

When I became conscious, all my knowledge trickled in at once. It took me around three months to fully inherit my knowledge and make sense of my life as a newborn and where my knowledge came from.

I was pretty confident I wasn't a reincarnation or possessed by some spirit, but I had been given or had unlocked knowledge of a world different from the one I lived in. From observation of my life, I knew I was in a world where magic, or at least what was considered magic from my knowledge, existed.

I also knew that my knowledge said magic wasn't real, but it was real here, so I was in a different reality or world than where my knowledge came from.

One of the reasons I was so good at magic was my innate curiosity, which came from my early consciousness and knowledge. This curiosity drove me to explore magic and the world, and it was this blind curiosity that led me to where I am today.

In all the novels I'd read or, rather, knew, the protagonists hid their power. They did so to avoid ending up like me, targeted for my anomaly, and almost killed for it.

It started on New Year's. Returning from the imperial ball with my family, we saw that our duchy was under attack by monsters. There had been no preparation, no warning. After securing my siblings and me, our parents left to defend the duchy.

They were the duchy's most potent forces. My mother is a fantastic ninth-circle mage, and my father is a seventh-rank warrior. They are among the Empire's top ten powers.

I was left to defend my younger siblings, two three-year-old twin sisters. The family butler also helped me care for them, which I greatly appreciated. As the best fighting force among them, it was up to me to keep them safe from the monster tide.

I went out, and the butler took care of my siblings in a little cave we found for shelter. There were already some low-level monsters sniffing around outside. I rushed to take care of them before securing the cave. They would be safe here. The duchy needed reinforcements, and I was planning on going.

Conjuring up an earth barrier and laying down some array formations, I left without delay. It would already be too much for the butler or me if anything could get past my barriers. After all, barriers were my specialty. I went toward town, cleaning up monsters and helping whatever people I could along the way.

When I finally came out of the forest, I saw the city below, destroyed beyond recognition. At its source was a large man—or rather, upon closer inspection, a daemon. Daemons are a humanoid race of magical beings that once were at war with humans.

Yet, the last of the daemons moved to the western continent almost 200 years ago. They shouldn't have been here now. I continued observing the daemon, a giant beast of a man with hair covering every part of his body and a piggish face.

I was amazed because I had never seen an actual daemon in person. But my amazement didn't last long, as I saw my parents approaching him in battle. My face turned pale as I realized one thing—my parents would never defeat him.

While strong, among the top ten in the Empire, my parents were still young. Daemons could live twice as long as humans, the oldest known being 243 years old before they died. Judging by the aura of the daemon, he was at least 100.

That meant he had trained way longer than my parents. His mana core was blue, one level above my mom's, and his aura suggested a tempering level of at least eight. All the tiers were exponential, so he was at least multiple times stronger than my parents.

I had to do something. And so I did, using my most potent attack magic, space magic. I had only recently started dabbling in the space element, so I couldn't summon a black hole or tear space apart. However, with enough time and energy, I could make a blade. If I pulled it off, it would be my most risky and powerful attack. But I didn't know how effective it would be.

It would kill him at best or do nothing at worst, but it was better than seeing my parents die. It's clear that it didn't work; I am lying here, half-dead.

My parents had fought with great determination and valor as I prepared the magic. They bought me enough time to finish my magic and come in with a surprise attack. The blade managed to take the guy's arm off, but to him, it might as well have pricked. While I managed to injure him far worse than my parents had, I paid the price.

The wound was easily healed, and he was pissed enough to beat me half to death. None of my other attacks got me out of the stun combo he gave me. I resigned myself to death, but not before a final trick. The daemon had already flung and chased me out of town, so we were far from any people.

As such, I didn't have to worry about any casualties. I started my final magic as the daemon loomed over me. The guy was talking, giving his villain monologue as he stood over my body. He'd won and now was gloating.

"You must be Alex." He started. "The prodigal genius. The once-in-a-generation talent."

"And who are you?" I asked with a challenging tone.

"You'll be dead before long, but I'll tell you. My name is Zulran, and I am from the House of Tennak. Remember my name as your executioner. Though, you won't have to remember it for long."

As the daemon raised his weapon, a giant executioner's axe that appeared out of nowhere, I bid for more time.

"Before you kill me, at least tell me why you attacked the duchy," I asked.

"It's useless to try and buy time, you know. You're not leaving alive." He paused. "But I guess I can answer your question." The daemon lowered his axe and planted it on the ground. "I originally wasn't planning to, but you forced my hand.

I'm a general in the Daemon King's army—the mightiest of the mighty. Usually, I wouldn't even be on this continent.

But there was a prophecy—a child of destruction born to humans, destined to lead the world to ruin. Now, you aren't it, but you are close." The daemon knelt over me and looked me in the eyes.

"I can see your soul, anomalous as the night is dark—a wrench in our plans. You had to go. You might not be the one of prophecy, but we cannot ignore anomalies. Not when we are so close." The daemon's tone had turned icy. He moved his head back, standing straight and looking down at me.

"You know what the funny thing is?" he continued. "I'm an advance guard, not to act without reason. I didn't even know you were an anomaly at first.

I was here to scout the humans and gauge their power. The prophesied child will not be born for another 15 years. It was your bad luck that I stumbled upon you, " he chuckled.

"Ah, sorry, it wasn't by chance but by your hubris. You might not be aware, but your fame has spread far: 'The mythical child,' they call you. 'The greatest genius of the era.' That made me think: what if the prophecy came early?

I had to check it out—it was my job as a scout. The prophecy concerns not my interest but the entire world's safety. Of course, I know now that you aren't the one of prophecy, but even then, I can't let you live.

Still, your hubris caused this destruction. I wouldn't have attacked if you had kept your power a secret. You revealed information that made you a threat, and I happened to be the one to deal with it." The daemon shook his head, almost in pity.

"A prodigy like you should have been protected, not revealed until the best possible moment. The Empire must have gotten soft after all these years. And you… you should've kept quiet."

Those were the last words from the daemon's mouth as he lowered his axe onto my neck.

It was then I ignited my ace: a mini-nuclear reaction. But instead of uranium or plutonium, it was with mana. It was a theoretical plan I had come up with. I exploded dense enough mana to cause a chain reaction with all the ambient mana. I had experimented with this on a smaller scale but had never scaled it up.

This time, it wasn't some slim mana crystal. I exploded my whole mana core—a solid four-inch-diameter sphere of mana. I didn't know what had happened, but I woke up here after the explosion.