"Master Alistair!" "Master Alistair!" A voice yelled.
I woke to a start feeling like I just had the most intense hangover of my life.
Very much not how I wanted to start my morning. A high-pitched voice greeting me in a new day.
"Note to self: no more taking drugs from the first pretty stranger who offers," I groaned inwardly, feeling the regret settle in.
I lifted my covers, and my eyes bulged. Like a man who had never seen the sun I found myself enraptured. A beauty with red hair and swanlike eyes looked at me.
"Master? Are you okay! Do you need a doctor?" she asked, her voice soft like a doe.
As starstruck as I was I moved to respond.
"H..he-
My heart pulsed in discontent. I'd forgotten myself. I was Alistair Von Harrowvane now. And Alistair would never allow himself to speak to a maid on equal terms.
"No, I am well—"
Before I could finish, a tall, broad-shouldered figure strode into the room, his presence commanding the very shadows to bend around him. The air thickened with tension. The red-haired girl, Eva, stiffened at the sight of him, clearly unsettled.
"Seems my brother is recovering from another bender," he jested, his voice full of mockery. "Excuse us for a moment, Eva, my dear."
Alexander Von Harrowvane. Blessed by Orestia. The goddess of fire and life from birth they say. Fuck my life.
If I was a devil, he was a demon. His pastimes included murder, death and destruction. If you happened to have bumped into him on the street, he would do that oh so captivating smile that seemed to assure you of what a kind man he was. He would dust off your shoulder, laugh as if you'd shared some private joke and send them off with a wave.
Most people enter hell when they die. I liked to say hell is being within Alexandar's crosshairs. He'd first find out who your family was, their love, their weaknesses. He would seduce the one you loved. Fill them with dreams of a life filled with only pleasure and expectation. Make them leave you hollow. And only after being sufficiently broken would he then allow death to grace you.
There is no man more cruel or conceited. Give him an inch he would cut your throat. Give him nothing and he would burn you to ashes. I needed to be careful. One mistake and my new life would've ended before it could start.
I stood to my full height. The two of us were like ancient titans, locked in a silent, menacing standoff. His eyes—cold, dismissive—barely acknowledged me.
That would change.
"I've taken out tongues for less," I muttered, my voice low and icy, as my purple eyes narrowed.
He just laughed, a deep, mocking sound that echoed through the room, as if I'd told the greatest joke in the world.
"Oh, brother," he drawled, "I've missed you too."
Then the air ignited. Before I could react, his forearm slammed against my throat, pinning me to the wall. The impact shattered the stone behind me, my body feeling as though it had been crushed under a freight train. His arm grew hotter by the second, searing my flesh, the smell of burning skin filling the air.
But I wouldn't scream. Not for him. I wouldn't give him the satisfaction.
And just as suddenly as it started, it was over. I collapsed to the ground, gasping, the air around me suddenly cold and empty.
"How boring," he sighed, his voice dripping with disinterest. "Father wants to see you in his study. Sooner rather than later."
Without another glance, he turned and walked away, utterly indifferent to how close he'd come to killing me—his own brother.
The difference between us was like heaven and earth.
I let out a cackle, probably sounding like a madman. The maids likely thought I'd lost it, but how could I not laugh? Here I was, starting from zero, my reputation in ruins. I had no idea how to wield mana, and the odds of dying at the hands of my own family were far higher than from any outside threat.
Yet I smiled.
A world of mystery, power and fantasy. And I knew everything about it. Every cheat, quest and extra was within my eyeline. I only needed to grasp.
Alexander would know pain. But before that I needed to stabilize. I stood off with Alexander for one reason. I needed to see just how bloodthirsty he was. If he had permanently scarred me, it would have meant we were too far in the main story for my knowledge to matter.
"But no" I muttered to myself, a grin creeping onto my face.
This is perfect. This works. Right at the beginning of the 2nd year. I still have time. Time to build my power, to plan, to run damage control. Now before my quest of world domination starts. I have one last thing to do.
Time to meet my "father".
I walked through the luxurious halls of the Harrowvane manor. A truly beautiful sight. Black obsidian walls with golden white highlights. Pictures which depicted the heroes and monsters of old.
Beauty was everywhere. Especially in the women. The maids here could have been idols in my world. If these were the maids… Enough. I have bigger worries.
As I entered my father's study, the sheer force of his presence struck me like a hammer. Alexander had his sinful, fallen-angel beauty, whereas I looked more like a gothic, dollar-store version of Bruce Wayne. But my father—he was something else. Imagine a grizzly bear on steroids... and then imagine those steroids took steroids. Standing at 6'7" and easily 380 pounds of raw power, his square face hidden beneath a beard that could have been mistaken for a mountain itself, the man was a force of nature.
They used to call him behemoth in the previous war. But other than that, not much is told about him through the story. Such a character is mentioned and forgotten. But seeing him in the flesh makes me wonder... Just how could one forget him.
"Cease them" he said, the candles in the room blowing out from the power in his voice alone.
"Excuse my actions father" I muttered, dropping to one knee.
"Cease your foolish thoughts." He simply said, "In a week's time you shall be heading to the Obsidian Sanctum."
"Forgive me if I'm not prepared," I said, my voice laced with sarcasm. "I was under the impression I was expelled." Damn it, I hadn't meant to say that. That was Alistair's ego creeping into my thoughts—another damn problem to add to my growing list.
I winced as I saw my fathers grip visibly tighten. His gaze burned with wrath.
"Know your place boy!" My father roared. "You have been given a second chance. There won't be another. I will not have your sins run amok here. I am still paying for your mistakes the first year you mongrel." He whispered.
He moved in a flash, and I felt his massive hand around my throat. My hands scrambled as I squirmed like a rat in a trap.
"Pathetic, at least your brother can hide his deficiencies with power. You just coast off our name." He sneered.
I said nothing. I could only stay silent. Alistair's sins numbered in the thousands. I had no right to speak.
He let go letting me fall to the floor. "Prepare yourself. You head out on the morrow. Leave me".
I moved to fix myself and walked out the door. I paused at the entrance.
"Last chance Alistair" He spoke.
I conintued walking. I had bigger worries than him currently. My timetable had lessened. Time to figure out how exactly im going to survive the upcoming death trap.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED]
A surge of euphoria reached me. Oh, that works. That definitely works.
"Beginning from one" I said with a grin.
"Behemoth"
"A coward. That's what I am."
The thought gnawed at him, an unshakable truth that twisted his gut as he watched his son leave the study. His fists clenched, sparks of lightning flickering around him like anger barely contained. The manor itself trembled in response to his fury.
"What more could I do?" Behemoth roared, the sound booming through the walls. But soon, the lightning sputtered out, fading into dull embers, and his immense frame slumped into his throne. His eyes, heavy with regret, drifted toward the night sky.
"What... what more could I do?" he whispered; the words barely audible.
He poured himself a drink, his hands shaking just enough for him to notice. "I've given you everything you could've wanted. I loved you. I cried for you. I smiled when you took your first steps... and yet your sins keep multiplying."
His voice cracked, weighed down by a pain too deep to share with anyone.
"After your mother died, you were never the same. And neither was I." His breath hitched as the memories rushed back—her face, her voice, the life they had before everything fell apart. "They tell me it's not my fault, but it is. Your sins are mine. If I had been faster, smarter, younger... anything... maybe I could've stopped it."
He laughed, but it was the kind of laughter born of despair, the kind that came from a man who had seen too much and lost even more. He took a long drink, the liquid burning down his throat, but it didn't numb the emptiness.
"How different would my life have been?" he muttered, bitterly amused at the thought. "The two people I've brought into this world—they're no better than the scoundrels I used to kill. I can't change them... and I can't even change myself."
His gaze returned to the night sky, the moon casting a pale light across the room. His voice dropped to a whisper, almost as if the darkness itself were the only one who could hear him now.
"How would she have looked at me?"
And in the stillness of the room, as the weight of his failures settled on his shoulders, the Behemoth—this towering symbol of power—was just a broken man, lost in the shadows of his past.