Chapter-11-“The Devil Beneath the Roots”-

When men become gods, they forget they were once prey."

The dining hall was a battlefield of veiled threats, its air heavy with the stench of candlewax and betrayal. Crystal chandeliers cast fractured light across polished mahogany, illuminating the faces of those who'd rather see Zairen dead than seated among them. At the table's edge, Zairen's ten-year-old frame seemed frail, swallowed by the oversized chair, but his eyes—sharp as shattered obsidian—burned with a predator's hunger. Across from him, his Uncle Vireal's smile was a blade dipped in honey, while his Aunt Meralyn's gaze dripped venom, her fingers twitching as if itching to strangle him. Calyen, their son, gripped his silver goblet until his knuckles whitened, his glare a promise of violence. Seressia, the Viscount's daughter, sat like a statue carved from ice, her curiosity flicking toward Zairen—a serpent sizing up its prey. Only Viscount Draven spoke to Zairen from time to time, offering him a kind smile.After an hour and so Viscount Draven rose, his velvet cloak sweeping the floor like a shadow. "Come, Seressia."

"Yes, Father." She stood gracefully, her movements fluid yet deliberate. Her eyes lingered on Zairen for a heartbeat—sharp, cold, but laced with a spark of intrigue that set his nerves alight. Then she turned, following her father out without a backward glance.

Calyen watched her go, his face twisting with wounded pride. She hadn't spared him a single look. "She didn't even glance at me…" he hissed, leaning toward Zairen. "You bastard. I'll kill you."

Zairen met his gaze, unflinching, a faint smirk curling his lips. The boy's rage was a child's tantrum—pathetic, predictable.

Vireal turned, his voice smooth as poisoned wine. "You may go to your room, Zairen."

"Gladly." Zairen's smile was cold, cruel, a blade unsheathed. He stood, his steps echoing through the hall like a war hymn, each one a silent proclamation of victory. Plan succeeded. Let the games begin.

Outside, the night was a silent hunter, the moon hanging like a slit throat bleeding silver over the estate's misted woods. Vireal escorted his guests to their carriage, their murmurs swallowed by the darkness. The moment the wheels crunched away on the gravel path, Lady Meralyn rounded on him, her voice a venomous hiss. "Why did you agree to that? Why let him go?"

"Yes, Father!" Calyen snapped, his face flushed with fury. "You said he was nothing! A nobody!"

Vireal's grin was a slash of poison in the moonlight. "Because, my dear, sometimes you let the fool walk into the lion's den."

"What?" Calyen's brow furrowed, confusion warring with his anger.

"I've placed our own men in the bandit raid" Vireal said, his voice low and lethal, each word a carefully placed dagger. "Not for protection… but for execution. If Zairen dies out there, it's over. No suspicion. No blood on our hands."

Meralyn's lips curved into a wicked smile, her eyes glinting like a vulture's. "Then let's pray the bandits are ravenous."

Calyen hesitated, his voice tighter now. "But… how did he feel mana? How? after so many year we thought he's mana circuit broken

Vireal's face darkened, a storm brewing behind his eyes. "I don't know. But if he's playing a game, we'll end it. No one threatens Lord Vireal Kaelridge and lives."

In his sparse room, Zairen sat by the window, moonlight carving jagged shadows across his scarred hands. The Viscount's carriage had long vanished into the forested hills, swallowed by the mist that clung to the earth like a shroud. He smirked, a jagged wound of a grin that didn't belong on a child's face.

"Let the hunt begin," he murmured. "Let the knives dance in the dark. I'll become more than they ever feared."

The night answered, thick with rot and betrayal: Thump. Thump. Thump.

War drums in your chest, child of ghosts. The dead are not done with you yet.

Zairen stood, slipping outside to the muddy path beyond the manor. His boots sank into the earth, rooting him as he stared down the abyss of the road. The gnarled branches overhead twisted like skeletal fingers, and the moon's light bled through them, painting the world in shades of silver and shadow. He chuckled, a low, guttural sound that vibrated in his chest.

"I know your game, Uncle Vireal," he whispered to the wind. "A staged bandit ambush, your own men slipped into the guild's party to slit my throat. You think I'm just a boy, barely awakened to mana, easy to bury in the dirt."

He spat into the mud, his grin stretching unnaturally wide, a predator baring its teeth. "You're not entirely wrong… but you're not ready for the devil you invited."

In his past life, Zairen had been no mere boy. He'd stood at the precipice of godhood, a warlord who'd toppled kingdoms and torn secrets from the bleeding mouths of gods. He'd been inches from eternity—until that wretched hero and his self righteous party shattered his ambitions. Now, reborn in this frail body, he carried the weight of those memories, a storm of rage and cunning coiled in his chest.

"If you or that vulture aunt dare interfere again," he growled, "I'll carve deaths so cruel even hell will flinch."

He turned back toward the estate, his steps deliberate, a shadow gliding through the mist. His mind churned with a singular focus Viscount Elvaron Draven's was a fool. Kind. Honest. Doomed by his own virtues. Zairen's past-life memories surged—a future where Draven's fief crumbled under betrayal. Hidden beneath his land was an artifact, buried under a tree of rot that wept blood and whispered secrets. A lowborn boy had found it by chance, offering bread and water to its hollow trunk. The tree awoke, granting him three gifts: a twin-scroll of lesser spells, a bone-carved magical staff, and a relic that amplified a subclass twofold.

Zairen's breath fogged in the cold air. "I need that tree before House Draven is slaughtered. Before Elvaron swings from a rope like a broken marionette."

he saw it clearly—the mob's torches, twisted bodies, children burned to silence their screams. Draven's kindness had been his undoing. He'd tried to expose the corruption of the other five viscounts, only to be framed and executed by a spineless Duke.

Zairen wouldn't save him. "Because he's my father's friend? Hah." He spat into the dirt. "Bullshit."

This world was merciless: the strong ruled, the weak rotted. Let the worms feast on broken spines while kings rose from ash and iron. Draven's fate was sealed, but the artifact would be Zairen's stepping stone to power.

He slipped back into the manor, changed into plain clothes, and sank into his bed. His dreams pulsed with blood and fire, the echoes of his past life whispering of vengeance. Sleep claimed him, but his heart beat with the rhythm of war.

Morning broke, gray and merciless. Zairen woke before the sun, the manor cloaked in ghostly creaks and the weight of treachery. He trained alone in the courtyard, a solitary figure against the dawn's chill.

For two hours, he ran, his feet bleeding against jagged stone. The pain was a reminder of his mortality, a fuel for his resolve. He lifted crude iron weights until his arms screamed, muscles burning under his thin frame. Then he seized a sword too heavy for his body, its blade rusted and ill-balanced. To the passing soldiers, his swings seemed wild, sloppy—a boy playing at war. But a closer look revealed the truth: each motion was a perfect dance of death, rooted in balance, a storm waiting to break.

The blade hissed through the air, singing of bloodshed. With a breathless curse, Zairen dropped it, the metal clanging against stone. "Trash," he muttered. "Doesn't fit this body. I'll forge a better one soon."

He returned to his quarters, washing sweat and blood away with freezing water that stung his skin. He donned clean robes, their coarse fabric a stark contrast to the silks of his past life. A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts.

"Master Zairen, dinner is ready," the maid's voice called, timid and trembling.

"Leave it on the table."

The door clicked shut. Zairen glanced at the tray—moldy bread, soup reeking of rot, a meal fit for rats. His smile was bitter, a shard of ice in his chest.

"I'm done playing servant."

He strode to the Grand Dining Hall