C1 Chapter 1 : I am Back? (Part 1)

An excruciating pain spread through my body. It was Silver Serpent poison—said to be exceedingly rare. Yet once it took root inside the body, there was no doubt its effects were brutally vicious.

The presence of this poison was none other than the work of the oppressive authority that wielded the highest power in the palace: a woman with dark purple hair, relentless in her mission to eliminate me since long ago.

She stood upon the marble floor, her high heels chiming sharply.

Her voice rang out, shrill, its echo rebounding off the vaulted ceiling.

“Still not dead? How disappointing. I even went through the trouble of hiring someone to steal that poison far in advance—especially for you, from the residence of the Grand Physician,” she said, looking down at me with disdain.

For a moment, all I could offer was laughter. She spoke of something so horrific as if it were nothing at all.

Blood trickled from the corner of my lips.

My hands trembled as I braced myself against the round table near the window, directly opposite where the Empress stood.

I knew it was already too late to try to protect myself.

But I would not be satisfied until I vented this frustration upon her.

“So it turns out you nobles are so weak that you’re terrified of a servant’s child?!” My words wiped the smirk from her face. Her steps halted as she settled into a finely carved wooden chair—her legs crossed, concealed beneath a thick gown that curved along her figure.

A spray of blood burst forth.

It came from my throat.

The woman smiled askew.

“Well… you’ll be joining your mother soon enough. I’ll take that as your last words!” she said, tracing the rim of her teacup with a slender finger.

I frowned. My body felt as though it were being stabbed by thousands of daggers from within, my vision blurring like drifting fog.

I collapsed where I was, falling to my knees with a pitiful expression. I could not even bring myself to look at her face.

Perhaps she was smiling in satisfaction.

“So this is how it ends?” I whispered faintly, my breath leaving me in shallow gasps, my eyes nearly half-lidded like a fragment of the full moon.

Would anything have been different if my mother had not been a servant?

I do not know.

At this moment, the palace lay firmly in the Empress’s grasp. After the rebellion incident, even my father—the Emperor—had not survived her schemes.

I did not love that old man.

He had discarded us since the day I was born.

Still, I thought the Crown Prince would be different.

Who would have thought that his invitation to enter the palace was nothing more than a way to assign me the position of his servant?

SRATTT! CRATTTT!

A sword strike landed in a flash, my life taken in a single motion before I could even react.

BRUKK

My body fell flat upon the marble floor, blood slowly pooling beneath me.

At last, it was over.

I stared at the ceiling, that thought lingering, my lips pale and dry. My palms lay limp as the Empress’s foot crushed them beneath her heel. Yet I felt nothing anymore.

Would my corpse sink into a pool of blood?

If I were given a second chance, Empress—and all the palace members who conspired with you—I would make you pay this debt.

And that foolish Emperor would have to accept my mother as his lawful wife.

Crown Prince, I will not let you take the throne so easily.

A civil war must happen.

But what use is it now? The Empress has already seized all of my father’s power and everything within the Magnus Empire.

All that remains is darkness.

I remember dying because of the Empress—so why am I hearing voices that sound so familiar now?

Strangely, the pain in my body vanished at once.

“Hey, bastard!” a voice boomed, its echo pounding against my eardrums.

“Still not getting up?!” It came again, but I ignored it.

SPLASH! THUD!

It felt as if a wave had slammed into my face. My eyes flew open to find my entire body drenched in water. I gasped for air, my gaze fixed on an overturned bucket lying on the creaking wooden floor.

My eyes widened as I scanned my surroundings—everything looked familiar.

“This…?” I whispered, wiping the water from my face with both hands.

“Tch, this bastard finally woke up!” someone snapped as my collar was suddenly yanked forward. Standing before me was a figure I knew all too well.

Aron, a fifteen-year-old servant who had bullied me relentlessly when I was a child.

At first, he merely mocked me with light insults. But because I always stayed silent, his behavior only grew worse.

Despite knowing that I was of imperial blood—combined with the Empress’s authority restricting our allowance and servants, and the rumors that spread—everyone in the empire ostracized my mother and me.

They regarded us as nothing more than outcasts.

“Since when are you allowed to laze around!” Aron’s palm tapped my cheek. His voice trembled as his lips jutted forward. Then he slapped me, the sound of skin striking skin resounding sharply.

SLAP!

My head snapped to the side, pain mixed with heat forcing my eyes wide open.

Yet there was something that puzzled me even more.

Why did this hurt?