Reincarnated as an Evil Harem God

And then the forest shuddered.

"Move out of my way, you damn cowards!" The roar exploded like thunder through the trees, not from the sky, but from the old man whose presence burned brighter than any sun, and his voice cracked through the clearing with such fury that even the birds above silenced themselves, the wind pausing mid-breath as if the whole forest understood that something sacred had just been unleashed.

"This child is still my grandson. You want to extract his core? Fine. That might save him. But if any of you even think about killing him—I will fucking kill all of you, and then I'll kill myself. Are we clear?!"

No one moved. No one dared speak.

"Father—" Arathor began, taking a tentative step forward, and though his voice tried to sound strong, it trembled like a blade pressed too long against bone, cracking beneath the weight of a man who no longer held conviction, and Sylvaris watched him with the same disdain he always had, because he knew that tone too well—it was the voice of someone who still thought he could justify cowardice with enough flowery words.

But the old man turned.

His eyes locked onto Arathor with the calm fury of someone who had been betrayed far too many times, and there was no fire, no raised hand, no grand display of anger, just a cold finality in his stare that could shatter the spine of a king.

"You have no right to call me your father," he said, and the words did not echo, because they did not need to, they buried themselves directly into the air, into the roots of the trees, into the blood-stained grass beneath their feet, where even the wind dared not carry them away, because this wasn't just disownment, this was an execution of kinship, and it couldn't be undone, not by time, not by blood, not by prayer.

"Come here, you little hooligan… what mess did you stir for us this time, huh?"

Sylvaris watched from the edge of the memory, arms crossed and golden eyes narrowed, not with anger but with something far heavier, something that rested in the quiet space between nostalgia and grief, that slow-burning ache that lingers like an old scar no one touches for years until one day it splits open with the gentlest brush, and as he stared ahead, it was not fury that filled him but that bitter recognition, the realization that some wounds never truly close.

And in that stillness, his grandfather stepped forward, his movements firm and unshaken, each step carved with purpose, each breath drawn without fear, and there was nothing hesitant in the way he approached the small horned child crouched in the blood-soaked grass, nothing uncertain in the way he looked at the demon they all feared—not like a monster, not like a ticking weapon—but like a boy who had caused another mess, a child who needed to be lifted up, cleaned off, and reminded that no matter what they said, he was still loved.

There was no hesitation in his movements, no reaching for a sword, no protective spells forming at his fingertips, no second-guessing in his eyes—just the steady resolve of a man who had already made up his mind and didn't care what anyone else thought, and without pause, without ceremony, he stepped close, dropped to one knee in the blood-muddied grass, and wrapped his arms around the child as if none of the horrors mattered.

And what happened next was not what anyone expected.

The little beast, the source of all their fear and trembling silence, did nothing.

He didn't bite, didn't scratch, didn't wail or claw or scream, there were no growls, no lashes of shadow, no sudden flares of violence tearing through the clearing, no eruption of chaotic power like before, and though every adult eye had braced for it, had expected the worst, the boy simply sat still.

He allowed it.

The demon-child, whose horns still dripped with the blood of something too large to have died at the hands of someone so small, whose fanged mouth had tasted raw flesh far too early, did not rage or flinch, did not curse or recoil. He simply leaned in, resting his body against the only arms in the world that had never once feared him, and he let himself be held, curling into that warmth like he'd been waiting for it through a thousand lifetimes, like even the beast beneath the skin understood there was still one person left in the world who would never throw him away.

His small clawed fingers twitched, not in resistance but in something far more subtle, a hesitant brush of comfort or recognition, the instinctive motion of a child who didn't know how to accept affection, but didn't want to lose it either, and his glowing eyes, once filled with fury, flickered once—dimmed, softened—and for the first time in that entire memory, they looked almost human.

And Sylvaris, watching all of it unfold from the edge of the memory, arms crossed and heart thudding beneath the calm exterior he had long since forged from steel and silence, felt something stir deep within his chest—not rage, not the familiar thirst for vengeance, but something quieter and far more dignified, a warmth rising slowly through the cold that had long ruled him, not soft or fleeting, but steady, woven through every frozen inch of his spirit.

Because in that moment, he remembered that at least one man in his bloodline had never bent, had never betrayed, had never chosen duty or convenience over blood, a man who had stood beneath the canopy of green with hands stained not with guilt, but with defiance and love, who had refused to let fear or power or whispers in the dark dictate the worth of his grandson, who had faced down the family and the future alike, not for glory, but for the boy in his arms.

Grandfather... Sylvaris thought, and the name curled around his heart like smoke from a dying fire, aching in the way only memories can ache, the kind of pain that comes not from loss alone, but from the knowledge that what was once whole had never been replaced. He missed him. He missed him in ways he could no longer put into words.