The Regressed Son of a Duke is an Assassin

His stomach churned, his head throbbed painfully, his breathing became harsh, and heat surged through his body. This was identical to the physical changes Cyan had first experienced three years ago during his initial encounter with the Nephilim.

No other human being had ever felt such a bizarre transformation, which Cyan himself had defined. It was the moment death approached. More precisely, it was the futile resistance of a body aware of its impending demise, desperately flailing against it. Cyan never wanted to feel this change again after that day.

He never wanted to experience such a moment of utter helplessness, where despite the desperate struggles to live, no chance of overcoming was visible. But once imprinted, memories are not easily erased.

Clenching his chest where the mark was engraved, Cyan slowly raised his head.

“…It’s been a while, hasn’t it?”

The Nephilim.

The divine proxies sent by the gods to punish Cyan, marked by the sign of revelation. Just as when they first descended in Brenu, three giants armed with a spear, shield, and sword looked down upon him. These were not the fake minions summoned by the Saintess.

They were the real Nephilim, unmistakable even without testing their strength.

With a sickly sense of joy, Cyan smiled at them. Just as they had sought him for three years, Cyan too had been eagerly awaiting the day he would clash with them again.

Drawing his sword, Kaeram, Cyan took his stance.

The Nephilim in the middle, holding the sword, raised his hand to give the command to attack.

The two Nephilim with the spear and shield began their coordinated assault, and Cyan charged forward in response.

There was no fear in Cyan’s eyes, only hostility and murderous intent.

-Whoosh!

The Nephilim’s spear tore through the ground, digging into the earth.

Cyan agilely dodged and slipped beneath the Nephilim, slashing at his legs with Kaeram.

The Nephilim staggered and knelt, but as if nothing had happened, he stood up again and gripped his spear tightly.

Every clash of their weapons resounded like thunderous lightning.

The battle was similar to that of three years ago.

With ghost-like movements, Cyan countered all the Nephilim’s attacks, slicing through their bodies with blasts of sword energy while airborne.

Initially, the Nephilim, struck by the barrage of sword energy, dropped their weapons and showed signs of weakness.

However, as Cyan knew all too well, the true terror of the Nephilim began afterward.

They recovered from their sword energy-induced injuries in the blink of an eye and suddenly caught up with Cyan’s speed, enhancing their combat capabilities.

However, this was already anticipated.

With a further upward curl of his lips, Cyan leaped up high along the body of the Nephilim holding a spear.

The Nephilim didn’t miss this opportunity and unleashed a sword aura.

Cyan spun his body, narrowly dodging the sword in the blink of an eye.

At the same time, he adjusted his grip on Kaeram and condensed magic within it.

With the magic condensed, he swung his sword twice, firing sharp sword auras, and both struck towards the Nephilim’ neck instantly.

-Swish!

The Nephilim turned its neck to dodge the first sword aura, but it couldn’t avoid the next attack.

-Thud!

The second sword aura struck directly onto the helmet’s face guard.

The helmet was knocked off, rolling across the snowy ground.

The dignified face hidden within the helmet was then exposed to the world.

Cyan faced him directly and said, “Nice face. Does your master look like that too?”

The Nephilim, unflustered, put the helmet back on.

The moment it was put on, the emblem embedded in the center of the helmet shattered and fell to the ground.

-Buzz

It was the same emblem as the mark of revelation engraved on Cyan’s chest.

Seeing the broken fragments, a stir of emotion finally appeared on the Nephilim’s face.

Regaining their stance, the three Nephilim pressed Cyan even more fiercely.

Undeterred, Cyan met their fierce assault with a show of force.

Watching the intense battle from the air, Marian shook her head expressionlessly.

“A human fighting on par with an emissary of god…”

Even she, who had lived for an eon, found it a rare sight to behold twice.

But even if it seemed even now, the outcome had already been determined.

‘Cyan, Lord Cyan…’

Hastia, who had fainted since the appearance of the Nephilim, opened her eyes.

She was hanging in the air, held by one of Marian’s hands.

Barely focusing her vision and looking down, an unbelievable scene unfolded below.

Speechless for a moment in the air,

Hastia belatedly asked Marian for help.

‘We need to help Lord Cyan! If things continue like this, the future I saw…!’

“Help? Help a human fighting against the Nephilim?”

Marian scoffed as if it was unthinkable.

“Listen well, Hastia. I have been protecting this tundra for hundreds of years to repay the grace bestowed by the goddess Aquanis. Your tribe is no different. The ability to adapt to this severe cold and to see the future was also possible because of the grace she gave us.”

Hastia knew this all too well.

Born under the grace of the goddess and living to reciprocate that blessing, they were the White Elves.

“These giants are the agents of the god of light, carrying out his divine will. Helping this human now is to go against the will of the god of light. It also undermines the authority of the revered Aquanis.”

“Then, must we just stand by and watch?”

Marian did not respond further.

Unless their conflict threatened to spread to nearby Pruina, there was no justification for interference—direct involvement could potentially turn one party into an enemy.

Recognizing that Marian’s decision was firm, Hastia tightly closed her eyes, hoping for another prophecy.

She wished to see Cyan’s future, a future where he escaped death, in any form.

But all she saw in the darkness of her closed eyes was pitch black.

The harsh reality offered no new prophecy to Hastia.

Unable to bear seeing her in such a sorrowful state, Marian spoke again.

“How foolish, Hastia. You know better than anyone that the future revealed by the power of foresight is mostly immutable.”

“Cyan is different! He was never in my visions of the future! Not his arrival in the frostlands, not him saving me from humans stealing my powers and killing me! I saw none of it!”

Even the original future Hastia had seen did not have Cyan dying in the frostlands.

If the end result is the same but the path to it has changed, could this not also be considered a change in the future?

Marian’s gaze deepened with Hastia’s words, closely monitoring Cyan’s movements.

The nature of the fight remained unchanged.

Cyan, moving beyond human capabilities, dominated the fight, while the Nephilim, powered indefinitely by divine power through sunlight, gradually increased in strength.

Such a prolonged battle was absolutely disadvantageous for Cyan.

Unlike the Nephilim, who received an endless supply of divine power from the sunlight, Cyan, a mere human, had physical limitations.

No matter how much mental strength supported him, his body could only take so much.

As time passed, even Cyan’s ghost-like movements began to slow.

-Thud!

Cyan rolled on the ground with a spear digging into his side, followed by an unavoidable shield bash to the front.

It was the first attack allowed since the beginning of the fight, but the damage was critical.

Cyan managed to get up, blood streaming down from his head.

Even as Cyan’s lips were ripped apart by a smile on both sides, he did not let it fade.

Marian, who had been watching the fight, finally realized one thing.

“Why isn’t he using the power of the black mist?”

She had been so captivated by Cyan’s miraculous movements against the Nephilim that she hadn’t noticed it at all.

All this time Cyan had been fighting the Nephilim, he had never once released the black mist.

He had strictly used only physical strength and martial skills in combat.

Knowing full well that fighting in such a way would leave no chance of winning,

Marian could not understand why he was stubbornly adhering to such a reckless method.

“Does he have another means besides the mist?”

As doubts and questions tumultuously mixed in Marian’s mind,

-Sswaeek!

Unable to counter the Nephilim’s sword energy, Cyan crashed to the ground.

Cyan barely managed to stand but staggered several times, unable to find his balance.

Anyone could see that he had reached his limits.

In that state, he wouldn’t last more than once or twice.

Despite being driven to such a desperate point, the Nephilim were still unharmed.

Cyan’s blood-soaked lips were still intact.

Rather, a greater exhilaration had spread across his face than at the beginning.

To Marian, he looked nothing short of mad.

It seemed as though he couldn’t accept the fact that he couldn’t defy his given destiny and was denying reality.

It was undeniably a perfect example of what happens to humans who oppose the absolute god.

Yet, Cyan continued, dragging his feet towards the Nephilim, not letting go of Kaeram.

The three Nephilim did not even assume a defensive posture.

They merely watched, as if he were trivial.

Cyan had no strength left even to wield sword energy.

Yet, he still raised his sword,

Without taking his eyes off the Nephilim.

With a look of resolute determination in his eyes, he lifted Kaeram over his head,

-Pwook!

and stabbed himself in the abdomen.

The self-harm did not end with just one strike.

-Pwook! Pwook! Pwook!

Neither Marian, Hastia, nor the three Nephilim fighting Cyan could understand.

In front of the divine agents sent to kill him, Cyan was boldly killing himself.

Even as he continued this incomprehensible self-harm, Cyan did not retract his smile.

Marian frowned at the sight, which was not only bizarre but also repulsive.

Hastia, unable to fully witness it, covered her face and wept.

-Thud

After repeatedly harming himself, Cyan fell face-first into the snow.

The white ground of the frozen earth was dyed red with his blood.

‘Truly, was there no other way?’

Despite her fervent hopes, the unchanged future was truly cruel to Hastia.

Surrounded by golden giants, dying a miserable and lonely death without anyone’s help—as if taken right out of the prophecy.

Having completed their mission, the Nephilim raised their weapons towards the sky, a noble act of devotion to the divine.

There was no longer any reason to remain at the scene where everything had ended.

“If this is fate, there’s nothing to be done,” Marian, intending to leave the scene with Hastia, muttered.

“……!”

Suddenly, a sinister premonition made her turn around.

Nothing had changed.

The Nephilim were still performing the ritual, and Cyan lay lifeless like a corpse.

However, Marian could feel it.

Even as Cyan lay dying, he hadn’t shown it – the aura of black mist.

Soon, Marian knew where this energy was emanating from.

Cyan’s right hand,

still holding the unielded demonic sword.

The black mist, initially rising like smoke, swiftly spiraled upward into the sky.

It was not just the sword.

From the self-inflicted wounds, mist instead of blood spurted out.

The Nephilim, sensing the anomaly, looked back at Cyan.

-Twitch

At that moment, Cyan’s body moved.

Starting with the fingers holding the sword, his arms, shoulders, knees, and feet began to twitch.

Raising his chest, setting his knees, regaining balance,

lifting his fallen upper body, and supporting it with his legs, Cyan stood up again.

Then slowly,

he lifted his face covered in black hair.

Facing the Nephilim once more, a sinister smile still lingered on Cyan’s face.

“……Keek!”

‘Is that really you, Lord Cyan?’

Witnessing Cyan overcoming death and rising, Hastia was overwhelmed with mixed emotions.

Hastia couldn’t know what had happened to Cyan.

Naturally, she looked towards Marian.

Marian, too, was looking at Cyan with a shocked gaze.

However, she knew exactly what was happening.

To her, Cyan no longer appeared as Cyan, but only as the demonic sword known to devour its owner’s soul and seize both body and mind.

“Did you give yourself up willingly? To Kaeram?” Marian wondered silently as Cyan,

or rather, Kaeram, murmured back.

“Hello, you bastards.”

(To be continued)