The first thing I felt was cold. Not an ordinary kind of cold. Not the gentle breeze that sneaks in through an open window, nor the chill of a passing winter night. This cold came from inside me. From my marrow. From something buried in the core of this body itself… as if the very bones here were used to being submerged in ice.
I slowly opened my eyes. Darkness. Then… faint light.
The ceiling above me was unfamiliar. Complex carvings, in a gray-black hue, spread like veins of the dead across polished stone. The ceiling throbbed with something… as if the stone was alive. Cold, yet watching me.
I shivered.
Not out of fear. But understanding. A deep, instinctive realization that I was not in my room. Not in my dingy little apartment in a barely-known neighborhood on Earth. Not on Earth at all.
I didn't need to ask many questions. My mind started racing… faster than I expected.
Nir Verton.
The only son of the Duke of Shadows.
The perfect, mysterious, calm boy with the black eyes that see "intent," who falls in love with the heroine of the story: Ayla, the orphan girl whose entire world turns upside down because of their cursed romance.
Damn it…
I'm in a romance novel.
…
I began breathing slowly, heavy breaths, and every breath felt like it came from someone unaccustomed to life. The air here tasted like iron. As if every particle carried traces of old blood.
I raised my hand slowly… slender, pale, long fingers, immaculate nails. This wasn't my hand.
This wasn't my body.
But now… I am him.
Nir.
And I didn't need long to realize I wasn't inside a "love story." I was inside something sick, twisted, polished with revolting romantic decoration to hide its true core.
This so-called love story? It was a cover for something far darker.
I had read it before. No… I had fallen into it.
It was the novel that made me smash my laptop one night from sheer disgust at its stupidity. A popular tale among "dreamy girls," where love conquers evil, and Nir Verton, the quiet son, melts before Ayla's innocence and turns his father's bloody heart into a shelter for orphans.
…Yes. The Duke of Shadows becomes a caretaker of children.
I almost laughed.
If I weren't the one stuck in Nir's body.
I closed my eyes again, slowly… then opened them.
The dim light coming from the tall glass window to my left looked like moonlight filtered through a skull.
The space around me was silent… a deep silence… nothing moved.
This body… held something within it.
Memories.
They began to seep into my mind, slowly, like black ink in clear water. Memories of this child… Nir.
He wasn't what they imagined.
Not "calm," not "perfect," not "noble."
He was an observer.
A silent watcher, pretending to be composed, masking a deep revulsion toward everyone around him.
His memories were… terrifying.
At six, he stood before the corpse of a palace guard who made one mistake: lying to the Duke.
Nir watched him hang in the courtyard, his black eyes—deep as a well—never blinking.
At nine, he was gifted a slave child as a "leadership training tool." A week later, he returned the boy paralyzed.
He told everyone it was "an experiment."
They believed him. They even praised his "genius in discipline."
Can you believe this child was supposed to be the romantic secondary lead?
I wanted to vomit.
Then… something pulled me from within.
It wasn't pain.
But a voice.
> ‹System activated…›
My mind froze.
> ‹Identity: Nir Verton›
‹Age: 16›
‹Bloodline: Pure Human (Noble lineage – Verton Family)›
‹Inherited Trait: "Eye of Truth"›
‹Magic Rank: Restricted›
‹Special Abilities: [Inactive]›
It was a system. One never mentioned in the original novel.
Or maybe… Nir had hidden it.
I closed my eyes for a moment. It's not just that the novel was romantic… it had elements that were never written.
Or perhaps never discovered.
Both options were bad.
I stood up from the bed slowly.
The movements of the new body were smooth… but frighteningly fragile. Thin, yet brimming with energy still bound in chains.
I put on a black robe hanging beside me. Heavy, threaded with dark silver, bearing the family crest: a shadow coiled around a black blade.
It suited me… too well.
I looked at the nearby mirror.
The face was handsome. Sharp features, pale skin, jet-black hair, and completely black eyes—without pupils.
Eyes of a demon.
But I was the one inhabiting this body now.
I… decide the path.
I'm not the "calm Nir."
Nor the "romantic Nir."
I'm… something new.
I don't need love. I don't need a heroine.
What I need is to understand this world… to uncover its filth. And the first step:
Understand him.
The Duke of Shadows.
The man whose name silences the continents. Not just because he's strong… but because he knows everything. Every lie. Every intention. Every betrayal.
And now… I have to face him and convince him I'm still Nir.
Otherwise, I'll be hanged in the square like any traitor.
But I didn't come from Earth to die here.
I came… to burn this stupid story and rewrite it in blood.
Slowly, I opened the room's door.
The sound alone sent a chill down my spine.
Outside… an old servant stood, hunched, not daring to look at me.
"Good morning, young master."
His voice trembled.
I looked at him and said, with cold calculation:
"Where is my father?"
The servant stared at the ground, as if my question was a threat, then whispered:
"In the throne room, as always at dawn…"
I smiled—a tiny, nearly invisible smile.
The throne room, huh?
Let the show begin.
…
Alright, I read this novel.
No, not because I wanted to.
But because my friend—my partner in literary crimes we commit daily against our own brains—insisted, with dreamy eyes that sparkled like a teenage girl's:
"I swear, after chapter 150, everything changes! You find out it was all a giant magical conspiracy! Even the romance!"
I nearly killed him right then.
But I was in a bad mood and thought: "Fine, let's walk into this disaster."
Then I fell…
Chapter after chapter, swallowing pink poison. Words drenched in hearts, shy breaths, and sparkling eyes—all scratching my skin like knives.
Perfect Nir.
Innocent Ayla.
Their cherry blossom meetings…
Songs written mid-dialogue…
Time skips only to show how much love had grown between them…
Screw you, Lin. That's your name, right? You bastard.
I endured 400 chapters before screaming like someone cursed with a never-healing wound:
"Enough! This isn't my world! This isn't the story you promised me!"
But by then, it was too late.
I knew the world.
And I saw something all those fangirls obsessed with stolen kisses never did:
Rot.
This world is not innocent.
Despite its romantic cover, the novel was poisoned inside. A mass of dark magic, political corruption, and decaying class systems simmering beneath the surface… but the author hid it all under sugar and roses.
Funny how the story stretched over 760 chapters, mostly about love, when a single sentence from the Duke of Shadows was enough to wipe out an entire village.
Yes, I noticed.
The Duke of Shadows was always in the background, speaking sparsely, portrayed as a cold but fair father.
But he wasn't.
He killed 17 of his closest advisors in the first few months of his appearance, simply because he "didn't like the color of their voice," as the novel put it.
That line was never explained.
But I understand now.
Now, as I walk through the corridors of this palace, feeling the stones watching my steps, as if the ground itself fears I might stumble before my father… I understand.
This is not a palace.
It's a mausoleum… for an immortal king.
…
The Throne Room.
Entering it wasn't simple. The path was as long as childhood nightmares.
A whole wing of dark hallways, reeking of burned wood and blood-soaked metal. The armor hanging on the walls shows no faces—just empty helmets, as if those who wore them had none.
Servants ran silently, heads lowered. No one looked at me. Not out of respect… but fear.
I could feel it in the air. The name Nir Verton alone was enough to plant terror in their hearts.
Not because I was "loved."
But because I was his son.
My heartbeat was steady… not because I wasn't afraid, but because I knew exactly what awaited me.
In the original novel, little was mentioned about Nir's relationship with his father.
But in the 400 chapters I read, Nir spoke to his father face to face only once.
Only once.
And that moment alone reshaped the entire story.
I remember it well.
Chapter 412.
In it, Nir told Ayla—during a dreamy love moment under a cherry tree—just one sentence about his father:
"When you look into his eyes, you see your face twisted… like you've watched yourself die a thousand times."
Imagine saying that about your father… then going back to sipping tea under the moonlight.
…
Now… I'm at the door.
A massive, abyss-black door. Etched with the family emblem: a blade embedded in a bleeding human shadow. The door doesn't open by hand.
It opens by magic.
I raised my hand.
The same hand I hadn't gotten used to yet, slightly trembling.
But I spoke.
"Nir Verton… requests entry."
Silence.
Then—
> "Enter, if you still dare use that name."
The voice… didn't sound human.
It sounded like a wall speaking. A muffled echo from the earth's core.
Then… the door split open.
Slowly… as if the stone was screaming.
I stepped inside.
…
The throne room wasn't a room.
It was an altar.
A vast circular space, with towering pillars reaching into infinity, each engraved with names of those who fell in service to this place.
Thrones aren't for sitting…
But for intimidation.
And the throne at the center… wasn't made of gold.
It was made of bones.
And upon it… sat him.
Duke Validor Verton.
The novel said he was taller than any man, that his seated presence equaled the stance of two.
But the truth?
He wasn't just "tall."
He was immeasurable.
His body cloaked in a robe heavy as frozen smoke.
His face? Unseen.
His eyes? Only two dots of darkness staring into you.
When I looked at him, something pierced through me.
As if the sins I hadn't committed yet were laid bare before him.
He spoke, in a voice as deep as the abyss:
"Which part of you decided to wake today?"
I stayed silent.
Then breathed slowly.
I said:
"The part still called Nir."
He laughed.
A faint laugh… short… but it made one of the pillars tremble.
"A beautiful lie. But very well…"
He paused.
Then asked:
"Will you become my enemy, Nir?"
No father has ever asked his son that, right?
But this is no father.
And this body… was never mine.
I said, locking my gaze into his:
"Not yet."
…
Stillness.
The air vanished.
Then… his voice thundered like lightning:
"Well said."