Chapter 5: Son of the Ravenmoon V

"In this world, I have forsaken the name Albert and was forced to become Herbert."

As he became Herbert, he began to develop a special inclination toward clean things. This greatly affected his daily life, to the point where even touching someone for a long time even with his gloves on would make him feel nauseated. In extreme cases, he had even felt disgusted with drinking or eating things that others had made, this inclination had instead given him the incentive to make his own meals which bolstered his capability to cook.

He understood that this was something terrible for the continuation of the bloodline of his family, this is especially since he couldn't even last a second upon touching another human, much less a woman, without feeling the need to vomit.

But if it was with Amelia, he saw a different future. He did not feel the rejection that he usually feels for others towards her, but with the memories that he had gained, he began to feel that she was not as clean as he thinks. This was the main reason that he had decided to quickly leave the party earlier. Although he wanted to deny it, his obsession with Amelia had been slowly eroding into nothing but the same disgust that he feels with others. He used to think that she was special, after all, she was the only person that he used to be at ease with.

As he slowly closed his eyes, his consciousness began to drift away as memories began to reappear as dreams. In his dreams, he was once again Albert. The same Albert whose happiness was about to be taken away from him by his brother, he could still see the gloating smile that appeared in front of him, what's worse was that the gloating smile had the same face as his. At that point, their relationship still wasn't bad but the two soon drifted apart even more. Eventually, Albert started becoming more reclusive and often spent his time alone in his room reading books to pass the time. Occasionally he would hear of the wonderful feats that his brother had accomplished from one of the servants who would come to serve him his meal. He had thought that he would continue living his life like that until he rotted, but his tranquil and unchanging life soon became chaotic when news of his brother's death arrived.

His father who had heard the news had almost fainted and with great anger, he sent out the three most elite of the family's troops, Treachery, Unkindness, and Conspiracy, in his anger just to search for his beloved son's corpse. Unfortunately, they did not even get a strand of hair from the people who had ambushed Herbert and his guards. Under strict investigation, all that they found was the trail of blood that lead to nowhere. Although they did not see Herbert's body, they had intuitively confirmed his death as losing the amount of blood that was left on the trail was already tantamount to being dead.

Facing this sudden conundrum, the Duke had made a decision that took everyone who knew the actual story by surprise. Herbert's existence was far too precious that even the declaration of his death would be a waste. He was someone whose talent went far and beyond the peers of his generation. He was not just a person, his existence was almost akin to being a symbol, one that exists as a deterrent for other families.

As such, under the coaxing of his mother, the Duchess of Ravenmoon, Albert took upon the mantle that was Herbert's name and discarded his former identity. Following this, the duke then announced the death of Albert due to sickness and had slain the servants who had known of the ambush on Herbert.

Naturally, others would notice the discrepancy between Albert who lacks the talents that Herbert has, so the duke had initiated the forbidden technique that was passed down in the family for generations. This technique was inherently evil and was never to be used unless the family is in the face of destruction and Albert was the first to experience it since its inception.

He could still remember that fateful night under the full moon. At the orders of his father, a cage of hungry Iron Winged Ravens was let loose to let them feed on the flesh of his half-siblings, and cousins, their voracious appetites seem to have no end as they leave behind only bones in their wake. As they fed on their corpses, they eventually made their way towards him who was chained to a huge stone. His silver hair shone brightly under the moonlight as if turning into a beacon, attracting the flock of ravens to come towards him.

With fear in his eyes, he felt his body getting torn into pieces, It was as if countless ants had made their way into his body, drilling a hole and splitting his flesh apart. Despite this, he could only remain awake as his flesh that was torn apart would slowly be regenerated due to the strong potion of regeneration that he had been given a while ago. Each time that he would nearly faint, his body would recover and he would once again be given a rude awakening.

After this night of torment, the flock of Ravens was soon captured and killed with their blood collected and refined until it could all be placed into a chalice which they had Albert drink. When he had next awakened, he was no longer the same weak Albert, he was now the strong and talented Herbert. However, that was merely just the start of his nightmare. After that, this vile ritual had been repeated until those who run the family decided that Albert's potential had caught up with Herbert's talent. He had repeated this ritual twelve times for a whole year and by the time it had stopped, he was long broken.

As Herbert's dreams continued to drift further into his subconscious, he began to once again see visions. One where his twin brother had reappeared and stole his identity as Albert, one who then rose to destroy everything that he ever held dear. As his heart rate increased, he eventually saw his brother smirking at him with that same gloating expression that he always had, as he got closer, he saw him drawing out his sword and plunging it deep into his chest.

As his eyes widened, his breath became heavy and he clutched at his chest only to see under the dim moonlight that it was all just a dream. Despite the cool breeze, droplets of sweat had accumulated on his forehead while his back was sticky and drenched as if he had just swum into a deep and cold lake.

Under the influence of his nightmares, he tried to calm himself down and started to carefully inspect his chest. Once he had fully confirmed that it was all just a dream, he took a deep breath and went to the wardrobe to look for a change of clothes.

When he had finished changing, he then went towards his huge window and opened it with leather gloves on his hands. The cold breeze soon welcomed him. looking at the sky, he estimated that it would be around two or so hours until daybreak.

"The world is really unfair. Of all people, why me?"

His eyes lingered upwards as his gaze penetrated deep into the moon, with a heavy sigh, it appeared that he had made a heavy decision.

"I have to kill him… before he even gets a chance to kill me."

In his heart, he understood that his choice may have doomed all of humanity. After all, in a high-action, medieval fantasy-based story, the protagonist has to face a world-level threat at least once. In this story, by the time the protagonist has to face that kind of threat, his strength would reach an unprecedented height and would be impervious to almost all attacks known to man. This means that if Herbert were to kill the protagonist of the story, he would have to kill him before he gets his major power-ups. Following the death of the protagonist, he would inadvertently also be letting loose a group of madmen who would have nobody else to stop them without the protagonist.

While enjoying the gentle caress of the wind, his mind wandered and started thinking of ways that he could make himself stronger. At the moment, although the protagonist has yet to reach his peak powers, it would already prove hard for him to make a confirmed kill since their power levels were around the same with the protagonist having a slight edge over him. During this time, he could not count on anyone to kill the protagonist for himself despite being the heir of the Ravenmoon family because even though he has subordinates, he currently had none that was stronger than him that he could order. Although he also has hidden protectors, they wouldn't move unless he is in mortal danger.

Eventually, his thoughts started to shift from thinking about plans to kill the protagonist to thinking about ways to strengthen either himself or his subordinates. While thinking in that direction, he finally got an idea and started to work on the details. As the sun gradually rose, he heard a knock on the door and heard the butler's voice calling to wake him up.