Cruel would always love his brother—more than anything in this world, more than his life, his title, his honor. His baby brother would always come first. That truth had been carved into his soul long before he understood what love truly meant.

From the day premature Deon arrived at the manor, surrounded by physicians and servants whispering prayers, Cruel had already been panicking over his fragile health. Born without pigment in his skin, pale as moonlight and trembling in the cold, the child looked like a spirit that might vanish if touched too roughly. And yet, from the moment Deon’s tiny fingers curled around his, the boy had already crawled into Cruel’s heart and claimed a permanent home there.

Cruel regretted many things. He regretted the way he and their parents had treated Deon—locking him away because of his sickly nature, sheltering him so excessively that isolation became his prison. They had made him believe he was unwanted, unloved, a burden to be hidden. But he was not. He was their treasure. They simply had a terrible way of showing it. They did not know how to care for a sick child, so they chose distance instead of tenderness.

When Deon was dragged into the eight-year war at just fourteen years old, Cruel did nothing. He watched. He stood there, powerless and silent, as his baby brother was forced into a battlefield that devoured innocence. He should have fought. He should have protected him. That failure haunted him for the rest of his life.

When Deon returned and slaughtered their parents, then tried to kill Cruel himself, Cruel still could not hate him. Even with blood on his hands and madness in his eyes, Cruel only saw the frightened child who once clung to him in the dark. He still wanted to protect him.

Cruel joined the duke and became one of the Empire’s so-called “Heroes,” destined to defeat the Demon King.

Meanwhile, Deon became the Emperor’s guard dog and retrieved the holy relic of the previous Hero—a feat thought impossible.

But behind the scenes, Deon became the Zero Commander of the Demon King’s army—“Demon Arth,” a traitor playing both sides for the Emperor’s twisted ambitions.

Cruel tried to reach out. He tried to explain, to touch him, to apologize. But Deon would rather die than let his elder brother come near. His hatred was uncanny, poisonous, and absolute.

Then Deon learned the truth too late. Their parents had loved him. They had never enlisted him. The duke had manipulated everything. Letters were sent—letters he never received.

He had thought himself weak. But he wasn’t. He had been killed in the war. He had slaughtered demons. He had fought endlessly. Yet he remembered none of it.

Because his mind had fractured.

He had developed a dissociative personality disorder—one self remaining blissfully ignorant, the other carrying the blood and guilt of war. The Emperor and Demon Lord both knew, and both used him as a pawn.

And when Deon finally realized, Cruel sacrificed himself to protect him from the duke’s assassins. He died smiling, believing that dying for his brother was the only redemption he deserved.

He hoped Deon would find peace.

Instead, Deon drowned in revenge. He killed everyone who had wronged him—the Emperor, the duke, the Demon Lord. And eventually, he killed himself.

Cruel waited in the afterworld, arms open, ready to welcome his beloved brother so they could finally be together again, free from regret and pain.

Then there was a flash of light.

When Cruel opened his eyes, his hands were smaller. His body is shorter. He was thirteen again, holding the hand of seven-year-old Deon.

They had been reborn.

He could change fate.

Maybe the god of death wasn’t so cruel after all.

But when he looked at Deon, he noticed something that made his heart twist in terror. His little brother’s eyes were covered with the cloth used for the blind in the Empire.

Or maybe the God of Death was crueler than he thought.

Either way, this time… he would protect his baby brother.

No matter what it costs.