Prince Chun had been attacked by masked men and was killed by a sword to the stomach.
Or so he thought… the guard, Jang, ran as fast as he could with his movement skill to find Prince Chun. When he found the boy, the place was littered with dead bodies that were missing their upper torsos. Only one of the masked men’s bodies was intact, but he had been killed with a dagger to his head.
‘It’s the dagger I gave to him.’
It was what Jang had given to Prince Chun on his 10th birthday. He didn’t teach him a single dagger skill since he was made to swear an oath to not teach any martial arts to the boy until he joined the Demonic Academy, so it was astonishing that the Prince had killed even one man.
“Oh… Prince!”
Jang then found the Prince slumped down on the ground. The ground was drenched with blood, hinting of doom.
‘Please…!’
If the Prince to die here, he wouldn’t be able to find the right words to apologize to the boy’s mother. However, something was weird.
“…Huh?”
He heard the boy’s breathing. From the looks of his clothing, it was certain that the Prince had been struck with a sword to his stomach, but his breathing seemed to be normal. Jang went up to him and picked up the clothes.
“Huh? There are no wounds.”
Prince Chun’s stomach was clean of any wounds. It was weird since the ground nearby was full of Prince Chun’s blood.
‘What is it? Hmm… did the Lord…? No. The Lord would not meddle with the fight for the throne… but who killed these men and saved the Prince then?’
His mind was full of questions, but none could be answered. Jang searched the area for a while and soon buried bodies and took up the Prince on his shoulder. He then activated his movement skill to travel toward the Demonic Cult’s castle.
As Jang’s hand touched the boy, something in boy’s head shocked him and deactivated his unconscious state.
[Self-healing mode paused at 80%. Master, wake up please.]
The boy’s eyes opened in shock as he heard a voice ringing in his head.
‘Huh?’
He had to have died from the severe blood loss, but he was alive and someone was carrying him on their shoulder. He looked down and that it was Jang Gageng, his guard.
“Jang!”
The boy’s face brightened up and the cold mechanical voice came back again.
[Confirmed target to be friendly. Deactivating automatic defensive mechanism. Reactivating self-healing mode.]
“UGH!”
And with it, the severe headache struck the boy’s head and he grabbed it with both hands.
“Prince! You’re awake. Are you okay?” Jang smiled and asked excitedly.
“Prince?”
But the boy couldn’t stand the headache and fell unconscious again.
It was the next morning when he woke up from his sleep.
“UGH!”
His body was drenched with sweat. He realized that he was sweaty and he wiped his forehead with his palm. However, he realized that it was not sweat, but something sticky instead.
“Ugh, what is this? Huh?”
He then saw the dark, black liquid on his palm and became shocked. It had a foul stench.
“Ewww!”
The smell was so bad and the liquid covered his entire body as if it had seeped out from his body.
“W-what is this?!”
That’s when the voice came to his head.
[Master. Are you awake?]
“What?”
The voice repeated itself.
[Master. Are you awake?]
“W-who are you?”
The boy got up from the bed and glanced around, but he soon realized that the voice wasn’t coming from outside.
[Master, please calm down.]
‘Is it coming from my head?’
[That is correct, Master.]
“What!”
He only thought the word and the voice seemed to have read his mind. The boy became nervous.
‘Telepathic message? No… it’s not that.’
Telepathy was a skill that highly-trained martial artists used to send messages to others. He had heard one of those types of messages once a long time ago. The message was sent with internal energy, and that made it feel like a wave of energy.
[I am unsure of what this ‘telepathic message’ is, but you are not listening to me through your ears, Master.]
“What! W-who are you?!”
The boy looked up in the air with wide eyes. He thought if one could send a message directly through his head, the one would be very powerful being.
[I am the 7th generation Nano Machine, made by Sky Corporation to serve as a core to support Master’s brain.]
“Wait, what? What are you talking about?”
The boy became pale as what he was being told was beyond his comprehension. The Nano Machine realized that the user did not understand their words.
“Who are you, and what do you want with me?!”
[I am the 7th generation Nano Machine.]
“Nano Ma Sin (Evil God)?”
[Yes. I am Nano Machine.]
The boy’s face turned grim. The Evil God was the being that the Demonic Cult worshipped. The Lord was the one who was given the power to communicate with the said God.
“A-are you really the Evil God?”
He was now kneeling on his knees, asking with a shaking voice. The Nano Machine had understood that the boy had gotten everything completely wrong.