Asmodeus System: Stealing My Bully's Mother

Why... have I become like this?

The hoarse question echoed again, bouncing wildly inside Kurt’s hollow chest. It morphed into a suffocating vortex, forcibly dragging his consciousness far back through time.

Brutally peeling away the thick layers of ice that entombed his darkest memories.

Ten years ago...

Fortress Granderer had always possessed the same freezing aura. Its bluish-black stone walls stood arrogant, defying the northern storms. Yet, to a young, eight-year-old Kurt, this fortress felt so much more alive.

Its corridors were not yet as desolate as they were today, and the surrounding air was still thick with the promise of tomorrow.

Little Kurt was a ball of boundless, hopeful energy. His icy blue eyes would always sparkle with sheer awe whenever he peeked at the knights training in the courtyard.

”Nanny, how do you awaken an Aura?”

One afternoon, little Kurt tugged at the apron strings of an elderly maid who had always treated him with warmth.

The maid smiled gently, softly patting Kurt’s blonde hair. ”Ah, Young Master, there’s no need to worry. The pure blood of Rosenberg flows fiercely through your veins. Lord Duke Alaric and Lady Isolde are both magnificent Ice mages. Someday, the strongest ice in the North will surely awaken within you, too.”

Those words were planted like sacred seeds in little Kurt’s heart.

He was ecstatic. In his innocent mind, he constantly pictured himself standing proudly in the snowy courtyard, wearing a grand cape, freezing enemies with a mere snap of his fingers—just like his father.

Days turned into weeks. Weeks bled into months. Kurt trained completely alone, fueled by a terrifying determination for a child his age.

He meditated in his room. He focused his mind in the back garden. He sat for hours by the frozen pond until his lips turned blue, desperately trying to draw out the freezing chill from the depths of his soul.

Until the climax arrived on one pitch-black, snowy night.

Standing in the middle of his room, little Kurt closed his eyes. He channeled every ounce of his energy and emotion into his right palm. Suddenly, a bizarre warmth spread from his chest. His mana circuit crackled open.

A glowing light emerged from his tiny palm.

But it wasn’t an ice crystal.

It was a spark of reddish-orange fire. A warm flame, dancing in complete defiance of the North’s freezing nature.

Kurt’s icy blue eyes went wide. A second later, an incredibly joyful smile bloomed across his face.

I did it! his mind cheered. He had finally awakened his power. To his limited, childlike understanding, this achievement was the greatest thing in the world.

With enthusiastic, stomping footsteps echoing down the stone corridor, Kurt sprinted toward his father’s study. He pushed the massive oak doors open with all his might.

Inside, Duke Alaric stood with his back to the door. The giant of a man was staring intently at a military map spread across his desk. His signature white bear-pelt cloak was draped over a rack in the corner.

Hearing the creaking hinges, Alaric turned his head slowly. His pale blue eyes stared down at his son, who was standing there panting, sporting the widest smile in the world.

Kurt couldn’t even find the words. He simply raised his right hand high. He channeled his mana. He let the orange flame dance upon his palm, offering it as a proud trophy to his father.

Alaric’s reaction wasn’t an explosive fit of rage. Nor was it a string of disappointed curses.

His reaction was infinitely more terrifying.

Alaric fell completely silent. The Duke’s jaw slowly locked rigid, causing the veins in his neck to bulge. Those pale blue eyes stared at Kurt’s flame with a flash of utter disgust and a fury as cold as a glacier.

The ambient temperature inside the study plummeted brutally. The freezing air choked the lungs.

The small flame in Kurt’s palm trembled violently. Its light shrank, thoroughly crushed by the absolute pressure of his father’s Ice Aura. In a matter of seconds, the fire was extinguished, leaving behind nothing but a pathetic wisp of smoke.

Alaric stared at his son’s face, which had now gone deathly pale, filled with sheer confusion.

Without uttering a single word, the Duke turned his face away, effortlessly brushed past Kurt, and walked right out of the study. The door clicked shut behind him.

Little Kurt stood all alone in the center of the giant room. His hand was still raised stiffly in the air. The smile on his lips slowly shattered to pieces, replaced by a suffocating tightness his young brain couldn’t yet comprehend.

That night, the fortress’s temperature felt far more biting.

Kurt trudged aimlessly down the main wing’s corridor. His mind was in absolute turmoil. His childish instincts guided him to seek out the only safe haven he had left: his mother.

However, a few meters away from his parents’ master bedroom, Kurt’s footsteps ground to a stiff halt.

The heavy wooden door was left slightly ajar, leaking the dim light of the hearth. And from that narrow crack, little Kurt’s ears caught a sequence of sounds that made his blood run cold.

Moans. Not just ordinary sounds, but stifled whimpers laden with heartbreaking agony. Those sounds were closely followed by the rough, heavy panting of his father.

Kurt’s body shivered violently. He didn’t understand what the rough rustling or dull thudding sounds from inside meant. But he intimately recognized that hoarse sobbing.

It was his mother. Isolde was crying, stifling her tears.

Kurt’s brain shrieked in panic. Was his father hurting his mother? Why? Was it because Kurt had brought fire into this home?

Choked by blind terror, little Kurt clamped both trembling hands over his own mouth. He backed away, turned around, and ran like a madman back to his room. That night, he curled up beneath his thick blankets, shivering and hugging his knees until dawn broke.

The trauma of that night was locked away tightly, becoming his darkest secret.

The very next morning, with swollen, red eyelids, Kurt mustered what little courage he had left to see Isolde in the Duchess’s private study.

Isolde sat elegantly behind her oak desk. Her appearance was absolutely flawless. Her gown was perfectly buttoned up, her gold-rimmed glasses sat neatly on her face, and her expression was serene as she read over territorial documents. There wasn’t a single trace of last night’s tears.

Kurt stepped inside hesitantly. His heart still clung to jagged shards of hope. If his father rejected him, perhaps... his mother would embrace him.

”Mother...” Kurt called out, his voice raspy.

He raised his hand once more. Forcing his remaining mana to work, he called forth that orange flame to ignite in his palm. He had to prove that he wasn’t weak.

The scratch of Isolde’s quill stopped.

The platinum blonde woman turned her head slowly. Her eyes locked straight onto the flame in her son’s hand.

Instantly, Isolde’s facial expression tensed violently. Behind her gold-rimmed glasses, those icy blue eyes turned impossibly cold. A piercing glare that radiated a profound hatred, as if that fire was the most disgusting disgrace, reminding her of something profoundly filthy.

Purely on reflex, Isolde’s hand rose from the documents.

Swoosh!

A torrent of ice mana shot forward viciously. A thick layer of frost spread rapidly, mercilessly encasing the fingers of Kurt’s right hand. It forcefully snuffed out the flame and flash-froze his young skin.

”Ah!”

Kurt jolted hard, yanking his hand back with a sharp wince. The burning cold pierced straight through to his finger bones. He stared at his mother with wide, disbelieving eyes.

His tears broke instantly.

Isolde froze in place. Her fingers resting on the desk trembled faintly. A thin flash of regret passed through her eyes, but her towering ego clamped her lips shut. Not a single comforting word escaped.

”Why?!” Kurt shrieked, his voice cracking from his heartbreaking sobs. ”Why do you and Father hate me?! What did I do wrong?!”

Isolde remained completely still, like an ice sculpture. No embrace. No explanation. Only a deadly silence.

Realizing he was truly, fundamentally unwanted, little Kurt turned and sprinted out of the room. He pushed through the blizzard all the way to the back garden, collapsing beneath the shade of a dead, frozen oak tree, and cried all by himself.

Right beneath that very tree, Kurt von Rosenberg stopped hoping to be loved.

The violent tug of the memory slowly faded. Kurt’s consciousness was yanked back to the present.

The recovery room was still dim. The scent of herbs still lingered heavily. And right beside his bed, Isolde remained asleep from sheer exhaustion, resting her head against the edge of his mattress.

Kurt stared at his mother’s face in an agonizing silence.

Back then, he had desperately hoped his mother would follow him to that frozen tree, hug him, and smile. For years, Kurt had built a fortress of arrogance, transforming into a cruel, tyrannical heir just to earn a tiny fraction of acknowledgment from his parents.

Now, that untouchable mother was finally shattered. The mother who had once frozen his hand was now willing to bow her head and throw away her dignity for the sake of his life.

Yet, looking at Isolde’s fragile face right now, the depths of Kurt’s heart felt absolutely no warmth. Everything just felt hollow.

His psychological wounds had long since rotted. This change had come far too late. And the thing that destroyed him the most: he knew full well that his mother’s current weakness wasn’t purely for his sake, but rather due to her chains of terror towards that brown-haired monster.

Kurt slowly closed his hollow, icy blue eyes.

From the corner of his eye, a single tear fell soundlessly, sinking into the silk pillow amidst the absolute silence.

In another wing of Fortress Granderer, the creeping night brought an equally dangerous tension.

Ethan Valen strolled down the bluish-black stone corridor with slow, measured steps. His pitch-black shirt seemed to seamlessly merge with the dancing shadows cast by the torchlight.

His footsteps came to a smooth halt at the end of the hall.

Right in front of him, the massive wooden doors leading to the War Map Room stood wide open, as if inviting the Devil inside.

In the center of the sprawling circular room, Duke Alaric stood like a statue. The giant man in the white bear-pelt cloak had his back to the door, staring straight at a massive map of the Northern territory.

Without bothering to offer a greeting, Ethan stepped inside, his arms casually crossed over his chest.

The doors clicked shut slowly, severing them from the outside world.

Hearing the sound, Alaric slowly turned his massive frame. The pale blue eyes of the Lion of the North glared sharply at Ethan. A murderous Aura, ready to rip the life from anyone, flooded the air.

Two apex predators were now locked inside a single ice cage. Bracing for a war of words that would tear the fate of the North to pieces.