Chapter 3: The Doomed Heir

Heavy... Everything felt ridiculously heavy.

Neo tried to lift his arm, but it felt as though massive invisible weights were pressing down on his body, restricting his every move. He managed to raise his fist a total of two inches before his strength just gave out, sending his tiny hand flopping back onto the mattress.

’Seriously?’ Neo thought, his brows knitting together in a scowl that likely just looked adorable to anyone watching. ’I knew babies were weak, but this is just pathetic.’

It was his second day in this strange world. The raging storm from the night of his birth had long passed, leaving behind a warm breeze that fluttered through the window curtains.

He could hear the soft, rhythmic movements of maids cleaning the hallways outside, the distant chirping of birds, and the steady beating of his own heart. His hearing was surprisingly sharp compared to his vision, which was still blurry around the edges and restricted to whatever crossed his line of sight.

Right now, his biggest enemy wasn’t some dark lord or terrifying monster. It was his own body.

Just keeping his eyes open felt like climbing a mountain. His adult consciousness was still racing, trying to process his surroundings and figure out the crazy mechanics of his reincarnation. But on the other hand, his infant body was throwing a silent tantrum, demanding sleep, milk, and absolutely zero mental exertion.

*CREAK—!*

The door to the room swung open, and a young woman in her early twenties stepped inside.

"Oh, look at him. He’s already awake."

A soft voice wrapped around him like a warm blanket. A shadow fell over him as a silhouette leaned in. As his eyes adjusted, the delicate features of Duchess Sylvia came into focus. Her silver hair cascaded over her shoulder, a few strands tickling Neo’s nose.

He wanted to sneeze, but his body hadn’t quite figured out how to coordinate that yet. Instead, he just let out a quiet, little huff.

Sylvia beamed, a radiant smile lighting up her face. She reached down, her hands gently sliding under his back and head.

"Come here, my sweet little lord," she cooed, lifting him effortlessly.

Pressed against her chest, Neo could hear the steady, reassuring beat of her heart. It was ridiculously warm and comfortable.

’Are you kidding me?’ Neo complained internally, his eyelids drooping.

’I’m exhausted just from being picked up? What kind of cruel joke is this?’

He fought to keep his eyes open to observe his surroundings. He needed information. He needed to know exactly where he was. But the gentle rocking motion of his mother was an absolute cheat code against his infant defenses.

"You are so quiet," Sylvia murmured, carrying him slowly toward the window overlooking the grand estate.

"The healers say you are perfectly healthy, but you haven’t cried once. You just watch everything." She chuckled softly, pressing a sweet kiss to his forehead.

"My perfect little Neo. Neo Draven. The heir to the sky and the earth."

Neo’s heart hitched in his chest. His eyes, which had been halfway closed, snapped wide open.

’Wait. What did she just say?’

His brain stalled. He stared up at his mother’s smiling face, his mind replaying her words on a rapid loop.

Neo... Neo Draven!

It couldn’t just be a coincidence. ’Neo’ was a common enough name, sure. But ’Draven’? The Draven Dukedom? The silver hair? The deep blue eyes? The mother named Sylvia?!

A sharp pain pierced his head as unfamiliar memories burst into his brain. Not his personal memories, but the memories of the anime he had watched hundreds of times. The anime he had once hated and despised to his very core.

’No way... No freaking way,’ Neo thought, a cold sweat breaking out on his forehead. ’Shattered Crown?!’

Suddenly, it all clicked. The lavish mansion, the luxurious furniture, the sheer wealth dripping from every corner. He wasn’t reborn in just any random fantasy world. He was reborn inside an anime.

’Shattered Crown’ had been a massive hit fantasy anime, with its core tags being ’Harem’ and ’System’. The world revolved entirely around the male lead, a scrawny countryside boy named Kael. Kael started off with zero talent, bullied by everyone—a literal nobody destined to die in the dirt.

But, as with every modern fantasy trope, Kael had a golden finger: A System. A system that boosted his power every single time he increased his affection points with a female. He literally gained hundreds of harem members on the road just to boost his own strength. The stronger the girl, the bigger the power boost he received from her affection points.

These affection points could be increased by completing different kinds of quests, and of course, by closing the distance between him and his partners.

Neo could almost hear those annoying system chimes from the anime playing right in his head.

Kael, the male lead, could cross mortal boundaries that took normal geniuses decades to achieve. Through ridiculous plot armor and the intervention of his System, Kael went from a weakling to a powerhouse. He gathered powerful allies, conquered dangerous dungeons, and slowly annihilated anyone who dared stand in his way—the so-called ’villains’ of the anime.

The ultimate climax of the story ended with the royal family falling. Desperate for a savior after a cataclysmic war, the world declared Kael the absolute Hero. He ascended the empty throne and established a brand-new dynasty.

’Seriously, if I had that kind of power, how overpowered could I have become?... Ahem! Nope, I am not a pervert!’

Then, if Kael was the protagonist, what was the real Neo Draven supposed to be in the actual story?

’I’m the stepping stone.’ Neo sighed in frustration.

In the original anime, Neo wasn’t the final boss. He wasn’t even a major antagonist. He was just a third-rate, cliché young master who existed purely to make the male lead look good.

According to the lore, Neo possessed a monstrous talent. Born with the world on a silver platter, he became impossibly lazy. He wasted his talent in arrogance, relied entirely on his family’s reputation, and became a cruel, spoiled brat. When he crossed paths with Kael early in the story to humiliate the weak countryside boy, Kael used his newly acquired System abilities to slaughter him on the spot.

He died pathetically in the very first arc of the show.

’I get killed by a countryside boy just to show the audience that Kael isn’t afraid of authority,’ Neo thought, his tiny hands clenching into tight little fists. ’What a garbage fate.’

But his death wasn’t the end. His death was just a catalyst for the bloodiest arc in the entire anime.

Because the Draven family loved him.

Neo remembered the episodes following the young master’s death. The Duke of Draven, his father, went berserk. One of the strongest Dukedom in the empire turned all its military might toward hunting down Kael. But fate always favored the protagonist. Through a string of absurd luck, Kael ended up saving the life of the reigning Emperor, earning the Royal Family’s absolute protection.

The result? The Duke declared independence.

A catastrophic civil war erupted between the Velkrath Empire and the Draven Dukedom. The Duke decimated the Imperial forces, killing several generals and causing irreversible damage to the Empire. But it was a war of attrition. Surrounded on a blood-soaked battlefield and overwhelmed by numbers, the Duke finally fell.

And it didn’t stop there.

Neo looked up at the woman holding him. In the anime, Duchess Sylvia fought fiercely to protect her remaining children. But the trauma of losing her firstborn son, followed by the gruesome death of her husband, broke her mind. Eventually, the Empire breached the estate. They labeled her a traitor and executed her in the capital square. Even Neo’s younger siblings, heirs who hadn’t even been born yet, were hunted down.

Total destruction. The Draven family name was permanently wiped from history.

All because an arrogant young master picked a fight with the main character.

’No.’

Neo’s breathing hitched. The gravity of his situation crashed down on him. He didn’t want that to happen, not after he had finally gotten the family he desperately wanted, someone who might love him unconditionally.

’No way in hell am I letting that happen.’

He wasn’t that arrogant idiot from the anime. He wasn’t going to be a stepping stone. He didn’t care about the plot, he didn’t care about Kael’s journey, and he certainly didn’t care about changing the destiny of the world. Butterfly effect be damned.

He just wanted to live.

"Shhh, it’s alright, my little one," Sylvia whispered, misinterpreting his tense posture. She rocked him again, her movements smooth and filled with unconditional love. "Mama is here. You don’t have to be afraid of anything. I will protect you forever."

The bitter irony of her words stung. The Draven name wouldn’t be able to protect them; even the power of the whole dukedom couldn’t stand against the entire empire.

But as the afternoon slowly bled into the evening, Neo’s chaotic mind began to quiet down.

Sylvia carried him to an armchair near the large window so he could see outside. The evening sun was dipping low over the horizon, casting a beautiful golden-orange glow over the gardens of the estate.

Neo rested his cheek against his mother’s chest. The smell of flowers, the warmth of the sun, the soothing rhythm of her heart... it was intoxicating. For the first time since he opened his eyes in this world, Neo felt safe. He looked up at Sylvia, watching the sunlight reflect in her bright eyes. She wasn’t the grieving, broken woman from the anime. She was a mother, perfectly content.

’She’s not a character in an anime,’ Neo realized, a heavy warmth settling deep in his chest. ’She’s real. My father is real. This family is real.’

He didn’t want to conquer the world. He didn’t want a System, a massive harem, or the Emperor’s throne. He just wanted to keep this. This warmth. This quiet evening.

’I’m not going to get entangled in the protagonist’s messy journey,’ Neo vowed silently, his blue eyes narrowing with a fierce determination completely out of place on a baby’s face.

’I’ll train. I won’t be lazy. I’ll become strong enough to protect myself, and I will stay as far away from the original story as humanly possible. I am going to protect this peacefulness. Even if I have to defy the fate of this entire damn world to do it!’

Exhausted by the sheer weight of his own resolutions, Neo’s eyelids fluttered closed. Surrounded by the light of the setting sun and the steady heartbeat of his mother, the doomed villain of the story drifted off into a peaceful sleep.