Chapter 5: The Demon of the Battlefield

The earth-shattering sound of a horn shattered the peaceful morning air of the Draven estate, turning everything chaotic.

Neo sat up on the pillows in the center of the master bed, blinking his eyes. He had been in the middle of an staring contest with a stuffed dragon his mother had forced into his arms.

Outside the bedroom doors, chaos erupted. The entire mansion, which had operated on a quiet peace since Neo’s birth, suddenly buzzed with frantic energy.

Neo’s heart did a complicated flip. He knew exactly what those horns meant.

’He’s back,’ Neo thought, his grip tightening instinctively on the stuffed dragon’s soft wing. ’The Duke. Cassian Draven. My... father.’

If there was one character in Shattered Crown whose lore was more terrifying than the actual villains, it was Cassian Draven. The man wasn’t just a nobleman; he was a walking natural disaster.

He became the duke at the young age of eighteen after his father’s sudden death. The surrounding territories and greedy nobles immediately assumed the mighty Draven house was ripe for the picking. They were dead wrong. Cassian didn’t just survive the political vultures—he slaughtered them. He handled the crushing pressure of the estate and the military with a ruthless efficiency that made veteran generals tremble.

But he hadn’t done it alone.

Neo shifted his gaze to the side of the bed. His mother, Sylvia, was hurriedly fixing her silver hair in a hand mirror. Her hands trembled slightly, an anxious flush coloring her pale cheeks.

In the anime, Sylvia was Cassian’s childhood sweetheart and his anchor. While he was out securing the borders, she managed the insane logistics, finances, and internal politics of the estate. They were a true power couple. But just as Sylvia entered her final trimester with Neo, the northern Kingdom of Aethelgard launched a surprise invasion.

The Emperor panicked and deployed the one man whose name made enemy commanders wake up screaming. Cassian had to march to the borders, leaving his pregnant wife behind. He crushed the invasion with terrifying speed, but while he was out fighting enemies... Neo was already born.

The sound of footsteps echoed up the grand staircase. They weren’t hurried, but they carried a dense, suffocating weight.

The maids in the room instantly dropped to their knees, not daring to look up and meet the duke’s eyes.

Sylvia placed the mirror on the nightstand. She took a breath and sat up straighter, her blue eyes fixed on the doors.

The doors didn’t just open; they were pushed wide by a broad-shouldered man wearing midnight-black plate armor that bore the undeniable scratches of close-quarters combat. A mark of a sword surrounded by a dragon rested proudly on the armor plate, depicting the Draven insignia.

But it was his face that caught Neo off guard. He looked so young. He had sharp, handsome features and messy jet-black hair that fell right into his eyes. He was just a guy in his early twenties.

His piercing, silver eyes swept the room like a hawk looking for prey. The temperature seemed to drop. The maids shivered against the floor.

Neo swallowed hard, genuinely intimidated.

’So this is the strongest duke in the Empire. He looks like he could snap a wyvern’s neck for fun.’

Cassian’s silver eyes finally locked onto the bed. They found Sylvia.

The suffocating aura choking the room vanished in a fraction of a second.

The cold, ruthless Demon of the Battlefield suddenly looked like a man who had just realized he forgot his wife’s birthday. Cassian took three frantic steps into the room, his face turning blank as he walked closer to her.

And then, the unthinkable happened.

One of the strongest men in the Velkrath Empire, the Duke whose name made entire nations shudder, dropped directly to his knees beside the bed.

"Sylvia, I’m so sorry. Gods, I am so, so sorry."

Neo looked at them with a puzzled expression. He didn’t know about this side of Cassian. The anime certainly never mentioned that he would be groveling at his wife’s feet.

’Wait... what?’

"You missed it. You promised you would be back before the first snow, Cassian."

Sylvia snapped his hand away as he reached for her.

"I know. I know I did... The Aethelgard bastards collapsed the main pass. We had to march around the Wyvern Peaks. I rode ahead of the legion for five days without sleep the second the treaty was signed. I swear to you, my love, I came here as soon as possible."

She pursed her lips, remaining stubborn. Why wouldn’t she? He had broken his promise to return before Neo was born. He came back six months late.

"Did it... did it hurt? Were you afraid?" Cassian asked.

"Of course it hurt, stupid! Do you think I magically gave birth to him without feeling pain?!"

Cassian felt even more heartbroken at her words. He hadn’t been present when his wife needed him the most. He couldn’t support his wife, so how was he going to support his child?

"I am sorry... Sylvia."

Sylvia looked at him with moist eyes in confusion as he suddenly brought a dagger out of his armor and prepared to stab his own hand.

"Hey, wait, wait! What are you doing?! Keep that thing away from you!"

"No! I deserve to be stabbed! I should also feel the same amount of pain you had while giving birth to our child!"

Sylvia couldn’t help but facepalm at his ridiculous logic. She quickly snatched the dagger from his hand before he could do any more stupid things.

"Hand me the dagger, Sylvia. Just a shallow cut to the shoulder. I’ll feel better."

"You are an idiot. You haven’t changed even a bit, even after fighting for nearly a year like a battle junkie."

Her anger evaporated as she hugged him tightly.

Cassian looked surprised at the sudden change in his wife’s behavior, but he gently stroked her hair to comfort her.

"Sylvia... Then instead of a stab, you should beat me up, like how you used to..."

Sylvia looked at him with a dazed expression after pulling back. She couldn’t help but shake her head at her husband’s cluelessness, realizing she had already forgiven him.

Sitting two feet away, clutching his stuffed dragon, Neo felt a massive bubble of amusement rise in his chest. In his past life, he had watched many anime where the dukes remained ruthless and cold-blooded to the very core, with some of them refusing to show love to their own wives and children.

But here, watching the once terrifying Demon of the Battlefield, who had probably killed thousands, on his knees begging his wife to beat him up, was just too funny.

"Hehehe..."

A sudden giggle slipped uncontrollably from Neo’s mouth.

It wasn’t a loud sound, but in the intimate quiet of the reunion, it might as well have been a gunshot.

Cassian froze. He turned immediately toward where the sound came from.

Sitting just behind Sylvia on the bed, propped up on a pillow, a small adorable baby sat holding the stuffed dragon tightly, trying to hide his face behind the toy.

Cassian held his breath as he looked at Neo. He was a pure copy of his mother. Every feature matched hers, from his incredible looks down to that familiar giggle.

"He..." Cassian stammered, unable to find the right words to speak up. "He is..."

"He is perfect," Sylvia said softly, her voice overflowing with boundless pride. "Hehe... Just like me."

Cassian’s lips twitched at her words, but he didn’t deny it. She was a genius in both magic and politics, and a beauty who attracted the attention of thousands if she walked alone.

"Yeah, yeah, but he will be as strong as me..."

Sylvia gently picked up Neo from the pillow and placed him on her lap.

"Nope, I don’t want Neo to become a broad-shouldered, towering man like you! I want him to become a tall and handsome boy with delicate features... He will be so handsome... Hmm..."

Cassian looked disappointed at his wife’s desires, but still, he couldn’t protest her words. He raised his hand to squeeze Neo’s soft cheek, but before his fingers could reach, Neo immediately swatted his hand away and leaned hard against his mother.

Cassian felt surprised, instantly feeling like Neo hated him. He felt his heart break one more time as he looked at his wife with a questioned look.

Sylvia sighed as she rubbed Neo’s back.

"Well... For your information, Neo doesn’t like anyone touching his cheeks. Anyone who came to take care of him in my absence, the maids and servants, all just kept squeezing his cheeks so much that now he instinctively rejects it... So don’t try it again, he doesn’t hate you."

Cassian pursed his lips, feeling a rising anger after hearing that. Someone had dared to touch his son? He was not letting those servants go. He was definitely going to take care of them the second he stepped out of this room.

Just as he planned out how to punish them, a chilling voice cut through the air, sending a shiver straight down his spine.

"Cassian... don’t you dare think of doing any stupid things... Or I will really have to use that method of punishment you suggested earlier..."

Cassian looked at Sylvia. Her expression had shifted from a loving gaze to a cold, ruthless glare. All the warmth vanished, leaving only a sharp warning behind.

Cassian swallowed hard. Even the Demon of the Battlefield had his own weaknesses. Even he had someone to be afraid of in this life.

As Neo sat there in his mother’s lap, gazing at the couple that was his father and mother, he felt a sudden sense of fulfillment he had never experienced before.

’Now I just have to work harder to maintain this family environment... I will definitely protect them. Well, just a few more years until I awaken...’