Reborn As A Useless Mage, But I'm Already The Angel Of Death

05

Lord Daniel Ravenshaw sat behind his mahogany desk in the east wing of his family's ancestral estate, drumming his fingers against the polished wood with the nervous energy of a man whose entire future hinged on the next few hours.

"It should have started by now." He glanced at the ornate clock mounted above the fireplace. "The signal was supposed to come twenty minutes ago."

"Patience, my love." Vanessa Ravenshaw stood by the window, her dark hair swept up in an elegant twist that contrasted sharply with the cold calculation in her eyes. "These things take time. The isolation ward needs to fully stabilize before the portal can open."

"I know what needs to happen. I designed the plan."

"Then stop fidgeting like a child waiting for his birthday cake."

Daniel shot her a venomous look but said nothing. The plan was perfect. It had taken three years of secret negotiations with a Demon Lord to arrange this night. One demon rampage through the Blackwood celebration, enough chaos to cripple both empires simultaneously, and House Ravenshaw would emerge from the ashes as the sole remaining power capable of restoring order.

All because of the Demonic Art, the bloodline technique that nobody outside their family even knew existed. While the public believed House Ravenshaw specialized in Beast Taming, the truth was far darker. Every senior member of the family carried a demonic contract, a direct bond with a demon that granted immense power in exchange for service.

"Something is wrong with the servants." Vanessa stepped back from the window, her voice suddenly flat.

"What?"

"Look at them."

Daniel turned. Three maids stood in the hallway beyond the open study door. They were completely motionless. Not the stillness of servants waiting patiently for orders. The stillness of dolls. Their arms hung at their sides. Their eyes stared forward, unblinking, and the irises had turned solid black.

"What in the..." Daniel pushed back from his desk. "Guards!"

No response came. The two guards stationed outside his door stood in the same frozen posture, black eyes staring at nothing.

"GUARDS!"

The maids moved.

They did not walk. They lunged. Two of them slammed into Daniel with enough force to send him crashing backward over his chair. The third seized Vanessa from behind, one arm wrapping around her throat while the other forced itself over her mouth, cramming fingers past her teeth to stifle the scream building in her chest.

Daniel thrashed and kicked, but the maid pinning him drove her forearm into his mouth with mechanical precision, choking off his voice before he could utter a single word of the demonic incantation that would have summoned his contracted demon to save him.

Black threads of Curse Art materialized in the air around both of them, wrapping around their limbs like spider silk, paralyzing every muscle from the neck down. Then came something worse. A technique neither of them recognized. Something that felt like invisible hands reaching inside their chests and tearing at something fundamental.

Dissever. Adrian Blackwood's original technique. It targeted the metaphysical bonds connecting a mage to their contracted entities and severed them with surgical precision.

Daniel felt his demonic contract snap like a wire pulled too tight. The connection to his demon patron vanished so suddenly that his mind went blank with shock. Beside him, Vanessa convulsed as her own contract was ripped away with equal brutality.

Stripped of their power. Unable to move. Unable to speak. Unable to breathe properly with servants' hands shoved down their throats.

Daniel's vision blurred. His lungs screamed for air that could not reach them. The last thought that crossed his mind before consciousness faded was that his own demons must have betrayed him. That the very creatures he had bargained with had turned on him at the worst possible moment.

He never suspected for a single second that the true architect of his death was a sixteen year old boy currently dancing at his own birthday party three miles away.

Daniel Ravenshaw died on the floor of his own study. Vanessa died beside him. Their bodies were still warm when the undead servants moved on to the next wing of the estate.

Throughout every corridor, every bedroom, every private chamber and sitting room in the Ravenshaw mansion, the same scene repeated itself with mechanical efficiency. Daniel's brother. His aunt. His nephews and nieces. Distant cousins who had been sheltering under the family's protection for years. All of them restrained, silenced, and suffocated by servants who had poured their tea and pressed their clothes that very morning.

Not a single scream escaped the walls.

Back at the banquet, Adrian's legs buckled.

"Adrian!" Maya caught his arm as he stumbled, his full weight falling against her shoulder. His face had gone chalk white and sweat beaded across his forehead.

"I am fine." The words came out through clenched teeth. His body was betraying him. Commanding that many undead simultaneously at this distance, with this younger body's pathetically limited mana capacity, was pushing him past every physical boundary he had.

"You are not fine. You look like you are about to pass out."

"I just need a moment. Excuse me."

He pulled away from Maya with an apologetic nod and made his way through the crowd on unsteady legs, ignoring Lilly's worried voice calling after him. The washroom corridor was mercifully empty. He locked himself inside a cubicle and leaned against the wall, breathing hard.

From inside his coat, Adrian drew out a small pendant containing a crystal the size of a grape, glowing faintly purple with concentrated dark mana. He had been saving it. Using it this early felt like burning money. But his body left him no choice.

He crushed the crystal between his teeth and swallowed. Dark mana flooded through his veins like ice water, partially restoring what he had spent but nowhere near replenishing him fully.

It was not enough. Not enough to finish the job from this distance.

"Fine." Adrian spat the crystal fragments into the sink. "We do this the hard way."

He closed his eyes and reached through his network until he found a random undead maid standing motionless in the Ravenshaw estate's servants' quarters. Locking onto her position, he activated his original Grade 3 spell.

Shadow Blink.

The shadows beneath Adrian's feet opened like a mouth and swallowed him whole.