Paintings of Terror - Chapter 1: Entering the Painting

[Warning: Mature Content 18+, Harem, No NTR!]He was only ten years old when his world turned to ash. Hidden behind a door, shivering with helplessness and fear, the boy peered through the keyhole and watched his parents die. He never knew who killed them. He never even saw the faces of those who took everything from him.The terror was too much for a ten-year old boy. His mind shattered, erasing that night from his memory. And then everything was blank, darkness in front of his eyes as he lost consciousness.When his eyes opened again, a man stood before him, a stranger with a gentle smile and eyes filled with something strange… pity? Or something else?“What happened here boy?”“Happened where?”“You don’t remember, do you?”“Remember what…? Where is father? My Mother?”“I guess this is for the best.”“Good boy. Your father was my dearest friend… and now, you are my responsibility. From now on, you will be my son.”“You have no one left, boy… but I can make sure no one ever takes anything from you again.” The man said gently.And then that man forged him into something inhuman. A weapon honed to perfection, a shadow lurking in the underworld. The mere whisper of his name - Draugr, A ghost that never truly dies, sent grown men into cold sweats, their legs trembling beneath them.The boy soon outgrew his master and carved his own legend in blood. But all this while he never stopped searching—for the ones who killed his parents, for the truth, for revenge.And finally, after fifteen years of silence, he was close. The last clue he needed was just within his grasp.It was so close, yet just an inch out of his grasp. He was ambushed, a trap he never saw coming.Wounded, bleeding out, fighting for his life against an army of men and women eyeing to claim his life, he should have died. But fate had something else stored for him.Barely holding onto life, he stumbled into a girl—fragile-looking, yet completely unafraid of the monster before her. She didn’t run. She didn’t scream. Instead, she smiled.She saved him. Took him to a hospital. And as he lay unconscious, she made her plans.But when he woke up… He had lost everything, He remembered nothing.Not just the truth of his parents' murder. Not just the years of searching. Not just the enemies and allies he'd made along the way. Not even his own name.Twenty-five years of his life—wiped clean.Now, in a world that fears his very name, with ghosts of a past he can no longer remember hunting him in the shadows—he must decide: Is he still the Draugr they all fear? Or is he just a man searching for the pieces of himself?And who is the girl who stole his fate and bound it to hers?

I was killed in a car accident while trying to avoid a stalker.

Is this a reward for dying a miserable death?

I was reborn as a character in a novel that had, not a golden spoon, but a diamond spoon.

I thought I could live my life over again.

Until I found out my brother was a budding psychopath.

“Sister, how about this doll? Do you want it?”

“Leave it.”

“What about this doll?”

My younger brother ties people up so they can’t move, and insists on them being dolls.

Even I am destined to be killed in the hands of my brother.

‘Let’s leave my little brother to the heroine of the novel before that day comes!’

But… my brother killed the heroine…

The old man pointed to the flower-like woman and said, “Call her mother from now on.” He then pointed to a flower-bud-like girl and said, “This is your sister.”

My younger sister was not cute.

She was arrogant, taciturn and weird, but she knew how to please our parents.

She was two-faced and deceitful, but it seemed like she only treated me that way.

I cared for her, tried to please her as much as I can, but she still disliked me.

Until one day, I found out her secret, our relationship began to get a little bit weird…

- Description from Novelupdates

Dual Cultivation is an art. The more you focus on doing the art, the worse it becomes. Only when doing it becomes part of the art itself, does one truly experience it to its fullest.