The air was thick with the stench of burning metal and cordite, a choking haze that clung to the back of Elias Varn's throat as he crouched behind a shattered concrete barrier. His ears rang from the relentless cacophony of war—artillery shells screaming overhead, the staccato bark of automatic rifles, and the distant, bone-rattling booms of airstrikes flattening what little remained of the city. The sky above was a bruised purple, streaked with the fiery trails of missiles and the fleeting silhouettes of drones. Somewhere, a kilometer away, a tank's cannon roared, its shockwave rippling through the rubble-strewn street.
Elias pressed his back against the barrier, his gloved hands tightening around the grip of his prototype rifle—a sleek, experimental model he'd designed himself, its targeting system linked to his cracked HUD goggles. The device flickered, throwing jagged data streams across his vision: heat signatures, wind vectors, ammunition counts. He ignored most of it. His focus was on the enemy's advance—three mechanized units, supported by infantry, closing in on his position. They were less than two hundred meters out, their treads grinding over the corpses of soldiers and civilians alike.
"Varn, you still with us?" crackled a voice through his earpiece, barely audible over the static. It was Captain Reza, her tone clipped but fraying at the edges. She was holed up in a half-collapsed bunker three blocks west, coordinating what remained of their battered regiment.
"Barely," Elias muttered, his voice hoarse. He risked a glance over the barrier, his steel-gray eyes narrowing as he spotted the glint of an enemy scope. He ducked just as a sniper's round cracked against the concrete, spraying dust into his ashen-black hair. "They're pushing hard. Got at least two MBTs and a platoon of grunts. Where's our air support?"
"Gone," Reza said flatly. "Last chopper went down ten minutes ago. Command's pulling back to the coast. We're on our own."
Elias's jaw tightened. On our own. The words hit like a gut punch, but he wasn't surprised. The war had been spiraling into chaos for months—supply lines cut, cities reduced to ash, entire divisions wiped out in days. The Coalition's superior tech and numbers had ground their forces to dust. This was the final hour, the last desperate stand of a nation that no longer existed.
He exhaled sharply, forcing his mind to focus. Panic was a luxury he couldn't afford. Not now, not ever. His entire life had been about precision—first as a weapons engineer, then as a field commander. He'd built systems to outthink the enemy, to turn chaos into order. But no amount of brilliance could salvage this. The city was lost. His men were dying. And yet, he couldn't stop. Not while a single soldier still looked to him for orders.
"Reza, get your people to the fallback point," he said, his voice steady despite the tremor in his chest. "I'll buy you time."
"Elias, don't be a hero," she snapped. "We need you alive, not—"
"Move, Captain. That's an order." He cut the comms before she could argue, his fingers already dancing across the rifle's interface. The weapon hummed as it cycled to its overcharge mode—a risky modification he'd added in a sleepless haze months ago. It could punch through tank armor, but it'd burn out the barrel in ten shots. Ten shots to make a difference.
He leaned out, sighting the lead tank. Its turret swiveled, tracking a fleeing squad of his men. Elias didn't hesitate. He fired, the rifle's recoil slamming into his shoulder as a tungsten slug screamed through the air. The round punched through the tank's frontal armor, detonating its fuel cell in a fireball that lit up the dusk. Shrapnel rained down, and the infantry scattered, their shouts drowned out by the explosion.
One down. Two to go.
Elias moved, sprinting across the debris-strewn street to a new position behind a toppled truck. His heart pounded, not from fear but from the cold clarity of necessity. He'd been in too many battles to feel the raw terror of his younger years. War had carved away the soft parts of him, leaving only the iron core—his mind, his will, his refusal to break. He'd seen friends die, cities burn, entire futures erased. Each loss had hardened him, forged him into something more than human, less than whole.
Another tank rolled into view, its cannon leveling at his position. Elias didn't flinch. He fired again, the slug tearing through its turret. The machine erupted, flames licking the sky. But the third tank was already moving, flanked by soldiers with anti-armor rockets. They'd spotted him.
"Varn!" Reza's voice broke through the static again. "You're pinned! Get out of there!"
He ignored her, his mind racing through calculations. The truck wouldn't hold against a direct hit. He had seconds, maybe less. He slung the rifle over his shoulder and dove for cover behind a pile of rubble, just as a rocket streaked past, detonating against the truck. The blast threw him forward, his body slamming into the ground. Pain flared in his ribs, sharp and hot, but he pushed it down. No time for weakness.
He scrambled to his feet, blood trickling from a gash on his forehead. The HUD was dead now, its screen cracked beyond use. He didn't need it. His instincts were enough. He raised the rifle, firing blindly into the smoke. A scream told him he'd hit something human. The tank's cannon roared, and the rubble beside him exploded, showering him with stone and dust.
Seven shots left.
Elias's thoughts flickered to his past—not the war, but the moments before it. The quiet nights in his workshop, surrounded by blueprints and prototypes. The way his hands moved over machinery, coaxing life from steel and circuits. He'd built weapons not for glory, but because he believed they could end conflicts faster, save lives. Naive, maybe. But it had been his purpose, his reason to keep going after the world had taken everything else.
Another rocket screamed toward him. He rolled, the explosion deafening as it tore through his cover. Shrapnel grazed his arm, slicing through his combat fatigues. He gritted his teeth, forcing himself to move. The tank was close now, its treads crunching over the street. Too close.
Six shots.
He fired again, aiming for the tank's tracks. The slug hit, mangling the mechanism. The machine lurched, immobilized but still dangerous. Its turret swiveled, locking onto him. Elias's breath caught. He could hear the whine of its cannon charging.
This was it.
He didn't run. There was nowhere to go. Instead, he stood, raising the rifle one last time. His mind was calm, a strange peace settling over him. He'd done what he could. His men had a chance to escape. Reza would make it to the coast. Maybe she'd carry on his work, his ideas. Maybe that was enough.
The cannon fired.
The world became light and heat.
Elias didn't expect to wake. Death was supposed to be final, a void without edges. But there was pain—dull, aching, spreading through his chest like roots through soil. His eyelids fluttered, heavy as lead. The air smelled different—not of smoke and blood, but of damp stone and mildew. His body felt wrong, small, fragile, as if it belonged to someone else.
He forced his eyes open. Darkness greeted him, broken by slivers of moonlight streaming through a cracked window. He was lying on a thin mattress, the straw beneath him crackling as he shifted. His hands—too small, too pale—trembled as he raised them to his face. These weren't his hands. These weren't the calloused, scarred fingers of a soldier-engineer.
Where am I?
His mind raced, grasping for fragments of memory. The battle. The tank. The cannon's roar. He should be dead. But he wasn't. He was… here. Wherever here was.
A sharp pain lanced through his skull, and with it came a flood of images—not his own. A boy, no more than six, frail and sickly, coughing through endless nights. A crumbling manor, its walls stained with age. A family name—Vaeron—spoken with pity and scorn. A world of swords and stone, of lords and serfs, alien to everything Elias knew.
He sat up, his breath hitching. The room was sparse: a wooden stool, a chipped basin, a single candle burned down to a stub. The walls were stone, cold and rough, like something out of a medieval nightmare. This wasn't his world. This wasn't his body.
A faint hum filled his mind, like the buzz of a distant radio. Words appeared in his vision, glowing faintly against the darkness:
Dominion Interface: Initialized.
User: Elias Vaeron, Heir of House Vaeron.
Territory Status: Critical. Population: 1,247. Morale: Low. Resources: Depleted.
Command Tree: Unlocked. Awaiting Input.
Elias froze, his heart pounding. This was no dream. The interface was real, its data crisp and undeniable. He'd seen enough tactical systems to recognize a command structure when it appeared, but this was something else—something beyond his world's technology.
What the hell is this?
Before he could process it, a distant sound broke the silence—a low, rhythmic thud, like the march of boots. Voices followed, harsh and commanding, echoing through the manor's halls. The words were muffled, but their tone was unmistakable: authority, aggression, danger.
Elias's instincts kicked in, the same instincts that had kept him alive through years of war. He slid off the bed, his bare feet hitting the cold floor. His body was weak, unsteady, but his mind was sharp. He moved to the window, peering through the crack. Outside, in the moonlit courtyard, figures moved—soldiers, clad in leather and chainmail, their swords glinting. At their center stood a man in ornate armor, a crimson cloak billowing behind him. His voice carried, cold and imperious.
"Find the boy," he said. "House Vaeron ends tonight."
Elias's blood ran cold. They were coming for him. For this body, this name, this life he didn't understand. But one thing was clear: he wasn't going to die again. Not tonight.
The interface pulsed, a new message flashing:
Legacy Protocol: Unlocked. Blueprint Available—Primitive Musket.
His lips curved into a grim smile. Whoever these bastards were, they were about to learn what happened when you cornered a man who'd already faced death.