---
Kael Vire's eyes snapped open.
Not to the familiar ceiling of his bedroom. Not to the soft breathing of his wife beside him, or the sound of his daughter's cartoons in the living room. No—what greeted him was a sky cracked by purple lightning, an air thick with ash, and a scream in a language he didn't understand.
He was on a battlefield.
Bodies lay strewn across scorched black earth—some human, others… not. Towering beasts of sinew and fang were impaled on spears of flame. Arrows the size of javelins were buried in craters, glowing faintly with runes. A blade clattered near his feet, and as if on instinct, Kael picked it up.
His fingers remembered the weight of a weapon—though it had been years since he left the army. Now he was a logistics manager, a father of three, with a mortgage and a bad back. But the soldier in him stirred at the scent of blood.
"What the hell is this?"
A whisper touched his mind. Not from a mouth. It came from inside him.
> "Welcome to Mytherra, Mortal. You have been chosen as a Vessel."
> "Chosen… for what?"
> "Conquest. Ascension. Survival."
Kael looked down. His body was the same, but… wrong. Stronger. Faster. He could feel a pulse of energy beneath his skin—warm and violent, like molten steel. A dark tattoo coiled around his arm, glowing faintly.
And then came the system message—burning itself into his vision like fire:
---
[System Installation Complete]
Name: Kael Vire
Class: Voidmarked
Level: 1
Alignment: Ruthless
Objective: Find the Gate of Worlds. Return Home.
Penalty for Failure: Your world will be erased.
---
"No," Kael whispered. "No, no, no…"
His wife's smile flashed in his mind. The smell of his son's hair after a bath. His mother's voice when she called him "my boy" like he was still twelve. The weight of everything he could lose crashed into him.
"This is a mistake. I have to go back."
> "Then you must conquer, Kael Vire."
Another explosion rocked the horizon. A monstrous humanoid—seven feet tall, with tusks and burning red eyes—charged at him.
Kael raised the blade.
And for the first time in years, he killed.
---
As the beast fell, gurgling on its own blood, Kael stood over its corpse, breathing hard.
No time to grieve. No time to cry.
He had a world to burn through.
And a family to return to.
---