They said wars were won by steel.
That was a lie.
Wars were won by silence.
By what came after the screaming stopped.
By who still stood when the noise finally died.
And today, he was still standing.
For now.
---
The battlefield writhed like a dying beast.
Smoke rolled across broken ground in thick coils, carrying the stench of fire, blood, and something worse—burning flesh. The wind howled low across the corpses, dragging broken banners through the mud. Once, this had been farmland. Now it was a slaughterhouse.
The clash of steel echoed across the hills. Not the rhythm of a noble duel. This was chaos. Brutal. Desperate.
And through it all, he moved.
A man without a name, known only by the sword in his hand and the stories whispered by the dying. The tip of his blade was chipped. The hilt wrapped in bloodstained cloth. It wasn't the sword he started the war with—but it was the one still cutting.
Armor hung from him in tatters, plates cracked and leather burned. His hands were blistered from too many winters holding steel. His right shoulder bled through three layers of bandages, but he didn't falter.
He didn't have time to.
The enemy kept coming—Virellen soldiers, draped in their blood-red insignias, desperate and wild-eyed. They had the numbers. But numbers meant nothing now.
He ducked low under a swinging halberd, twisted, and drove his blade into the attacker's ribs. The man gasped and folded. Another charged him. He parried, kicked, slashed across the thigh, and finished with a savage jab through the gut.
Every movement was muscle memory.
Every kill was survival.
Every second forward was one fewer looking back.
He didn't know how long he'd been fighting. The sun had shifted behind the smoke, but time on the battlefield didn't matter.
What mattered was finishing this.
And he was close.
So close.
---
The gates of the enemy stronghold lay shattered behind him. Smoke billowed from their barracks. Their last line was broken. The few remaining Virellen squads were scattered, fleeing or dying.
He had done it.
The war was ending—finally.
All that remained was the final sweep. One last push to clear the path.
He signaled to his comrades—his brothers-in-arms—motioning them forward.
And then—
everything ended.
---
Pain.
Sudden. Sharp. Wrong.
A blade sank deep into his back, just beneath the right shoulder. He staggered, breath caught in his throat. He turned instinctively, sword half-raised to strike—
Another slash. Lower. Across his spine.
He gasped, dropped to one knee, dizzy from the blood loss.
And then he saw them.
Three men.
Marrek. Vorran. Kael.
Comrades. Leaders. The ones who had stood by him through every campaign. Shared food. Buried the dead. Laughed by firelight.
And now… they stood with bloodied blades drawn, looking down on him like he was the enemy.
His sword fell from his fingers.
It hit the mud with a soft, wet thud—an almost pitiful sound.
He stared at them, choking on disbelief more than pain.
"...Why?"
No answer.
Marrek looked away, his jaw clenched, eyes full of shame.
Vorran scoffed. "You should've died with the rest of the front line. We wouldn't have had to do this."
Kael stepped forward.
No expression. No hesitation.
"You were too strong," he said, as if it explained everything. "Too loyal. Too hard to control. You would've kept fighting long after the war was won. And that would've made you a threat."
He drove his blade straight into the general's chest—through armor, through muscle, through heart.
And then he let go.
---
The pain didn't come all at once. It sank in slowly, like cold water.
He fell to the ground in silence, his knees giving way, his fingers twitching uselessly.
The world blurred.
Flames swirled behind the retreating soldiers. Screams rang out beyond the hills. The smell of blood filled his lungs one last time.
Then… it all began to fade.
First his legs. Then his arms. Then his breath.
The sky above him cracked with thunder, and rain began to fall—just enough to hiss off the blood soaking the ground.
He didn't cry out. Didn't curse them. Didn't scream.
He just closed his eyes.
And let go.
---
But he didn't stay gone.
---
There was no sudden gasp.
No panicked jolt.
Just… awareness.
A breath. Unfamiliar. Clean.
The scent hit him first.
Dirt. Moss. Water. Trees.
He opened his eyes and flinched at the brightness of the sky above—blue, cloudless, endless.
The air was light. Fresh. It stung his lungs, used to smoke and rot.
He sat up slowly.
The ground beneath him was soft and damp. Not mud soaked with blood—but cool, living moss. Flowers bloomed a few feet away. Tiny insects buzzed lazily in the underbrush.
He blinked. Once. Twice.
Nothing made sense.
His body felt wrong. Too light. Too fragile. His limbs didn't respond like they used to.
He stumbled toward the edge of a small pool.
And there—staring back from the rippling surface—was a child.
Ten years old, maybe.
Dark hair. Pale skin. A thin scar across his left brow. Eyes too empty, too old, for that young face.
He recoiled.
"What the hell...?"
He reached for his chest. No wound. No blood. No armor. Just ragged linen—coarse, torn, unfamiliar.
He looked around.
Nothing.
No castle. No battlefield. No comrades. No smoke.
Only forest. Sunlight. Stillness.
His breathing quickened. His heart thundered.
"What is this? What... happened to me?"
His thoughts spiraled.
Was this a trick? Some cruel punishment? A second life? A second death?
He closed his eyes, trying to recall—
The last thing he remembered was steel in his chest.
Kael's voice.
The final blow.
Darkness.
Not this.
Then—without warning—something shifted inside him.
A quiet, sterile click. A flash of comprehension that wasn't his own.
> [Progress Evaluation Engaged…]
Name: Unknown
Age: 10
Status: Alive
Physical Aptitude: Very Low
Mental Fortitude: Elevated
Emotional Stability: Unstable
Magic Capacity: Dormant
The awareness vanished just as suddenly as it came.
He stood in silence, heart still pounding.
What the hell was that?
He waited for more. A voice. A message. A divine answer.
Nothing came.
Only wind through leaves and the far-off cry of some unseen bird.
He was alone.
Again.
---
He stood slowly, knees wobbling from disuse—or shock. He looked down at his hands.
Small. Scarred. Trembling.
He clenched them into fists.
The forest offered no direction. No path. No sign that he'd been summoned, or saved, or reborn.
There was no throne. No sword. No divine light.
Only him.
And for once, that felt like enough.
He didn't know how or why he was alive. Didn't know who had sent him—or if anyone had at all.
He only remembered the betrayal.
And the silence that followed it.
But this world?
It didn't know him.
Didn't expect him.
Didn't care who he used to be.
Maybe that was freedom.
He took a step forward, barefoot across the moss.
Then another.
And another.
Not toward destiny. Not toward vengeance. Just forward.
Because forward was all that was left.