The frozen soldiers stood like statues at the village's edge, their faces masks of confusion and fear. Dan's arms ached from holding the girl—he needed to put her down, needed to move, needed to—
Reiyel.
The name surfaced from the body's memory like a stone breaking water. Not his memory. The body's. The boy whose life he'd inherited.
Reiyel. Little sister. Ten years old. Thin, always thin, because there was never enough food. Dark hair like mine. Eyes too big for her face. She hides behind the well when she's scared.
Dan's head snapped toward the village center. The well. The wooden platform overlooked it, but the well itself was behind him, near the remains of what might have been a meeting house.
Where is she?
He set the girl down. "Stay here. Don't move from this platform."
She grabbed his sleeve. "Don't leave me."
"I'll come back." He pried her fingers gently from his tunic. "I promise. But I need to find someone."
He didn't wait for her response. He was already moving, jumping off the platform, splashing through mud that was half water and half ash. His legs screamed—this sixteen-year-old body was malnourished, pushed past its limits—but he didn't slow down.
The well. She hides behind the well.
Soldiers were regrouping beyond his range. He could see them at the edges of his perception, the threads of their existence flickering like candle flames in the distance. The mercenary commander was shouting orders. The army captain was forming a shield wall. They would test his power again. They would find its limits.
None of that mattered.
Reiyel. Find Reiyel.
He rounded the well and stopped.
She was there. Small. Curled into a ball with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her clothes were torn, her face streaked with dirt and tears, and there was blood on her shoulder—a cut, shallow but bleeding freely, probably from falling debris.
She was alive.
But she was looking at something behind him, and her eyes held a terror that made Dan's chest constrict.
"Reiyel—"
"Brother," she whispered. "Brother, behind you."
Dan turned.
A mercenary had broken through.
Not through Dan's power—the man had simply been outside the initial range when Dan froze the others. He'd circled around, using the burning buildings as cover, and now he stood ten meters away with a crossbow leveled at Dan's chest.
The man's face was scarred, his armor splattered with mud and blood. He was smiling.
"Thought you could freeze us all, boy?" The mercenary's voice was rough, amused. "My boys back there, they're telling stories about some demon in peasant clothes. But I've killed demons before. They all bleed the same."
Dan stepped in front of Reiyel. "Leave. Take your men and leave this village."
"I don't take orders from children." The crossbow didn't waver. "That trick you did—freezing my men—it's got a range, doesn't it? I can see it in your eyes. I'm outside it. And even if I wasn't, you're just one boy. How many arrows can you stop? How many swords? How many of us are there, waiting to burn this place to nothing?"
Behind him, Dan heard movement. More soldiers. More mercenaries. They'd figured out his range. They were gathering just beyond it, waiting for the moment his concentration broke.
"I'll give you one chance," the mercenary said. "Drop whatever you're doing. Let my men go. And I'll make your death quick."
Fear, Dan realized. They're testing. They don't know what I am, and that terrifies them. So they're probing for weakness.
It was the same strategy he'd seen in university politics a hundred times. Find the limit. Push until something breaks.
The crossbow was aimed at his chest. At this range, even if he dodged, the bolt would hit Reiyel.
And then Dan felt it.
Not his own fear. Something deeper. Something that wasn't his.
Reiyel's terror.
It poured into him like ice water—not as an emotion he could dismiss, but as a physical weight pressing against his soul. This body's sister. This body's last remaining family. She was watching a stranger point a weapon at her brother, and in her mind, she was already seeing him fall. Already reliving every loss this body had endured. Already preparing to be alone again.
The original owner of this body—the boy who had starved, who had protected his sister with nothing but his fragile body—he wasn't completely gone. His love for Reiyel was etched into the marrow of these bones. His desperation was a ghost in Dan's veins.
And that ghost was screaming.
PROTECT HER. PROTECT HER. PROTECT HER.
Dan's power exploded.
It didn't come from his mind. It came from somewhere older, somewhere primal—the absolute refusal of a brother to let his sister die. The threads of reality that Dan had been gingerly touching now blazed like solar flares, and the mercenary's crossbow—
Shattered.
Not frozen. Not pushed aside. The weapon simply ceased to be a weapon. Wood splintered. Metal twisted. The bolt that had been loaded dropped to the ground and dissolved into rust.
The mercenary stared at his empty hands. "What—"
Dan's voice came from somewhere outside himself. "I said leave."
The mercenary's armor cracked. Not fell apart—cracked, as if it had aged a hundred years in a single second. The man stumbled backward, clutching at his chest, his face pale with a terror that had nothing to do with bravery or strategy.
Around them, the soldiers and mercenaries at the edge of Dan's range felt it too. A pressure. A weight. The unmistakable sense that something vast and terrible had just awakened in the center of this burning village.
They ran.
Not in formation. Not with orders. They simply turned and fled, abandoning their frozen comrades, abandoning the village, abandoning everything. The mercenary whose armor had crumbled was the fastest of them all.
In seconds, the only sounds were the crackle of flames and the distant thunder of retreating boots.
Dan stood in the mud, breathing hard, his body trembling with exhaustion. Behind him, Reiyel grabbed his tunic and pressed her face against his back.
"Brother," she whispered. "What are you?"
Dan didn't have an answer.
---
The village was quiet now. Not peaceful—the fires still burned, the dead still lay where they'd fallen—but the threat had passed. For now.
Dan sat against the well, Reiyel curled beside him with her head on his shoulder. The girl from the platform had found them—she was tending to Reiyel's wound with surprising competence, using cloth torn from her own clothes. Her name was Mira, she'd said. She was nine. Her family was gone.
The other survivors were emerging from hiding. A dozen of them, maybe two dozen. Farmers and craftspeople who had watched their homes burn and their neighbors die. They moved through the wreckage in a daze, pulling bodies from the rubble, salvaging what they could.
And every few seconds, they looked at Dan.
He could feel their eyes on him. Their fear. Their confusion. Their desperate, fragile hope.
But mostly, he could feel the threads.
They were everywhere now, more visible than before. The surge of power that had shattered the mercenary's crossbow had opened something inside him, and now the threads of reality were as clear as the smoke rising from the village.
Dan focused on them, trying to understand. The power was too vast, too formless. It was like trying to drink from a waterfall. He needed structure. He needed something his mind could grasp.
Like a game, he thought. A system. Something with rules I can see.
He closed his eyes and reached for the threads with his intention, not his hands.
Show me. Give me something I can understand.
The world went white.
When his vision cleared, Dan was staring at something that shouldn't exist.
A translucent screen floated in front of his face. It looked like a game interface—clean lines, simple icons, information organized in boxes and bars. Written in English. In his handwriting.
[SYSTEM INITIALIZED]
User: Dan Black
Age: 16
Power: Reality Manipulation (Anchor-Type)
[CURRENT STATUS]
Range: 47 meters
Anchored Faith: 1 (Mira)
Active Territory: None
Stability: Critical (Host body malnourished)
[ABILITIES]
· Creation: Create matter/structures within range (cost varies)
· Alteration: Modify existing matter (lower cost)
· Rule-Setting: Enforce local reality rules (requires Anchored Faith)
· Fate-Sight: View possible futures (unstable)
[WARNING]
Host body at critical stability. Immediate food and rest required.
Dan stared at the screen. His handwriting. His cognitive framework. The power had shaped itself to fit his understanding—turning the formless threads into something his mind could process.
A game system, he thought. Because that's what I understand. That's what I can use without drowning in complexity.
The screen shifted, showing new information as he thought.
[TERRITORY EXPANSION]
Faith anchors expand range. Each believer creates a radius of influence. Overlapping influence creates stable territory.
Current anchors: 1 (Mira)
Projected expansion with 10 anchors: 400m radius
So I need people who believe in me. Not just followers—believers. People who put their faith in what I'm building.
He looked at the survivors moving through the village. At Mira, who was watching him with eyes that held something more than gratitude. At Reiyel, asleep against his shoulder, trusting him completely because he was her brother and that was all the reason she needed.
One anchor. Forty-seven meters. Not nearly enough to protect them from what's coming.
The armies would return. If not today, then tomorrow. If not these armies, then others. The three kingdoms were at war, and this village was just ground to be taken and retaken until nothing was left.
Dan needed more than frozen soldiers. He needed protection that could last. He needed guardians that didn't sleep, didn't eat, didn't break.
He looked around the ruined village. A sheep lay dead near a collapsed house, crushed by falling stone. A cow had been caught in the fighting, its body still. Chickens scattered everywhere, some dead, some running in confused circles.
Living things. Or they had been.
Dan stood carefully, laying Reiyel against the well with Mira watching over her. He walked to the dead sheep and knelt beside it.
The system screen flickered.
[CREATION DETECTED]
Base material: Ovis aries (deceased)
Available for alteration: Yes
Energy cost: Moderate
I can't create life, Dan remembered. The rules said that. But these are already dead. And the system said 'alteration.'
He placed his hand on the sheep's wool and thought about what he needed. Guardians. Protectors. Things that could fight and defend without fear.
Take what's here. Change it. Make it strong. Make it loyal. Make it... more.
The sheep's body began to glow.
The transformation took less than a minute. When it was done, Dan stepped back and looked at what he had made.
It stood on two legs now, humanoid but unmistakably sheep-like. Thick wool covered its body like armor. Its arms ended in hands that could grip and strike. Its eyes glowed with a soft, steady light—not intelligent, not conscious, but aware enough to follow commands.
The system updated:
[GUARDIAN CREATED]
Type: Wool-Kin
Base: Ovis aries
Strength: Enhanced
Durability: High (wool armor)
Loyalty: Absolute (to Dan)
Limitations: Simple cognition, follows direct commands
Dan didn't wait. He moved to the dead cow. To the chickens. One by one, he placed his hands on their bodies and poured his power into them.
The cow became a towering humanoid with hide like iron and horns that could gore through steel. The chickens became smaller, faster guardians with razor-sharp beaks and feathers that flew like blades.
By the time he finished, six guardians stood in the village square. Three Wool-Kin, two Iron-Hides, and a dozen Feather-Blade runners.
The survivors had stopped their work to stare. Dan saw fear in their faces again—but also something else. Wonder.
"They won't hurt you," Dan said. His voice was hoarse, his body trembling. "They're here to protect. To guard this village."
He turned to the guardians.
Protect these people. Kill anyone who tries to harm them.
The guardians didn't speak. They simply moved to positions around the village perimeter, their glowing eyes scanning the darkness beyond the flames.
Dan sat down heavily beside the well. Reiyel was awake now, watching him with huge eyes. Mira stood beside her, her hand on the younger girl's shoulder.
"Brother," Reiyel said quietly. "What happened to you?"
Dan looked at his hands. They were shaking. His whole body was shaking. The system screen flickered with warnings about stability, about energy depletion, about the critical need for rest.
But when he looked up at the survivors—at the people who had nothing left except each other and a stranger who could do impossible things—he saw something that made the exhaustion worth it.
Hope.
"I don't know what happened to me," Dan said honestly. "But I know what's going to happen now."
He looked at the guardians standing watch at the village edge. At the system screen that showed his range expanding by centimeters as the survivors' fear slowly transformed into something else.
"We're going to build something here. Something that doesn't burn. Something that doesn't break. And anyone who tries to take it from us—" He let his voice harden. "They're going to learn why you don't threaten a brother's sister."
Reiyel's small hand slipped into his.
And in the darkness, on the edge of a destroyed village, surrounded by impossible creations and terrified survivors, Dan Black smiled for the first time since he'd arrived in this world.
Tomorrow would bring new challenges. New enemies. New limits to test and break.
But tonight, his sister was alive. His people—his people—were alive. And the threads of fate were finally, finally bending in the right direction.