The frozen soldiers stood at the village's edge like mannequins. Their faces were a mix of confusion and fear—some of them still mid-stride, one guy with his mouth half-open like he'd been about to shout something.
Dan's arms were killing him. The girl was heavier than she looked, or maybe his new body was just that weak. He will put her down, questioning himself why did he carry him all this while and he needed to move to --
Reiyel.
The name floated up from somewhere deep. Not his memory—the body's memory. The kid whose life he'd accidentally inherited.
Reiyel. Little sister. Ten years old. Always hungry, because there was never enough food. Dark hair like mine. Big eyes. She hides behind the well when she's scared.
Dan's head snapped toward the village center. The well was behind him, near what used to be a meeting house. He could see the edge of it from here.
Where is she?
He set the girl down. "Stay here for now. Don't move from this platform."
She grabbed his sleeve. "Don't leave me."
"I'll come back." He gently peeled her fingers off. "Promise, I need to find someone."
He didn't wait for an answer. he turn his back and jumped off fro the platform, splashing through mud that was half water, half ash. His legs screamed—this sixteen-year-old body was really weak — but he didn't slow down.
The well. I think she hides behind the well.
He turns to check and the soldiers were regrouping beyond his range. He could see them at the edges of his awareness, their threads flickering like distant candles. The mercenary commander was yelling something. The army captain was forming a shield wall. They were going to test his power again. Find its limits.
None of that mattered right now.
Reiyel. Find Reiyel.
He rounded the well and stopped.
There she was. Small. Curled into a tight ball with her arms around her knees. Her clothes were torn, her face covered in dirt and tears, and there was blood on her shoulder—a cut, shallow but bleeding, probably from something falling on her.
She was alive.
But she wasn't looking at him. She was looking at something behind him, and her eyes held a kind of terror that made Dan's chest tighten.
"Reiyel—"
"Brother." Her voice was barely a whisper at first then she shouted loudly to warn me. "Brother, behind you!"
Dan turned.
A mercenary make his way to him so fast.
Wary about Dan's power—the guy had just been outside the range when Dan froze the others. He'd circled around, using the burning buildings as cover, and now he was standing maybe five meters away with a crossbow pointed right at Dan's chest.
The man had a scarred face, his armor splattered with mud and blood. He was smiling.
"Thought you could freeze us all, boy?" His voice was rough, almost amused, thinking 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 move. "That trick you did—freezing my men—it's got a range, doesn't it? I can feel it. And even if I wasn't, you're just one kid. How many arrows can you stop? How many swords? How many of us are out 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 his concentration to break.
"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 me. They don't know what I am, and that scares them. So they're looking for a weakness.
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 didn't belong to him.
Reiyel's terror poured into him like ice water—not just an emotion he could notice, but a physical weight pressing against his soul. This body's sister. This body's last 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. Already preparing to be alone again.
Then something else stirred.
A presence. A ghost. The original owner of this body—the boy who had starved, who had protected his sister with nothing but his fragile arms, who had died alone and scared in some way Dan still didn't understand—he wasn't completely gone. His love for Reiyel was carved into the marrow of these bones. His desperation was a scream trapped in Dan's veins.
And that scream finally broke free.
PROTECT HER. PROTECT HER. PROTECT HER.
The command wasn't a thought. It was a force. It crashed through Dan's mind like a wave, and in that moment, Dan wasn't in control anymore. He was just a passenger watching something ancient and primal take over.
His body moved on its own. His hand shot out toward the mercenary—not in a punch, not in any gesture he recognized. Just reaching.
And somewhere deep inside him, in a place he hadn't known existed, Dan's power touched something it shouldn't have.
It wasn't like before—those careful threads he'd been learning to nudge. This was different. This was like grabbing a live wire. A source of energy so vast and raw it felt like it might tear him apart from the inside.
What is this?! Dan's mind screamed. I didn't mean to—I wasn't trying to—
But the original owner's will didn't care about caution. It didn't care about limits. It only cared about one thing: Reiyel safe. Threat gone.
The energy erupted.
It didn't come out as a gentle freeze or a targeted shatter. It came out as a blast. A wave of invisible force that exploded outward from Dan in every direction, carrying the weight of a brother's fury and something else—something older, something that felt like the universe itself had just noticed this tiny village.
The mercenary with the crossbow didn't even have time to scream.
The blast caught him in the chest and launched him backward like a ragdoll. He flew past the frozen soldiers, past the regrouping troops at the edge of Dan's range, past the burning buildings at the village's edge. He kept going—tumbling end over end through the air—until he disappeared into the darkness beyond the fields.
The other soldiers and mercenaries didn't fare any better.
The wave hit them all. Every single one. The ones who had been frozen stumbled and flew. The ones who had been gathering just outside Dan's range were lifted off their feet and hurled backward like leaves in a hurricane. Armor crumpled on impact. Bones broke. Men crashed into trees, into each other, into the ground with sickening thuds.
The blast didn't stop at the village. It kept going—a full two hundred meters in every direction—until every last invader had been thrown clear. Some landed in the river. Some slammed into the hillside. Some just... vanished into the distant smoke.
When it was over, Dan stood alone in the village square.
His arm was still outstretched. His whole body was trembling. The energy was gone now—retreated back to wherever it had come from—but he could still feel its echo buzzing in his teeth.
Behind him, Reiyel was crying. Mira the kid he saved earlier was staring with her mouth open. The survivors who had been hiding in the ruins were peeking out, their faces pale.
Dan slowly lowered his arm.
He could hear the screams. Dozens of them, from every direction. The wounded soldiers, scattered across the landscape like broken toys. Some were calling for help. Some were just groaning. A few were silent.
He didn't feel bad about that. Not yet, anyway. Maybe later. Right now, all he felt was exhausted.
The system screen flickered back into view, covered in warnings he didn't bother reading.
Unknown source? he thought. What the hell was that?
But the screen didn't answer. It just kept flashing red.
Dan turned around, knelt down, and pulled Reiyel into his arms. She was shaking so hard he could feel her bones rattling.
"It's okay," he said. His voice was barely a whisper. "It's okay. They're gone."
She didn't say anything. She just held on tighter.
Around them, the village was quiet now—except for the crackle of flames and the distant, fading cries of the wounded. The threat was gone. For now.
Dan sat down against the well with Reiyel in his lap and tried to remember how to breathe.