The city of Calveron burned for three days straight.
Dean Johnson remembered the smell most of all. Not the smoke, not the charred wood or flesh, but the sweet, sickening stench of melted sugar from the confectioner's quarter mixing with the copper tang of blood in the streets. It clung to the back of the throat like a curse.
He was twenty-two years old, and the world had ended in a single afternoon.
Dean stumbled through what used to be the market square. The cobblestones were slick with things he didn't want to name. A child's rag doll lay in a puddle, one button eye staring up at the smoke-choked sky. Somewhere, a woman was still screaming, the sound thin and broken, like a blade dragged across glass.
He had come home from the northern watchtower two days too late.
The invading banners of King Vortigern now flew above the shattered palace. Gold wolves on a field of black. They had come for the iron mines, for the river trade, for the fertile valleys everyone pretended weren't worth dying over. They had come, and they had won.
Dean's father had died on the wall. That much the survivors told him, before they scattered like roaches when the looting started. Captain Garrick Johnson, last man standing on the eastern gate, cut down by Vortigern's champion while holding the breach alone.
His mother and little sister, Mira… no one would meet his eyes when he asked.
"They took the pretty ones east," an old woman had muttered, clutching a broken chair leg like a spear. "To the capital. Gifts for the king and his lords. The rest… chains or graves."
Dean had walked away before she finished.
Now he stood in the ruins of his family's home. The roof had collapsed inward, exposing blackened beams like the ribs of some dead beast. He dug with bare hands until his nails split and his fingers bled, pulling away charred timber and shattered tile, praying—actually praying, for the first time in his life—that he would find nothing.
He found his father's sword instead.
The blade was snapped six inches from the guard, the Johnson crest half-melted into slag. Dean clutched the broken hilt to his chest and laughed. It came out wet and ragged.
They were gone. All of them. Ripped away like pages from a book someone decided they didn't like.
He sat in the ashes until night fell, until the looters stopped coming and the crows grew bold. His mind kept circling the same thought, over and over, like a wolf gnawing its own leg off.
I should have been here.
I should have died with them.
I should have killed more of them before they took everything.
The hatred was warm. It was the only warm thing left.
Dean pressed the jagged edge of the broken sword to his wrist, just to feel something sharper than grief. The skin parted easily. Blood welled, dark as the banners overhead.
"Do it," he whispered to himself. "End it. You failed them. You don't deserve to—"
The world split open.
A sound like a thousand war horns blasted through his skull. Crimson light poured from nowhere and everywhere, painting the ruins the color of fresh slaughter. Dean dropped the sword and clapped his hands over his ears, but the sound was inside him, shaking his bones.
Then a voice. Not heard—felt. Like a spear thrust straight into his soul.
[Wretched mortal.]
Dean looked up through tears and blood.
A figure stood in the firelight that shouldn't exist. Fifteen feet tall, clad in bronze and blood, face hidden behind a helm shaped like a snarling wolf. In one hand, a spear longer than a man. In the other, a shield that bled shadows.
Every instinct in Dean's body screamed at him to run.
The figure tilted its head.
[You reek of despair. Good. Despair is honest. Despair can be forged.]
Dean's voice cracked when he spoke. "Who… what are you?"
[I am war. I am the first scream on the battlefield and the last gasp in the mud. I am Ares. And you, boy… you have my attention.]
The god—if that's what it was—stepped forward. The ground did not crack beneath his weight. It simply accepted him, like it had been waiting.
[Your world is weak. It begs for culling. Kings play at conquest with toy soldiers while the strong rot in fields. I tire of it.]
Dean laughed again, bitter and broken. "Then why are you here? Come to gloat?"
[I offer you a bargain.]
The crimson light coalesced in front of Dean, forming glowing letters that burned themselves into his vision.
[Invincible Ares System initializing…]
[Host: Dean Johnson]
[Level: 1 (Broken)]
[Title: None]
[Strength: 9 → 15 (Temporary Blessing)]
[New Skill Acquired: Bloodlust (Passive) – Pain fuels you. The closer to death, the stronger you become.]
Ares' voice thundered with dark amusement.
[Rise, Dean Johnson. Take my gift. Carve your name into the bones of this world. Burn the thrones that took what was yours. And when you stand atop a mountain of their corpses…]
The god leaned down, helm inches from Dean's face. Behind the eye slits, galaxies of war burned.
[Ask yourself if peace was ever worth having.]
The presence vanished as suddenly as it came. The ruins were dark again. Silent.
Dean stared at his hands. The cuts on his fingers had already scabbed over. The ache in his chest… it was still there, but colder now. Sharper. Like a blade being whetted.
He picked up the broken sword.
Then he stood.
Somewhere in the distance, a wolf banner fluttered above the palace.
Dean started walking toward it.
In his mind, a new voice—calm, mechanical, eager—whispered for the first time.
[Main Quest Unlocked: Kill the King Who Took Everything.]
[Reward: The world will begin to remember your name.]
[Failure: Death. Slow. Painful. Forgotten.]
Dean smiled.
It wasn't a nice smile.
"Let's go to war."