The coldness didn't last. The blissful, total darkness he had sought the final, quiet surrender of the bullied boy shattered into a single, agonizing, blood-red hue. It was the color of fresh, planetary slaughter, and it was everywhere.
Carillon did not feel air, or gravity, or physical pain from his former life only a terrifying, demanding pressure. It was the pressure of all cosmic existence collapsing onto a single, screaming point, a devastating squeeze that tried to refine his very consciousness into a pure, concentrated weapon. His mind, the fragile, guilt-ridden mind of a teenager, shrieked, instantly regretting the final choice that had led him here. The memory of the suburban windowsill felt like a paradise lost.
But the terror was drowned out by a sound that wasn't sound, but a vibration that resonated in the bedrock of his soul a voice vast enough to contain the roar of a million of crushing armies and the slow, metallic clang of time itself.
I AM KRONOS -ARES.I AM THE PRIME SOVEREIGN .
The title wasn't spoken; it was branded, a scorching, undeniable truth carved onto the back of his eyes.
"You sought absolute non-existence," the voice roared, coalescing from the crimson storm that enveloped him. "A will so total, a rejection so complete it is a power I utilize. The weak merely end their lives; the truly broken give their absolute potential to The L.C.E. I required an instrument of war worthy of unending conquest. Your empty vessel is now primed."
Carillon felt the entity of Kronos-Ares, Lord of the Crimson Evolution, ruthlessly penetrate his essence. The Sovereign was not forgiving; it was simply calculating. It measured the depth of his self-hatred, the sheer scope of his desire to dominate his own tragic fate, and found the result optimal for the C.E.
Then came the agony of creation.
The old, soft body was violently shredded and replaced by a horrifying, living engine of war. He felt his fragile bones crack, snapping and reforming, thickening from brittle human calcium to reinforced steel—the **Titanblood Physique ({T.P.}) ** taking hold. His soft skin stretched and hardened, not into muscle, but into a carapace of iron-like density. His muscles coiled into inhuman masses of destructive force, ready to deliver blows like cannons. The transformation was swift, brutal, and finalized with a blinding, agonizing flash of crimson light that felt like every nerve ending being simultaneously set alight and then plunged into glacial ice.
He slammed onto solid ground. The impact shook the earth beneath him.
Carillon gasped, the air ripping into lungs that were now huge, hard, and infinitely demanding. He was standing, impossibly, on a field of churned earth, mud, and cooling blood the aftermath of a massacre. The sensory input was overwhelming: the stench of copper and adrenaline, the metallic tang of the earth, and the low, terrified moans of the dying. Above him, a black banner a skull wreathed in jagged lightning fluttered defiantly.
He stumbled, profoundly disoriented. He looked down at his hands no longer the soft, pale hands of a gamer, but massive gauntlets of muscle and dark, ridged armor that seemed to be part of his very skin. He was no longer Carillon. The handsome, formidable face that stared back from the reflection in a shard of broken steel was a stranger's—a Warlord's face, etched with cold fury.
The latent, terrible power of his new form was already active. His Dominion Aura ({D-Aura}) pulsed invisibly, a wave of crushing, primordial authority radiating outward. A handful of enemy soldiers who had survived the initial rout were attempting to flee, but as the {D-Aura} washed over them, they instantly convulsed. They dropped their weapons, some vomiting from the sheer, psychic weight of his reborn authority, forced involuntarily to their knees like statues made of wet sand.
From the edge of the clearing, a wounded enemy commander, armed with a greatsword, saw the sudden halt in his men and charged, howling a desperate challenge.
Carillon's mind still reeling with the memories of a suburban high school was violently flooded with new, lethal knowledge. The instincts, skills, and bitter, battle-tested memories of the general whose body he now occupied slammed into him (**Warpath Reincarnation ({W.R.}) **). He knew this world. He knew this man's weak points. He knew precisely how to kill him without thought.
The conflicting knowledge, the terrifying clash between the gamer and the Warlord, made him roar a sound that was half pain, half thunderous command. The charging commander, trained to fight gods, hesitated for a split second at that primal sound.
That was all the Warlord needed.
Carillon raised a hand, not to fight, but to command. He opened his mouth, intending a simple dismissal, but the power that rushed out was the first, terrifying order of a god given flesh:
"CEASE."
The commander, mid-stride, froze instantly, his muscles locking into painful, impossible rigor mortis. Carillon had instinctively issued his first **Sovereign's Commandment (\{S.C.}) **. His eyes, burning with a new, hungry red light, absorbed the man's absolute terror.
The voice of The P.S. echoed one last time, receding into the cosmic chaos, leaving only a final instruction:
"Begin the Crimson Evolution. You have been given the weapons. Conquer, or be undone. There is no going back to zero."
Carillon, standing over the paralyzed, soon-to-be-dead commander, felt an intoxication unlike anything his old life had offered. He was no longer a ghost waiting to fade; he was the center of a storm. He felt the fear, rage, and dying intent of the battlefield absorbed into his core (Battlefield Devourer), fueling an intense, savage euphoria.
He had been zero. Now, he was the only number that mattered. The Warlord had awakened.