Dirt. Blood. Smoke.
That was the first thing he noticed—the air so thick with the scent of burning flesh that it made his throat tighten. He coughed, blinking against the dust and ash swirling like ghosts in the wind.
"MOVE OR DIE!"
The voice came from his left, a grizzled man clad in battered armor, swinging a rusted sword with wild precision. It took him a moment to realize the man was yelling at him.
Who was he? Where was he? His mind was a fog, a fractured mirror of scattered memories. One moment, he was… somewhere else. The next, he was here, standing in the middle of a battlefield, wearing armor that didn't belong to him, holding a sword that felt foreign in his grasp.
A horn blasted through the chaos—a sound both sharp and hollow, ringing deep into his bones.
"Conscript! Get in formation!"
He turned sharply. A soldier in dark iron, face smeared with blood, grabbed him by the shoulder and shoved him forward. The battlefield unfolded before him like a nightmare—bodies crumpled underfoot, war cries rising like thunder, steel meeting flesh in a brutal symphony.
Then it hit him. The knowledge slamming into his mind as if it had always been there, waiting to be remembered.
He had transmigrated.
Not into a world of adventure. Not into a kingdom of peace. But straight into a war with no end in sight.
His name? He couldn't recall. His past? A blur. But right now, none of it mattered. Because war didn't care for the lost or confused. War only asked one question.
Will you fight, or will you die?
Another soldier—just a boy, barely older than sixteen—rushed past him, eyes filled with terror. An arrow struck the boy's throat before he could scream. He collapsed at his feet, his lifeblood pooling into the dirt.
The enemy was close now. A wall of soldiers in jagged black armor stormed toward them, blades glinting under the blood-red sky.
"Fight!" The commander roared. "Or become carrion for the crows!"
His fingers tightened around the hilt of his sword. He had no choice.
The first enemy came at him, wild and merciless. He barely raised his weapon in time. Steel clashed, sparks flew, and suddenly, instinct took over. His body moved, even as his mind screamed in confusion. A parry. A twist. A counter-strike. The enemy fell, clutching a gaping wound in his chest.
His breath came ragged. His hands trembled. But he was alive.
"Welcome to the battlefield, conscript," someone muttered beside him. "War doesn't wait for you to find yourself. It makes you who you are."
He didn't know who he was. But in this world, with death at every corner, he would have to learn fast.
Because war had no patience for the weak.