The descent was never gentle.
Rein's body slammed into the soil of the new world like a fallen star. He carved a shallow crater into a barren field, sending dust and fragments of dark stone scattering into the wind. For a moment, there was nothing but the sound of his own breathing—deep, labored, alive.
Alive, again.
He had expected pain, disorientation, even madness. What he found instead was quiet. And heat.
The sky overhead was red. Not the crimson of dusk, nor the gentle hue of a setting sun. It was the red of a wound. The horizon bled fire, and the air shimmered with heat that did not burn. The sky wept ash, and distant shadows of floating towers moved like carrion birds watching from above. The smell was metallic—like blood left too long in the sun.
This was the Iron Realm.
And its king—the first of many—was his target.
Valen.
The Hero of Flame. The Tyrant of Steel. The Savior who became a God.
Rein rose slowly, brushing dust from his armor. Every joint in his body ached from impact, but it was the silence that unsettled him most. No wind. No wildlife. Only the distant groan of machines and the low hum of magical infrastructure pulsing through the ground like a heartbeat.
The divine blade Arios had given him had not yet manifested; it never appeared until the moment he truly needed it. Until then, he was just a man with a mission.
His boots crunched over blackened earth. The grass here had long died, replaced by scorched veins of copper-like metal that pulsed faintly beneath his feet. It was as if the world itself had been smelted, reforged into something obedient. Controlled.
He walked.
Hours passed, though time felt slippery here.
He passed forests made of petrified wood, where no bird sang and no leaves swayed. Trees like spears, frozen mid-gesture. He passed fields of glass, where once there had been water—crystal lakes boiled away by godly flame. He passed villages half-sunken into the earth, where the few remaining dwellers moved like ghosts, too beaten to raise their heads. Some bore brands on their skin. Some had eyes that glowed faintly from forced enchantments.
And above them all, ever-present, ever-watching: the Iron Citadel.
A floating fortress, black as obsidian and shaped like a jagged crown, suspended high above the central plain by unseen magic. Chains of molten gold anchored it to the land below, and beams of red light scanned the horizon like the eye of a god. It pulsed like a living thing, humming with sanctified dominance.
This was Valen's throne.
This was his kingdom.
Rein finally arrived at a city—a perimeter settlement that barely qualified as such. Cracked walls, watchtowers manned by soldiers in crimson armor, and banners marked with the sigil of a burning sword. The people moved like clockwork, their expressions locked in fear and repetition.
The moment he approached the gate, a voice barked from above.
"Halt! Identify yourself!"
Rein raised his hands slowly, palms open.
"I'm a traveler," he said. "Looking for work. Any kind of work."
The guards looked him over. His clothes, now cloaked in the dust of travel, seemed ordinary enough. His face bore no known mark, and most importantly—no one sensed divine magic.
The captain, a man with a metal jaw and a mechanical left eye, grunted. "You look like shit, traveler. But we always need workers."
He tossed Rein a patch—a thin strip of crimson cloth.
"Wear this. It marks you as conscripted labor. Try anything funny, and the brand kills you in seconds."
Rein examined the patch. It hummed faintly. Enchanted. Intricate glyphs ran through the fibers, alive with latent energy.
He tied it to his arm without protest.
That was the first step.
For the next several days, Rein worked.
He observed. Listened. Learned.
And all the while, he planned.
The citizens were not his enemies. Their eyes carried the same hollow weight he had seen in prisoners of war, in orphaned children, in those who had been given just enough hope to survive and just enough fear to stay silent. They were victims—of power, of history, of a man who had once been a savior and now ruled like a god.
Rein knew he couldn't afford to involve them. There would be no rebellion. No uprising. No forced reckoning that would drag innocent blood into the flames.
If Valen was to fall, it had to be him. Alone.
And so, he watched for gaps. For patterns. For the way soldiers rotated shifts. For the delivery routes into the Citadel. For rumors of the tyrant's movements, however distant or rare. Every moment not spent lifting or digging was spent committing the rhythm of the city to memory.
He would find a way.
A way to strike at a god without shattering the world beneath his feet.
He hauled crates, repaired walls, carried dead bodies to burn pits. He poured stone over broken roads and scrubbed dried blood from temple floors. He kept his head low and his ears open.
What he heard painted a picture far darker than the one Arios had shown him.
Valen didn't merely rule.
He owned.
His edicts were law. His voice was gospel. The mere utterance of doubt was enough to earn execution.
The people spoke his name in whispers—not out of reverence, but fear. Those who disobeyed disappeared. Those who questioned vanished faster. Once a week, the sky burned brighter, and a new list of traitors was read aloud. Their ashes were scattered in the streets as a warning. The children of the condemned were forced to bow during the readings.
And yet…
The people endured.
There were no rebellions. No resistance. Because how do you fight a god?
That was what Valen had become. Not just a ruler. Not just a hero. A deity of flame and steel.
Rein began to understand why he had been sent here. Why he had to do it.
He remembered nothing of Valen from his own world. Arios had not shared strategies, memories, or warnings. Only conviction. Only the certainty that this man must fall. Rein had seen images—flickers of flame, towers of steel—and heard names whispered like curses. But no tactics, no strengths, no hint of how the Tyrant of Steel actually fought. Nothing but purpose. Nothing but mission.
But seeing it with his own eyes changed everything.
Rein sat at the edge of a crumbling fountain one night, watching the distant citadel drift silently overhead. The stars were few in this realm, choked by light pollution and magical haze.
"They still call you hero," he murmured. "Even as they kneel in chains."
He thought of Lysaria. Of her voice. Her smile. Her betrayal. And how, even in the end, he had chosen her over everything else.
He clenched his fist. Dust fell from his fingertips.
"I wonder, Valen…
Do you even remember what you fought for?""