Pain. Agonizing, searing pain.
Adrian Blackwood gasped as his body convulsed on the cold pavement. Blood pooled beneath him, warm yet slipping away too fast. His vision blurred, flickering between the starless sky above and the distant wail of sirens. The betrayal still burned in his chest his so-called friend, Victor, had put a bullet through his heart.
All for greed.
Adrian had been on the verge of something extraordinary, a breakthrough in quantum reality manipulation. A discovery that could reshape the very laws of existence. But now, none of it mattered. His heartbeat slowed. His consciousness faded.
Then darkness.
A World Unknown
Adrian awoke to an unbearable heat pressing against his skin. The scent of blood and damp earth filled his nostrils. His body felt different. Weak yet unfamiliar. He groaned and forced his eyes open.
A crimson sun hung low in the sky, casting an eerie glow over jagged mountains and an endless wasteland of broken ruins. Adrian tried to push himself up, but his limbs ached as if they had been through hell. He looked down.
His hands weren't his own.
Slender but scarred fingers. A body wrapped in torn, blood-soaked robes. And a face reflected in a puddle one that wasn't his.
Panic surged through him. He scrambled to his feet, only to stagger as fragmented memories not his own rushed into his mind. Kael Draven. Exiled prince of the Draven Empire. Branded a traitor. Left to die in the Forsaken Lands.
Adrian gritted his teeth. Was this a dream? A hallucination in the final moments of his death? Or had he truly been reborn?
Before he could process it, a low growl echoed behind him.
He turned sharply.
A monstrous beast stood atop a broken pillar, its glowing red eyes locked onto him. It was massive, a nightmare of blackened fur and jagged bone protrusions. A Nightfang Stalker his inherited memories whispered the name a predator of the Forsaken Lands. And it was hungry.
Adrian's heart pounded. His new body was weak. His mind, untrained in combat. He had no weapon. No allies. Only instincts.
The beast lunged.
Time slowed.
Something deep within him something powerful stirred. A burning heat coiled inside his core, flooding his veins with raw energy.
A single thought echoed through his mind.
Bend reality. Rewrite fate.
And for the first time, Adrian Blackwood now Kael Draven reached into the unknown power within him.