??? — ORK-CONTROLLED WORLD
The wind howled like tortured steel.
Mountains built from rusted machines and corpses loomed in the distance, stitched together with jagged welds and black smoke stacks. Massive red glyphs, painted in crude strokes, scarred the iron walls. Guns the size of warships jutted from fortress towers like angry fingers.
Shawn Newman stood alone in a ravaged basin of broken war machines, where the ground steamed with recent death.
Around him, Orks poured like a flood of green nightmares — some armored like tanks, others naked but for tribal tattoos and explosives. Their war cries thundered through the air:
"WAAAGH!!"
They came from every direction, swarming toward the lone man who had just slaughtered a warboss with nothing but a glowing blade of Haki.
His breathing was heavy. His hands twitched. His Haki — still unstable in this realm — flickered around him in strips and cracks, like silver lightning barely stitched to his flesh.
He hadn't eaten in three days.
But he was adapting.
Slowly.
SHAWN NEWMAN POV
The spirit projection was still weak.
Knives. Small barriers. That's all I could do. Anything more made my vision blur and my bones scream.
But I didn't need full strength to kill these things.
They were relentless, yes. Brutal, yes. But they lacked purpose. They charged like waves, never adapting, never calculating. Just smashing and roaring and dying.
Each one I killed made the others angrier — not afraid.
A good sign.
They didn't know what I was.
I closed my eyes for a moment and felt the whisper of Haki in my blood. It no longer stung like it did when I first arrived. The air wasn't rejecting it as hard. I could breathe easier. Move faster.
Adaptation was inevitable.
I would break this world open.
MILES AWAY – EDGE OF A BROKEN FORTRESS
Five hulking figures crouched behind a cracked wall of plasteel, their green-tinted armor scorched and scarred. The Salamanders — Space Marines of the XVIII Legion — held a narrowing perimeter around their injured.
Bolters rang out, bursting green bodies apart with each pull of the trigger. Their black eyes scanned without fear, but the rhythm of their fire revealed the truth: exhaustion.
"Final mag," hissed Brother Tahak, slamming his last clip into place.
"We fall here," grunted Brother Borus. "Let it be in flame."
The leader stepped forward — nearly a head taller than the others — clad in armor darker than night, etched with runes and volcanic patterns.
Vulkar Dren.
Veteran of Istvaan.
Will forged in fire.
He leveled his flamer and barked one word:
"Burn."
They unleashed fire and fury into the horde, melting Orks in droves — but for every one that fell, three more took its place. The green tide surged forward, iron boots and crude tanks pounding the soil.
Then everything stopped.
Not because of a weapon.
Not because of terrain.
But because the air itself broke.
3RD POV — SPIRIT UNLEASHED
A ripple passed through the battlefield like a hurricane made of silence.
Orks froze. Some dropped dead without a mark. Others spasmed as invisible pressure caved their skulls inward.
The Salamanders stopped firing.
From the north slope of the crater, a figure appeared — walking calmly through smoke and corpses, barefoot, shirtless, surrounded by glowing cracks of black and silver energy.
A massive Ork Nob lunged toward him.
BANG.
Its chest imploded without contact — a shockwave rippling out from Shawn's raised hand.
He walked forward, conjuring two long silver stakes from thin air. Spirit projection — weak, unstable, but enough.
He twisted, spun, and hurled them like javelins.
CRACK!
BOOM!
Each stake exploded mid-air, erasing two more Orks in a flash of raw Haki. Dozens tried to charge him.
He simply walked into them.
Each step echoed like thunder. Each swing of his hand shattered skulls or boiled flesh with invisible heat. Not a single Ork touched him.
And then…
Silence.
Hundreds of green corpses littered the ground. The sky turned grey. The wind died.
The Salamanders watched in absolute stillness.
SHAWN NEWMAN POV
I stopped fifteen paces away from them.
The giants in green armor — at first glance, almost like Marines — stared back. They were like statues of molten rock and steel.
But not emotionless.
They were in awe.
I'd seen that look before.
"Are you…" one began.
"No," I said, before he could ask. "I'm not from here."
"Then what are you?" asked the leader.
I studied him. His eyes were ancient. Not old. Ancient. Willpower poured off him like heat from a forge.
"You can call me Shawn Newman," I said simply.
"I am Vulkar Dren," the leader replied. "Veteran Astartes of the Salamanders. You… saved us."
"I didn't come to save you," I replied. "But I'll take the thanks."
3RD POV — THE MEETING
The Salamanders approached slowly.
Vulkar Dren towered over most men at over 3 meters, yet Shawn matched him in size — 3.5 meters of lean, brutal strength. And not from gene-forging. Not from artificial enhancement.
His body was natural.
And it made them uneasy.
Tahak muttered quietly, "He's not wearing armor."
"He doesn't need it," Borus said. "Whatever power flows through him… it bends the air."
Indeed, as they circled Shawn, they noticed it — his presence was not just physical. It altered the environment.
Orks were terrified of him. The warp around his aura shimmered with restrained violence.
And he was holding back.
SHAWN NEWMAN POV
I could feel them watching.
Analyzing me.
Trying to fit me into their hierarchy — their system. I didn't blame them.
They were soldiers. Warriors.
But something about them felt familiar. They fought for something. They had conviction.
And I respected that.
As we moved through the outer warzones — slowly cleaning up the Ork stragglers — I watched the Salamanders. Their formations were efficient. Their speech was minimal. But their will was unshakable.
I'd met men like them in the Marines.
But these weren't men.
They were something more.
Still… not invincible.
If I hadn't shown up when I did, they'd have died. Even Vulkar. The Orks were that numerous.
That's when the question formed in my mind:
How are these giants made?
I didn't ask.
Not yet.
VULKAR DREN POV
Shawn Newman was… unnerving.
Power without pretense.
A force of will without structure, hierarchy, or code.
Yet he radiated something I could not deny: purpose.
He walked through warp storms like they were wind gusts. He killed without weapons. His body moved like fire — untamed, unpredictable, but warm.
When he spoke, even the younger brothers listened.
Even I listened.
He asked no questions about the Chapter. No challenges. No boasting.
Just… observation.
Like a tactician. Or a war god in training.
I'd seen demigods fall. I'd seen Primarchs bleed.
But this man?
He wasn't made.
He was becoming.
3RD POV — BATTLE MARCH
The team moved east, following crude maps marked by orbital wreckage and smoldering pyres.
For the next three days, they fought non-stop.
Every hour, more Orks emerged — from tunnels, from fortress-ruins, from walking war-beasts stitched together from tanks and flesh.
But now… they had Shawn.
He learned quickly.
Adapted even faster.
By the third day, he could coat half his body in armor made of spirit — not metal, not Haki as the One Piece world knew it — but refined projection. A moving liquid of silver-black that flexed like muscle.
He formed shields.
Hammers.
One time, a massive bow that fired exploding arrows made of pure Will.
The Salamanders were speechless.
They stopped seeing him as a strange anomaly.
They began to follow his suggestions. Mirror his tactics.
And Vulkar… began to walk beside him, not in front.
SHAWN NEWMAN POV
This planet is vast.
Bigger than anything I've seen.
And it's filled with war.
But for the first time since I arrived… I don't feel alone.
These Astartes — they aren't my people. But they fight like I do. They survive like I do.
They see the world in terms of challenges to overcome.
And in that, we are brothers.
This world will not hold me.
Not forever.
But for now?
I will fight.
TO BE CONTINUED