The world smelled of iron, smoke, and rot.
Kael woke choking on the taste of rust. His eyes snapped open to a ceiling of rotted wood — beams sagging under rainwater, black mold crawling through the cracks. He turned his head and coughed, each movement sending a pulse of pain through his ribs.
He wasn't on a battlefield.He was lying in filth.
The first thing he noticed was how small his hands were. Thin. Scarred. Trembling.The second was the silence. No hum of aether. No cosmic pulse of his star core. The inner light that once roared like a sun was gone — hollowed out.
Kael clenched his fists. "...Where am I?"
The voice that came out wasn't his own. It was weak, young — a boy's voice.
He tried to sit up, but the motion made his head spin. Outside, a storm raged, slashing against the wooden shack like it wanted to rip it apart. Through a cracked wall, he saw the faint glow of lanterns in the distance — a village, half-buried in fog and ash.
Then came the pain.Memories — not his — flooded in.
A boy running through alleys, chased by older apprentices with stones and sticks.A woman's voice screaming his name before being dragged away.Cold nights. Hunger. The taste of blood.A whip's crack. A forge's flame.
He gasped and clutched his head. "These… aren't mine."
But they were. The body remembered, even if the soul didn't.
A broken name rose from the fragments.Rei. That was the boy's name.
The name of the life Kael now inhabited.
Hours passed before he managed to stand. His legs shook beneath him, more bone than flesh. He found a cracked mirror near the wall and looked — really looked.
A boy stared back. Sixteen, maybe. Pale, with messy black hair and eyes dulled from years of suffering. Across his chest ran deep scars, half-healed burns, and a brand shaped like a sword — the mark of an indentured apprentice.
A slave of the Iron Guild.
Kael's jaw tightened.In his past life, the Iron Guild were knights of honor — smiths who forged blades for the Stellar Legion.Now, they branded children.
He looked down at his hands again. They were shaking — not from fear, but from fury.His memories as Kael Ardent collided with Rei's pain until they blurred into one. A single thought echoed in both their hearts.
Never again.
The door burst open.
"Oi! You still alive, trash?"
A tall man stood in the doorway — thick arms, soot-covered apron, and a sneer that carried the confidence of someone used to hurting others. Behind him, a few apprentices peeked in, laughing.
Kael didn't answer. He stared.
The overseer frowned. "What, gone deaf? Get up! The forge doesn't stop for beggars."
When Kael didn't move fast enough, the man stepped forward and kicked him in the ribs.
Pain flared through his body — sharp, real, grounding. He hit the floor hard but didn't groan. He just exhaled slowly and looked up, eyes cold as winter stars.
The overseer hesitated. "What… what's with that look?"
Kael's lips curved slightly — not a smile, not yet. "I was just wondering how many bones I'd have to break before you stopped talking."
The man froze.The laughter died.For an instant, something vast — ancient — flickered behind Kael's gaze. The weight of a soul that once commanded armies.
Then the feeling vanished.He lowered his head, feigning weakness again. "I'll get up," he muttered.
The overseer grunted and left, muttering curses. The others followed.
Kael rose, slow and deliberate. Every breath felt like fire, but his mind was clear.
He stepped outside.
The village lay at the edge of a blackened valley, surrounded by jagged cliffs that once might have been mountains. Ironhaven, someone had called it — a mining town built on the bones of old ruins.
He could feel it, faintly — threads of energy buried deep beneath the earth. Old aether lines, severed and bleeding slowly over centuries.
The air was thinner here. The stars above looked dim, almost sickly.
Kael frowned.The world had changed more than he'd imagined. The constellations were wrong. The old Star Roads were gone.
"How long… have I been gone?" he whispered.
No answer. Only the moan of wind through broken chimneys.
He wandered through the muddy street toward the forge. Sparks flew from within — dozens of apprentices hammering steel under the watch of their masters. The smell of molten metal hit him like a memory — comforting, even through the rot of this age.
He saw a familiar sight: a boy about his age, struggling to lift a hammer twice his weight while the others jeered.The master barked, "Faster! You drop that again and I'll throw you in the smelter!"
Kael's fists clenched. He remembered the Celestial Forges — where every blade was treated like a soul, not a tool of cruelty. He could almost hear the hum of Ardentia, his old sword, whispering from somewhere far beyond reach.
"You still remember, don't you?"The voice came faintly, like a spark in his mind."The rhythm of creation. The pulse of the forge."
Kael froze.That voice — soft, metallic, faintly divine.It was her.
"Ardentia?" he whispered.
No answer this time. Just the soft hum of steel cooling in water.
But his heart raced. Somewhere, somehow, his blade had survived. Or at least… part of it had.
By dusk, the overseers had left. Kael sat alone by the dying forge, his hands blistered from work. He reached out, tracing the glowing embers, watching as faint trails of energy flickered across the metal — invisible to others, but not to him.
He could still see it. The pattern of the stars within steel. The way energy flowed like blood through ore. The sacred geometry of the forge that the new world had forgotten.
Rei's body trembled, exhausted. But Kael's soul was awake.
"I can still forge it," he murmured. "Even without a core… even without the heavens."
He pressed his palm to the metal, whispering words in an ancient tongue.
The embers pulsed — once, twice — then glowed brighter.Sparks danced upward like stars reborn.
For a moment, the forge sang. The same song that echoed through the Celestial Armory ages ago — a hymn of creation and defiance.
Then the door slammed open again.
"Who's in here?!"
Kael turned. A figure in black armor stood in the doorway — not a guild overseer this time, but a soldier. On his chest gleamed the insignia of the Obsidian Order — the enforcers of the new Empire.
"Unauthorized magic detected," the soldier barked. "Name and rank!"
Kael smiled faintly.Rank?Once, that answer had made kingdoms tremble.
Now, he simply said,"Rei. Apprentice."
The soldier's eyes narrowed. "Then explain the energy surge."
Kael tilted his head, voice calm. "I was just… remembering how to breathe."
Before the man could react, Kael moved — not with strength, but with precision. He sidestepped, grabbed a cooling iron bar, and tapped it against the soldier's gauntlet. The motion seemed harmless — until sparks erupted, short-circuiting the man's mana flow.
The soldier collapsed, armor smoking.
Kael looked down at him, expression unreadable. "The world's changed," he murmured. "But steel still obeys."
He glanced once more at the forge, its glow fading. The whisper of Ardentia brushed his thoughts again.
"Welcome back, Commander."
Kael exhaled slowly, stepping into the storm outside.He didn't know who still ruled this world — but they would learn soon enough.
The Iron Star had risen again.