The angel descended in a pillar of blinding white light, feathers drifting like snowflakes that ignored gravity, physics, and common sense.
She landed in the middle of an underground firing range, wings folded neatly behind her back, halo glowing like a high-end LED lamp.
David Black did not look impressed.
He calmly adjusted his ear protection, fired three more controlled bursts into the target downrange, and only then turned around.
"Range cold," he said flatly. "You're standing where brass ejects."
The angel blinked.
"I am Seraphel, a lower angel of—"
A casing bounced off her sandal.
David sighed, stepped forward, and gently pushed her two meters to the left.
"Now talk."
Seraphel stared at him. This was not how first contact usually went. Heroes were meant to gasp, kneel, or at least ask if this was a dream. David Black simply reloaded his AK-47 with ritualistic care, patting the receiver once like a priest blessing an altar.
"You have been chosen," Seraphel announced, regaining composure, "to be summoned to another world threatened by demons. You shall wield divine power, master sacred magic, and—"
"No."
The word hit harder than most spells.
Seraphel froze. "I… beg your pardon?"
David looked her straight in the eye, expression calm but immovable.
"No magic. I don't believe in it."
The angel laughed nervously. "Belief is not required. Magic simply is."
David tilted his head. "Then explain why it's never worked on me."
Seraphel opened her mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"…What?"
David stepped closer. He radiated a presence that made even an angel unconsciously straighten her posture. Years in the Black Pumas Counter-Terrorism Unit did that to a man—command aura forged in blood, sweat, and after-action reports.
"Curses fail. Illusions break. Hypnosis doesn't stick. Your little glow-show doesn't impress me," he said. "Conclusion: magic is mass hysteria with special effects."
Seraphel instinctively cast a minor binding spell.
It fizzled like a dying sparkler.
Her halo flickered.
"Oh."
David nodded. "Yeah. That face. I've seen it before."
The angel took a step back. "You are… incompatible."
"No," David corrected. "I'm optimized."
She swallowed. "Even so, the other world desperately needs you. The Demon King commands legions. Heroes fall. Kingdoms burn."
David picked up his rifle, checked the chamber, then slung it over his shoulder.
"Sounds like a logistics problem."
"You would be granted holy weapons—"
He interrupted her by placing the AK lovingly on a table between them.
"This," he said reverently, "is the greatest weapon mankind has ever produced. Reliable. Forgiving. Honest. No mana. No chanting. No glowing weak points."
Seraphel stared at the scratched wood furniture, the worn steel, the sheer mundanity of it.
"That… is not divine."
David's eyes hardened.
"It feeds families. Ends wars. Topples tyrants. If that's not a miracle, your definition sucks."
The angel felt something strange in her chest.
Admiration.
"No hero has ever spoken to me like this," she whispered.
"Good," David replied. "Most heroes die."
She tried one last time. "If you go, you must leave your worldly possessions behind."
David laughed.
Not loud. Not hysterical.
Dangerous.
"Try again."
Seraphel gestured, and a portal opened behind her—swirling light, angelic runes, choirs singing off-key.
"Step through," she urged. "Trust in—"
David kicked a steel crate into the portal.
Then another.
Then three more.
AKs. Ammunition. Optics. Spare parts. Manuals.
She screamed.
"What are you doing?!"
"Packing."
"You cannot bring all of that!"
David pulled out a laminated field manual, thick with annotations, diagrams, and coffee stains.
"This stays with me," he said. "If I'm going to a barbarian world where people swing sharpened metal like cavemen, I'm bringing civilization."
Seraphel tried to close the portal.
It refused.
Something—no, someone—was overriding her authority.
David was already strapping a combat knife to his boot, another to his belt, and a third hidden under his sleeve.
"In case ammo runs dry," he muttered. "Armor gaps. Tendons. Joints. Old tricks."
She watched in stunned silence as he moved with surgical precision, every motion efficient, controlled, masculine in a way that felt… inevitable.
Lower angels watching from above whispered.
Some blushed.
Some fell in love instantly.
"David Black," Seraphel said weakly, "you are supposed to be a hero, not an army."
He chambered a round.
"Wrong. Heroes are fragile. Armies win."
With that, he stepped through the portal.
He arrived on a grassy plain under a purple sky.
A horn sounded.
Knights charged him—bright armor, glowing swords, banners snapping dramatically in the wind.
David squinted.
"…Why are they shining?"
The lead knight shouted something about honor.
David raised the AK.
"Barbarians," he said, and pulled the trigger.
The sound of automatic fire shattered the fantasy.
Armor crumpled. Swords fell. Magic shields failed to exist.
David advanced methodically, switching to semi-auto, counting rounds, correcting stance.
One knight rushed him.
David dropped the rifle, closed distance, hooked the man's arm, twisted, shattered the elbow, slid the knife between armor plates, and cut the tendon behind the knee.
The knight collapsed screaming.
David retrieved his rifle.
"Unsophisticated equipment," he lectured the battlefield. "Flashy. Inefficient. No doctrine."
The remaining soldiers fled.
High above, the angels watched in horrified awe.
Seraphel whispered, trembling:
"What have we summoned?"
David Black looked toward the distant black tower of the Demon King.
He smiled—just a little.
"Target acquired."