Chapter 1: Death Orders Rewritten
There is a peculiar silence that descends in the final seconds before death. Not the kind born of peace or surrender—but the taut, compressed hush of a world still moving around you, too fast to understand. Aarav Singh felt that silence flood into his bones as he lay bleeding out on the floor of the bunker beneath Sector 9.
His ears rang like church bells in a vacuum. Blood pounded through shredded veins. Static buzzed from the comms device still half-clipped to his belt. The mission had gone sideways. No—worse. Sabotaged.
"…Delta-Zero… do you copy… Singh, respond—"
He couldn't. He wouldn't. His body had long since passed the threshold of agony, every nerve reduced to sparks and smoke. But his mind, the soldier's mind, refused to die.
Aarav Singh—Captain of India's classified Shadow Wolf Division, age 31, combat rating 9.8, recipient of six unacknowledged gallantry awards—did not die with regret.
He died with clarity.
> "Code Ascension. Final protocol: active."
"Transmitting neural pattern to fallback relay."
"User confirmed. Reality Sync initializing…"
His last breath trembled like frost on broken lips. His last thought wasn't a memory. It wasn't home, or mother, or God.
It was the mission.
And the fact that someone had betrayed them all.
---
He woke in agony again—but different.
Gone was the ashen taste of blood. Gone the dense steel bunkers and burning air. He awoke to brightness, to a strange scent in the air—clean and metallic, laced with ozone and fresh earth.
And he wasn't in his own body.
His first instinct was to rise, but his limbs were too weak. The sensation of foreign muscles jerking under his command was nauseating. Bones thinner. Joints unfamiliar. He tried to breathe—and realized his lungs didn't carry the scars of old battles. No fractured rib. No bullet wound in his left flank.
He wasn't in a warzone.
He was in a room—white, stone-like walls covered in vines pulsing with light. Strange glyphs hovered in the air, like holograms etched in ancient script.
And then—he heard it.
> [REALITY SYNC INTERFACE V.1.03 BOOTING…]
System Initiated. Neural anchor: complete.
User recognized: AARAV SINGH
Body Sync: 87%
Warning: Host identity mismatch. Previous occupant—deceased.
Consciousness override: successful.
Aarav's breath caught. The words floated in his vision—like a HUD, clean and sharp, completely unnatural in this strange, soft-colored world. It wasn't a hallucination.
It was the system.
His system.
> [Welcome back, Operator.]
[Initializing Reality Sync protocols…]
[WARNING: Unknown Reality Detected. Energy fields incompatible.]
[Adaptation… in progress.]
Aarav blinked, hands trembling. He looked down.
They weren't his hands.
Slim, pale-skinned fingers—not calloused like a soldier's. A teenage boy's frame. Slender shoulders. He turned his reflection in a crystalline wall shard across from him.
Black hair. Narrow face. Young.
Seventeen at best.
And somehow… familiar.
Then the door burst open.
"AARON! You're awake!" A girl with wild crimson hair nearly stumbled into the room, her eyes wide with disbelief and something else—fear? Hope?
She ran to him, grabbing his shoulders. "You've been out for five days! We thought the relic trial killed you!"
> [Memory Conflict Detected. Identity mismatch: AARON VELCRIS]
[Merging identities... partial assimilation granted]
[New Name: AARAV VELCRIS]
[Occupation: First-year cadet, Veltraxis War Academy]
[Status: Suspected relic rejection]
[System camouflage: online]
What the hell…?
Aarav—now in the body of Aaron Velcris, a war academy student—tried to piece together the fragments. The mission. The death. The transfer. The AI.
The Reality Sync Interface had followed him here.
> [System Message: You are now the sole known carrier of Earth-Origin Combat Code.]
[Objective: Ascend in power. Adapt. Survive. Lead.]
He didn't know why this happened. Or how.
But his soldier's instinct whispered one thing:
This was a mission. And it had just begun.
---
The days that followed were surreal.
Veltraxis was a world of relics and rifts—of mana-infused storms and military dynasties. A thousand years of evolution had led to a society where the strongest ruled, and strength was judged not by guns, but by your bond with relics—ancient, semi-sentient weapons recovered from dimensional fractures.
Aaron Velcris—the body he now wore—had failed his relic bonding. He was considered a reject.
Aarav didn't mind. It gave him room to hide. To observe. To let the RSI adapt.
> [Reality Sync Calibration: 42%]
[Combat Memory Transfer: Partial]
[Skill Detected: Ghost Protocol - Passive Stealth Boost (Lvl.1)]
[Pain Index Integration: Online]
[Squad Command: Locked - Requires active unit]
He needed a squad.
And fate, with a cruel sense of irony, gave him one.
---
"Welcome to Phantom Squad," barked the instructor, a silver-haired war veteran with more scars than facial features.
Five of them stood in a broken training yard behind the main dormitory. Five failures. Five leftovers.
"You're not here because of your promise," the instructor sneered. "You're here because no one else wants you. Phantom Squad exists for one reason—to fail quietly. Do your time. Die in the trenches."
He walked off, leaving them to silence.
Aarav scanned them.
Saira – the red-haired girl from earlier. Fire-user. Arrogant, wounded pride.
Kaito – tall, thin, trembling. Claimed noble blood. Couldn't meet anyone's eyes.
Lena – silent. Moved like a shadow. Her eyes never blinked. Scout, maybe?
Torgan – giant of a boy, bruised knuckles, broken nose. Held himself like a tank.
And him—Aarav. A soldier reborn in a school full of relic-powered brats.
This was his new unit.
And he would turn them into a damned army.
---
The first test came sooner than expected.
A simulated dungeon, with real stakes. Professors observed from behind glass, whispering judgments. Most squads worked like polished gears.
Phantom Squad stumbled in.
Relics flickered and misfired. Saira lost control of her flame. Kaito fumbled a barrier. Torgan panicked under pressure. Lena disappeared, then reappeared bleeding. Aarav moved like a ghost between them—no relic, no flashy power.
Just instincts.
And commands.
"Fall back left!"
"Kaito, barrier! Now!"
"Torgan—anchor the right flank! Lena, eyes up—mark the aerial!"
"Saira—trust me. Burn wide. Not focused. Flush it out."
They listened—reluctantly at first. Then more quickly.
And in six minutes flat, they cleared the dungeon faster than any squad that day.
---
> [Reality Sync Interface - Squad Command Online]
[Squad Created: Phantom Unit (Lv. 1)]
[Morale: Unstable | Formation: Broken | Respect: Partial]
[Potential: Extreme]
[New Skill: Tactical Upload - Squad Boost: +15%]
---
Later that night, Aarav stood alone at the relic chamber—the very one Aaron Velcris had failed to bond with.
The relic—a crystalline dagger pulsing in obsidian black—hovered above the altar, untouched for years.
He reached for it.
Pain lanced through his body like lightning. Visions. Screams. Code. Memories. Warzones. Fire. Blood. Soldiers dying beside him.
> [Pain Index: 71% - Overload Approaching]
[WARNING: Unstable Relic Detected]
[Do you wish to override? YES / NO ]_
He didn't hesitate.
YES.
> [Override Initiated… Merging Combat Signature…]
[Relic Bound: VOID CALIBER - Relic Pistol (Mutated)]
[Unique Trait: Codefire - Ammo generated from willpower and trauma]
[User Class: Tactical Soldier (Reality-Sync Variant)]
The relic seared itself to his hand like liquid shadow.
And for the first time since waking in this world, Aarav smiled.
---
He had a weapon. A squad. And a system no one else could see.
The academy would watch. Enemies would rise. But one thing was certain:
The war hadn't ended in that bunker.
It had just changed battlefields.
---
> END OF CHAPTER 1