Li Wei lay on the wooden floor, staring at nothing.
The questions circled endlessly in his mind, refusing to settle into anything resembling answers. Two sets of memories. Two lives. One body. The logic of it escaped him completely, and the more he tried to understand, the more the pieces seemed to slip away from coherent explanation.
I died. Li Wei died in that room and somehow ended up here when Kael died. But that doesn't explain the memories. Doesn't explain why I can feel things that never happened to me.
He closed his eyes, trying to separate the streams of experience. His own memories were clear and complete. The room with the white ceiling. The computer monitor. The isolation. All of it was accessible, organised, sequential.
But Kael's memories were different, fragmented and emotional rather than factual. He could feel the sun on his neck but couldn't remember specific days. Could feel the community's warmth but couldn't recall individual conversations.
Maybe consciousness leaves an imprint in the brain tissue. Maybe when I arrived, I absorbed what remained of Kael's experiences like echoes that hadn't fully faded.
The theory felt weak and insufficient. But it was something at least, some framework for understanding the impossible situation he found himself in. Or maybe this world operated on different rules entirely.
Maybe souls functioned through mechanisms he couldn't begin to comprehend from his modern—
Voices came from outside.
Li Wei's thoughts shattered instantly. His entire body went rigid, every muscle locking in place. The philosophical questions evaporated, replaced by something far more immediate.
It was just a conversation drifting through the walls with the casual ease of people who had no reason to lower their voices. Two of them, maybe three. The words were indistinct but the tone was unmistakable. Calm. Controlled.
His hand curled into a fist against the floor. His breathing stopped. Everything in him went completely still in a way that had nothing to do with conscious decision and everything to do with instinct carved through recent trauma.
Sound means danger. People mean death.
The lesson had been taught in the square, learned in the most direct way possible. The presence of other humans in this place could only mean one thing. They were here for a reason, and that reason had nothing to do with helping survivors.
He moved slowly toward the back corner, pressing himself against the wall where shadows were deepest.
His body remembered the massacre even if his mind wanted to rationalise, and to consider possibilities like passing travellers or merchants. His body knew better.
The voices continued, still calm and conversational. Getting neither closer nor more distant. They were standing somewhere in the square probably, surveying the damage or checking for anything worth taking.
I need to know what I'm dealing with.
The thought came reluctantly, fighting against every instinct that screamed at him to stay hidden. But not knowing was worse. Not seeing meant he couldn't plan, couldn't react appropriately if they decided to search the buildings.
He crawled forward on his stomach with agonising slowness. Each shift of weight was calculated to minimise sound.
The wound in his chest protested but he ignored it. He needed to reach a position where he could observe without being observed.
The wall near the doorway had damage from the raid. Not a hole exactly, but a section where the wood had been burned and split, leaving gaps large enough to see through. He positioned himself to the side of it, angling his head so one eye could peer through the largest crack.
The square came into view with bodies still scattered across the stone. Two living figures stood near the centre wearing dark clothing that might have been armour. Too far away to make out details clearly.
One of them was speaking, gesturing casually toward the buildings. The other nodded in response. Neither seemed disturbed by the corpses surrounding them. Neither seemed to be in any hurry.
Then the speaker raised one hand.
Not dramatically. Not with any theatrical flourish. Just lifted it, palm facing upward, as if reaching for something invisible overhead.
The sky fractured.
The expanse above simply cracked like glass under pressure. Lines appeared in the air itself, spreading outward from a point directly above the speaker's raised hand.
Light leaked through the cracks. Not sunlight or any natural illumination. Something else, something that hurt to look at even indirectly. Li Wei's eyes watered, and he had to blink, but he couldn't look away.
What is that? Is that magic? This isn't cultivation like the stories. This isn't internal energy or martial techniques.
The thought cut off as something emerged from the largest crack.
Fire. Except calling it fire was like calling the ocean a puddle. A sphere of flame the size of a house hovered impossibly in the fractured sky. Descending. Slowly, with no rush or urgency, just inevitable downward progression.
The fireball dropped through the broken sky with terrible patience. Li Wei could feel the heat from inside the building, it bled through the walls and through the air itself. The temperature rose noticeably, and sweat broke out on his skin despite the coolness of the morning.
The thought process lasted maybe three seconds before a different realisation crashed through everything else.
That will erase everything. Including me.
Not just the square or the buildings. Everything within whatever radius that thing impacted would cease to exist. The houses would vaporise. The stone would melt. The bodies would burn to ash. And he, lying on a wooden floor in a wooden structure, would die so fast he probably wouldn't even register the moment.
No hero thoughts came. No curiosity about the mechanics of cultivation or wonder at the display of power. Just a raw understanding of the threat. That fireball was death, descending toward the village with the same inevitable certainty as gravity.
This body won't survive being near that.
Li Wei moved.
Not carefully this time. He scrambled backward from the wall, ignoring the pain in his chest and the protest of damaged muscles. Survival had overridden everything else. He had seconds at most.
The back of the house had to have another exit. He found it near the corner, a small window covered by a wooden shutter hanging loose on broken hinges. Too high to reach normally, but the storage chest was nearby. He grabbed it and dragged it across the floor with strength he didn't actually possess, adrenaline doing what normal effort couldn't.
The chest scraped against wood, loud enough to be heard outside. The heat was building through the walls now. He could feel the air itself beginning to vibrate with the proximity of that descending sphere.
He climbed onto the chest and nearly fell. His legs were weak, and his balance was compromised, but he made it up, standing unsteadily on the wooden surface. The shutter came free with one solid pull. The window beyond was just large enough.
He grabbed the frame and hauled himself through, his chest screaming as torn tissue stretched. Then he fell more than climbed, hitting the ground outside hard enough to drive the air from his lungs. For a moment, he just lay there gasping. Then he forced himself up.
The forest was visible from here, maybe fifty yards of open ground between the back of the village and the treeline. Fifty yards with no cover and nothing to hide behind if someone looked in his direction.
The forest means survival.
He ran.
Not gracefully or quickly. His body was barely capable of walking. But he moved as fast as damaged muscles and depleted reserves would allow, stumbling across the open ground toward the trees.
The heat continued building behind him, rising in waves that pressed against his back like physical force. The air vibrated now, humming with proximity to something that shouldn't exist. Birds had gone completely silent. The normal sounds of morning had vanished, replaced by oppressive quiet.
Twenty yards to the treeline. Fifteen. Ten.
The ground beneath his feet began to tremble. Not from impact, the fireball hadn't struck yet. This was anticipation, the earth itself responding to the presence of power it couldn't comprehend.
Five yards.
He reached the trees and didn't stop, plunging into the undergrowth without looking back. Branches caught at his clothes and scratched his face. Distance was all that mattered now, solid matter between him and whatever was about to happen in the square.
The light behind him changed. The heat spiked impossibly higher. The vibration in the air became pressure, became weight, became something that threatened to crush him flat.
Li Wei ran deeper into the forest.
The fireball was still descending.
The sky remained fractured above the village.
His survival wasn't heroic.
It was barely adequate.