---
The sky above the ruined temple was choked with gray clouds. No birds. No wind. Just silence.
Paul stood in the center of the shattered altar, staring at his own hands — pale, unfamiliar, yet... familiar. They didn't feel like his. But they obeyed his thoughts like instinct. Faster than thought.
A name was burned into the ruins around him. Not one he could read, but one he felt — carved into the bones of the world. It pulsed beneath his feet, like a sleeping beast.
He whispered to himself, "What the hell have I become?"
---
A crunch of stone echoed behind him.
Paul turned sharply.
Three men in black armor crept through the broken arches — eyes wide with fear, blades drawn.
"Gods preserve us," one of them whispered. "It's real. The Cold One walks again."
The second dropped a torch. "We're not ready for this."
The third didn't hesitate. "Kill him before he regains full form!"
They charged.
---
Paul didn't move.
He didn't even blink.
The first sword came down — aimed at his neck.
It shattered mid-swing.
The man's hand froze in place, ice spreading up his arm like spiderwebs. His body trembled, eyes rolling back. The second man slipped on frozen stone, screamed, and backed away. The third drove his spear forward —
— and Paul caught it. Fingers closing on steel.
The metal vibrated.
Then crumbled into dust.
Paul blinked. "I didn't even try…"
His body moved on its own. Not muscle memory — something deeper. The molecules of the spear unraveled in his hand like a sandcastle in a storm. Molecular construction, his mind whispered. He didn't remember learning it. He just knew.
The last warrior turned to run.
Paul stepped forward once — and the temperature plummeted. Frost spiraled across the ground like fingers clawing upward. The man collapsed, convulsing, breath turning to mist.
Paul stood alone again.
---
He looked at his hand. "This isn't magic. This is something else…"
His brain pulsed like a machine. Thoughts snapped together like puzzle pieces. He could see the patterns in the air, the elemental breakdown of every rock, every breath, every motion. Like the world was a program, and he could read the source code.
And then came a sharp, sudden pain in his side.
Paul dropped to one knee, gasping.
The stab wound from the real world — the one that killed him — it was still there.
Blood leaked from between his ribs, slow and thick. He touched it.
No healing. No regeneration. Just pain.
So I can't die… but I can still bleed.
He laughed bitterly. "Of course I can't have it all."
But then something strange happened.
The blood on his fingers shimmered. Not red — but dark silver.
It wriggled. Shifted. Reformed into a small, spinning blade — like a needle made of liquid metal.
Paul stared at it in wonder.
Then it collapsed into dust again.
He grinned. "Okay... maybe I can have it all."
---
In the distance, bells began to toll again — louder this time.
Warning bells. War bells.
---
Far away, on a mountain of black marble, a woman in silver armor dropped to her knees.
"He's awakened," she whispered.
Far below, in an underground prison, a chained demon opened one eye and smiled.
And in the heavens, something ancient stirred in its sleep, whispering Paul's true name — a name even he had forgotten.
---
The legend was back.
And the world… would never be the same.
---
[End of Chapter two]