Pain.

That was the first thing he felt.

A deep, throbbing ache spread through his small, fragile body, an overwhelming heaviness pressing down on his limbs. His fingers twitched, weak and stiff. His muscles refused to cooperate, his breathing shallow and uneven.

Something is wrong.

His body felt... foreign. Too small, too frail. Like a cage that barely fit.

He gasped in air, only to choke. His throat was dry, his chest tight. A sharp, acrid scent burned his lungs—smoke.

Then came the sound.

Screams.

Cries of agony.

The sharp crackle of wood being devoured by fire. The deep rumble of explosions shaking the ground beneath him. The distant clash of steel.

Renkai forced his eyes open. The world spun. His head throbbed from the effort, but through the blur of movement and light, he saw it—

A village in ruin.

Buildings collapsed in on themselves, stone crumbling like sand. Fires burned uncontrollably, illuminating the night with flickering orange. Black smoke filled the sky, thick enough to choke out the stars.

Figures darted through the chaos—some running, others standing their ground. Not just soldiers. Fighters.

But they moved too fast.

Blurs of blue and black flashed between the crumbling structures. They jumped unnaturally high, their bodies twisting midair. They dodged falling debris, maneuvering with inhuman precision.

Who… what are they?

And then—

A roar.

It ripped through the sky, so powerful it shook the air itself.

He froze. His instincts screamed, his body locking up. His heart pounded in his chest as he turned toward the sound, his muscles stiff with dread.

A beast. A living calamity.

It loomed over the battlefield, its massive tails whipping through the air like scythes. Its massive jaws parted, revealing fangs longer than any man was tall.

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And its eyes—

Pure malice.

The power radiating from it was suffocating.

This… this is destruction given form.

The people below scrambled, forming strange hand signs, their lips moving as they summoned fire, lightning, and water to attack the monster. Not magic. Something else.

But it barely even noticed them.

Their attacks crashed against its skin and disappeared, as if they were nothing more than a breeze brushing past.

It opened its jaws wider.

A sphere of raw energy began forming in its mouth, glowing with an intensity that warped the air around it.

His blood ran cold.

A spell? No… something worse.

This wasn’t some carefully crafted magical technique, shaped with precision. This was pure destruction. A force beyond control, beyond reason.

And it was aimed directly at the village.

They can’t stop it.

For the first time since he awoke, true fear gripped him.

Then—a flicker of golden light.

A man appeared above the battlefield, standing tall on top of a hill. His entire body radiated power, an aura of golden energy crackling like lightning around him.

His breath hitched.

He had seen archmages, warlords, kings who commanded fear and respect. But this man?

This was different.

Then—it happened.

The monster roared again, its massive jaws parting as it fired the sphere of energy straight toward the village.

A blast that could wipe out everything in its path.

He felt it—the pressure of death itself bearing down on him.

There was no running from something like that. No escaping it. No fighting back.

But the golden warrior—he didn’t run. He didn’t block it.

He folded space.

The attack collapsed inward, as if reality itself had bent around it.

A heartbeat later, miles away, a flash of light.

The attack had reappeared in the distance, detonating harmlessly over the wilderness.

His entire world stopped.

That’s impossible.

He hadn’t absorbed it. Hadn’t redirected it.

He moved it.

Dimensional displacement.

His fingers twitched. That was beyond rare. In his old world, that kind of magic was a myth—blocked by countless magical protections woven into the very fabric of reality itself. No kingdom, no mage, no god had ever been able to forcefully displace an attack of that magnitude.

And this man—this warrior—had done it with a single technique.

His breath was shallow. His pulse erratic.

I need to know how.

The battle around him was still raging, but for a moment, he didn’t care. The screams, the destruction—none of it mattered.

This world had power beyond anything he had ever seen.

And he would learn it.

But first—he had to survive.

A bloodied warrior nearby spotted him among the wreckage. "Kid!" he barked, rushing forward. "You—! What are you doing out here?!".

Words wouldn’t come. His throat was raw, his body trembling.

The warrior reached for him—

Then, a tail crashed into the street.

The shockwave sent rubble flying, and the man barely had time to react before he was launched into a collapsing wall.

Dead.

He gritted his teeth. Move. Move. MOVE!

His legs barely obeyed as he stumbled forward. He had to get away from this battle. Had to—

Then, a whisper in his mind.

It wasn’t a memory. It wasn’t a voice from this world. It was something else.

"Renkai."

He stumbled, his breath catching.

A name. His name?

It had weight. Meaning. Finality.

Had the spell done this? Why?

Why had the name Renkai been burned into his mind as the only remaining piece of this body’s past?

He had no time to dwell on it now. He clenched his fists, forcing himself forward.

Renkai knew nothing of this world. Nothing of its rules, its limitations.

But power was universal. And the one standing in front of that beast? He had it.

If this world has laws, I will master them. If this world has secrets, I will uncover them.

He clenched his fists.

I will survive.

And one day, this world will know my name. As my old world did.

Renkai.