Chaos erupted.

  Moore through rebar-reinforced walls, their roars mingling with the deafening staccato of gunfire. Soldiers barked orders over the frantic screams of civilians.

  Lieutenant Jin Shu smmed a fresh magazine of Martiaal ammo into his XM7. Behind him, the sharp, unmistakable click of a pistol slide cut through the chaos. He turo see a civilian—a man, shaking—clutg a handgun in trembling hands.

  “Put that gun down before I put you down,” Jin Shu ordered, his voice hard, calm, cutting through the noise.

  The st thing he needed anicked civilian firing wildly into his men iight, deathtrap hallways.

  “H-how will we d-defend ourselves?” the man stammered, his voice crag.

  “You don’t o defend anything. That’s our job.” Jin Shu tilted his head toward his soldiers statio the doorway, their ons steady, focused. “Besides, the only thing that kill the Diseased is Martiaal. You don’t have any of that in that 1911, do you?”

  The man blinked, fumbling with the mag release, as though to firm his ammo. Jin Shu shook his head. There was no time for this.

  In a single swift motion, Jin Shu stepped in close, pulled the slide ba the 1911, and stripped the gun from the man’s unsteady grip.

  “Hey—!” the man started, half-protest, half-plea.

  A sharp gre from Jin Shu shut him up faster than a bullet.

  Jin Shu dismahe on with practiced ease, tossing the parts into a er and shoving the useless ammo into a spare pou his vest.

  “Stay out of the way,” he said, already turning back to the fight.

  The monsters were closing in, and he had bigger problems to deal with.

  Jin Shu tapped the shoulders of his men. “Keep an eye on them. If they try anything stupid… you know what to do.”

  “Yessir!” both soldiers echoed without hesitation.

  The unspoken threat was enough to make the civilians think twice about testing their luck. But Jin Shu knew better than to rely on fear alo wasn’t a warning; it was a standing order.

  Stepping past the group, he moved into the hallway, his boots g over debris. The stant crack of gunfire echoed from just around the far er, underscored by the guttural howls of the Diseased.

  This sector was supposed to be cleared. Either the advatalion missed some stragglers, or their intel had been dead wroher way, this ambush proved that pcy was a mistake.

  As Jin Shu rouhe er, the chaos snapped into focus.

  The Diseased—gruesome, pale forms twisted into mockeries of humanity—lumbered through a gaping hole in the wall. They poured into the ruined hotel lobby, their movemeic but purposeful, like predators who had caught the st of blood. The building had been a rest point for his ptoon—a mistake Jin Shu nretted. He should have pushed on.

  I got too fortable.

  There was no time for self-recrimination. Jin Shu emptied his mind, leveling his XM7 as his finger found the trigger.

  Bang!

  The silver bullet exploded from the barrel, streaking toward a Diseased just as it leaped at one of his men. It struck true, pierg the creature’s hardened flesh with a wet ch.

  The Diseased staggered mid-lus grotesque body beginning to shimmer as the Martiaal spread through its form like wildfire. In seds, the monster’s pallid skin turo gleaming silver, freezing it into a lifeless statue.

  Jin Shu’s eyes sed the battlefield, his ptoon locked in the brutal firefight. ation, no sed-guessing. There was only one order in his mind now:

  Kill them all.

  ***

  Lieutenant Jin Shu stood in the heart of a now eerily silent, devastated city. Just moments before the se of an intetle. The once major metropolis that should have been bustling with crowds of people now y silent, like a graveyard. Buildings y in ruins, streets were covered in debris, and the occasional lifeless body of a fallen civilian marked the path of destru left by the Diseased.

  The smell of gunpowder and smoke hung thi the air, the acrid taste burning the throat with every ihe dull glow of fires, still sm from the st firefight, flickered against the cloud-covered night, casting the world in an eerie, red glow.

  Behind him, the remnants of his ptoon moved like ghosts. Some limped on shattered legs, others cradled mangled arms. Their bodies were battered, their spirits frayed, but their will to survive burned on—just barely.

  They had been ambushed by the Diseased—gruesome, misshapen, and seemingly unkilble monsters born from a pgue unleashed by an alien ship. The monsters' resilience was terrifying, and only the Martiaal bullets, fed from the same alien craft, could stop them. But supply was dwindling.

  The Martiaal would turn every living thing it touched into metal. Allowing for an unending supply. However, the soldiers in the field had no way to craft more bullets - especially when under fire. Eae recious lifeline.

  Lieutenant Jin Shu and his ptoon had one final mission: evacuate the st survivors from the city.

  “Last survivors on board, Lieutenant,” Sergeant Daniel Park called, his voice rough, as the final civilian was loaded into the APC. “We good to move?”

  Jin Shu nodded grimly. "All squads, mount up. Let’s roll out."

  "That was easy, no one died!" Corporal McTavish's voice crackled over the s.

  "Shut it, McTavish!" Park growled. "You jinx us every time."

  Jin Shu forced a breath, fatigue pulling at his limbs. "Clear s. Double-time it, before McTavish curses us... again."

  Forced ughter and aowledgments echoed in respohe soldiers trying to find some so the humor amid the horror.

  Park spped the side of the lead APC. "Move out!"

  The voy lurched forward, engines rumbling to life, but then—crack! A gunshot split the night. Breaking the eerie silence like a bolt out of the blue.

  Everything exploded into chaos.

  The sounds of r monsters and echoes of munshots followed closely behind the first.

  "Shit! tact left!" McTavish’s panicked voice bred through the radio, mixed with the sound of fully-automatifire.

  "Alpha, Bravo! Cover left! Charlie, Delta, eyes on the right! Echo, protect those APCs!" Jin Shu's orders came sharp and fast.

  Gunfire erupted as the soldiers fought to fend off another horde of Diseased, their grotesque forms lumbering out of the shadows. The fight was short but seemed stretched on for far longer, each bullet precious, every shot a struggle to stay alive.

  Jin Shu fought beside his men, refusing to be a ander who watched from a distance. He had seen too many like that—cowards who let their soldiers die for them. Not him. He would fight until his st breath.

  "Fuck! Armored, left fnk!" Daniel shouted, his voice strained. "Need RPG, now!"

  Lance Corporal Dennis fumbled with the rocket uncher on his back. The Armored—a hulking monster covered in bck, scaled armor—towered over the battlefield, five meters tall and unstoppable. Only its exposed mouth or a direct hit from a rocket could bring it down.

  Crash! The beast barreled through a crumbling building, dust swirling around it like a shroud. Dennis aimed blindly into the haze. He couldn’t miss. Not now. Dennis thought desperately.

  The ground shook with its heavy steps, getting closer to the defensive line. Dennis could barely make out its blurred shadow in the dust. With no time he fired.

  Woosh! The rocket tore the dust, clearing a path toward the rampaging goliath. Just before impact— a smaller Diseased stepped into its path. Boom! The rocket detonated, killing a small swath of Diseased, but left the charging Armored alive and unharmed.

  "Fu—" Dennis didn’t get another ce. The Armored crashed into him, cws fshing. His body hit the ground in bloody ribbons.

  McTavish hurled a gre the monster, but the explosion didn’t slow it. The thing roared, fmes dang harmlessly around its massive form.

  McTavish raised his rifle, aiming for its mouth. Click. Empty. A sed ter, snap! The Armored’s jaws snapped around him, cleaving him in two, broken like a brittle twig.

  The battlefield was a sughter. Jin Shu’s men were falling, their bodies joining the metallic husks of the Diseased. He felt each loss like a blow to his chest, but there was no time to mourn.

  He fought valiantly, but it wasn't enough; the unending tide of Diseased pushed on and on.

  The sound of gunfire was dwindling. His men were all but dead, but he couldn't order a retreat, not with the Armored still alive. The APCs hadn't made it far enough.

  Amidst the mayhem, his on was knocked from his grasp; the Armored lu him, its monstrous cws grazing his shoulder. The gun recoiled, bang! A stray bullet discharged into his left arm. The searing pain was immediate, and Jin Shu’s arm began to transform—metal spreading from the wound, alien, cold.

  Still, Jin Shu didn’t falter. Gripping his sidearm with his good hand, he tio fight, determio protect the transports. His strength waned, his vision blurred, but he took aim o time at the t Armored monster charging at him. His final shot struck true, pierg through the monster’s mouth and straight to its brain, felling it instantly.

  Jin Shu staggered, his vision blurring as the metal tio crawl up his arm. Around him, the battlefield grew silent once more—his ptoon, his brothers-in-arms, y dead. He was the st oanding.

  The weight of his body pulled him down, his limbs heavy with the alieal spreading through his veins. His vision darkehe st of his strength fading. Please… let the survivors make it out.

  Darkness swallowed him whole.

  ***

  Jun Shu awoke, how was he awake? He should have died. No, he did die.

  But here he was waking up, not as himself. He was someone else, yet himself at the same time. The memories melding in his brain told him as much.

  Memories of his final moments fshed through his mind: the smell of gunpowder, the sight of his men's broken bodies, and the taste of his blood as it flowed through his mouth. Then memories of growing up in this life. His father's rough hands holding him as a child, his mother's warm, loving embrace, the taste of strawberries—he hated strawberries in his st life. But, loved them in this. Strange.

  The pce Jin Shu awoke in was unlike any he had ever know unmistakably familiar. The sensation of his memories mixing, new and old, old and new, all in a maddening swirl, was disorienting, to say the least.

  The air was thick with the st of fe fires ahy minerals. He was in a small room, surrounded by bcksmithing tools and ons. As he tried to sit up, he noticed his body was no longer encased ial appearing fully human once more. fusion flooded his mind.

  It wasn't until his eyes gnced upon a familiar shape resting on a table in the er, that his memories all came together in a pain-indug flood, like a jagged kaleidoscope of emotions. "My gun." He muttered.

  When the pain from his memories awakening subsided he grabbed the gun from the table. The pistol was a near-perfect replica of his service on—an M17—the only difference being this one was made of a matte bck metal, uhe coyote tan of the one from his previous life.

  Layio the pistol was a single bullet; strangely, this bullet didn't look like a replica but seemed to be the real thing. How did a bullet from Earth make its way to another world?

  A stern, muscur maered the room interrupting Jin Shu’s thoughts. "You’re awake," the man said gruffly. "Get out here and help your old man with the fe."

  Jin Shu’s thoughts swirled as memories of his final battle and this new reality cshed. His mind struggled to recile them. Who was this man, and why did he feel so familiar? It was like he had lived two lives simultaneously—one as a soldier, the other as the son of a bcksmith in a world of immortals.

  He looked at the man again, and the memories snapped into pce. This was his father, Jin , a master bcksmith of the Jin family. In this new world, Jin Shu was the eldest son of the renowned Jin family, famed for their ruhing.

  The presence of his sidearm beside him was the only thing eg him to his past life.

  "Stop gawking a moving!" Jin barked. "I don’t care about your little toys," he said, gesturing to the gun, "we make real ons here, for real cultivators. Now get to the fe!"

  Jin Shu stood, still disoriented, but his soldier’s discipline kicked in. He followed his father out of the room, his thoughts a whirl of his new and old identities.

  As he reached the fe, his father turo him, a gleam in his eye. "Now that you’ve reached the first stage of the Qi Realm, it’s time you learned our family’s ruhing teiques. It’s time to bee a real bcksmith."

  "I'm already a real bcksmith, so don't you mean a real ruh?"

  Bam! A sp on his head was the only respoo his joke.

  MadFireGod