The front lines were colder than Kaiden expected.
Not the weather — the silence.
No war cries. No marching drums. Just the wind, and the slow burn of magic fires dying in the grass.
His squad moved through the wreckage of a failed skirmish — a patrol long dead. Burnt armor. Melted weapons. One soldier still stuck upright, impaled through a tree like a decoration.
Kaiden limped at the rear, his capped arm dragging slightly with every step. The repairs hadn't fixed the glitch in his left leg — it jittered whenever he pivoted too hard. He didn't tell anyone.
Let them underestimate him.
Again.
________________________________________
They found the enemy at dusk.
A group of human mages and warriors — cloaked, spread across the ruins of a burned-out tower. Symbols drawn in chalk marked the stone. Summoning runes. Ritual prep.
"High-priority targets," Varn muttered.
Kaiden stood beside a crumbling wall, breathing in steam and smoke.
He waited for the command.
Then charged.
________________________________________
The battle started like the others.
Screams. Sparks. Steel meeting bone.
Kaiden was fast — faster than his squad remembered. His first strike crushed a shield. His second caved in a ribcage.
His right arm worked perfectly. But his leg still lagged — just enough to matter.
Someone capitalized.
A human sword hit him low. He blocked it, barely, but staggered. Fell to one knee.
And that's when he saw him.
Across the rubble. Standing still.
Cloaked in gray and silver, robes not stained by blood. A staff in one hand. Calm eyes beneath a hood.
Arvan Callister.
Kaiden stood up slowly.
Their eyes locked.
"You," Kaiden growled. "Why aren't you fighting?"
Arvan didn't answer. He simply observed.
Kaiden started walking toward him, dragging his bad leg. His squad shouted something behind him — didn't matter.
The other human warriors backed off.
Kaiden raised his arm.
"You think you're too good to fight—"
And then his vision fractured.
Not from a blow. From inside.
A surge of light slammed into his chest — a pressure spell — but it didn't launch him backward.
It stopped his heart.
For a second.
He collapsed mid-step, gasping, mechanical systems rebooting.
Arvan approached slowly, not even raising his voice.
"You shouldn't exist," he said.
Kaiden snarled, struggling to move.
"You weren't part of the summon. Not in the circle. Not on the list. Just… torn through."
Another pulse. A mental attack this time.
Kaiden's mechanical eye glitched. For a second, he saw his old apartment. The ceiling fan. His bed.
Then static.
"You were never meant to be here."
Kaiden lunged — one last desperate attack.
Arvan's hand flicked.
Kaiden's limbs locked up instantly — every servo seizing, his body crashing down in the dirt like a puppet dropped from strings.
Arvan stood over him.
He stared into Kaiden's face — a mix of curiosity and something close to... regret?
"Do you feel like a man, or a machine?" Arvan asked softly.
Kaiden couldn't answer. He couldn't even blink.
"I'll let you live. For now. Not because you deserve it. But because I want to see what you become."
He turned and walked away.
The demon squad rushed to recover Kaiden minutes later — finding him twitching in the dirt, systems barely holding.
________________________________________
That night, Kaiden sat in silence.
Alone in his quarters. Blood dried into the joints of his one good hand.
He stared down at it, shaking.
Not from fear.
But from something worse.
He was spared.
Not because he was a threat.
Not because he mattered.
But because he was interesting.
Kaiden gritted his teeth.
"I'll show you what I become."