Lin Yao's first breath was ragged and wet, as though the air itself had turned to iron in his lungs. He coughed, hacking thick, bitter blood from deep in his chest. The sky was gray, mottled with smoke and the dull glint of distant spears. He tried to move his arms, but pain lanced through him, a living wire of fire, and he realized his wrists were bound. Panic gripped him like a fist, sudden and absolute.
Around him, the earth shivered with the footfalls of hundreds, the groans of the wounded, the wet squelch of bodies pressed into mud. The air smelled of iron, sweat, and rot. Somewhere close, a man screamed, torn apart by an arrow that had found the gap between armor plates. Lin Yao tried to speak, to call out, but all that emerged was a gurgle. His vision swam. He was not in his own body.
He was a slave. Dying, exhausted, weak.
A hand clamped on his shoulder, heavy, forcing him to his feet. Pain flared across his legs and back, a scream that demanded submission. He didn't have the luxury of panic. Around him, other slaves were already straining against the chains of the supply cart, its wheels buried halfway in blood-soaked mud. A man next to him stumbled, yelping as an arrow embedded itself in his thigh. His screams were short. Lin Yao had no time to dwell on it. Survival was immediate; survival was raw and unthinking.
"Move! Faster!" a voice bellowed over the chaos, grating and unyielding. It came from a Zhen officer riding a black stallion, whip cracking against the sky. Lin Yao's chest tightened, heart hammering. Move, move, move—the instinct was undeniable.
He staggered forward, hands gripping the thick ropes attached to the cart. The weight of it, the dragging friction of wheels through mud and bodies, tore at his muscles. Pain radiated from every joint. His lungs burned. Arrows began to rain down in a stormed rhythm, each whistle of flight cutting through the chaos like knives. One nicked the shoulder of a slave ahead, eliciting a spray of blood and a shriek of despair. Lin Yao flinched but did not stop. Stopping meant death.
The cart lurched, throwing him forward. He fell, chest hitting the mud, mouth filling with its bitter taste. Around him, the battlefield was a living nightmare. Corpses lay in grotesque angles, eyes staring blankly into a sky that offered no mercy. Limbs were twisted, ripped, and broken, tangled in the bodies of others. Horses screamed, hooves tearing into human flesh, soldiers shouting orders that were meaningless to the dying ears of slaves. Lin Yao's hands clawed at the ropes, dragging himself up. Every movement was agony. Every breath a fight.
An arrow zipped past, grazing his temple. He felt the heat of blood running down his cheek, but he ignored it. One of the slaves in front of him collapsed with a wet thump, chest pierced, blood erupting in a dark fountain. Lin Yao's stomach churned, but he did not look away. His hands gripped tighter. Feet slid in mud. He fell again, caught by the rope, dragged forward. Another slave screamed and fell sideways, body twisted unnaturally. He barely dodged the flailing limbs.
"Keep… moving!" The whip cracked again. A Zhen soldier's voice shouted unintelligible commands, mixing with the screams, the metal clang, the thunder of hooves. Lin Yao forced himself upright, muscles screaming, joints threatening to give way. He felt every tendon tear, every bone ache. The cart was a mountain, alive, resisting every pull. And behind him, the sky darkened with flight—arrows, hundreds of them, black streaks falling from the clouds.
Fear tore at him, a living entity. He imagined each arrow seeking him, whispering death. His mind split, half screaming, half calculating. He moved instinctively, a blur of motion born from raw panic. Left foot, right foot, pull. Pull, pull, pull. His fingers bled, skin shredded by rope. He fell forward again, chest sliding through mud, tasting iron, grit, rot. The world was nothing but struggle and pain and the shrieking, chaotic symphony of death.
Another arrow struck. This one hit a man beside him in the neck. The scream was high-pitched, almost inhuman, and ended in a wet silence. Lin Yao's stomach lurched. For a moment, he saw himself there—him, dead, collapsed like a broken puppet in the mud. He shut his eyes, forcing himself to move. Denial was a luxury; survival was immediate.
The supply cart creaked, the wheels digging deep into a soft mound of bodies. Lin Yao fell to his knees, yanking with every ounce of strength. His muscles burned, screamed, threatened mutiny, but he refused to listen. Pain was secondary. Pain was a companion, unavoidable, but irrelevant. He could not die here. Not yet.
The cart lurched again. Another slave fell, twisting under the weight of it. Lin Yao almost tripped over the fallen body. Panic clamped his throat. He shook it off, yanking, dragging, moving like a machine of instinct. Around him, the battlefield was a shifting nightmare: bodies, mud, blood, fire, and screams. He tried to memorize each arrow's flight, each shadow, each movement of the enemy's advance. Every second counted. Every step was life or death.
He could hear someone whispering behind him. Not words. Just breath. Fear. His own. He turned his head slightly. The other slaves were shadows of themselves—faces streaked with blood and mud, eyes wide, panicked, broken. Some whimpered. Some didn't. Some were already dead, lying sprawled across the churned earth. He recognized the smell of death close, sickly, metallic, sweet in its own way. His own body ached, every joint and muscle screaming.
"Faster! You dogs, move!" The officer's whip cracked again, slicing the air. Lin Yao lunged forward, hands raw and bleeding, feeling the rope bite through his skin. He stumbled, almost fell. Behind him, a man screamed and toppled, pierced through the chest. Lin Yao's chest convulsed. He didn't stop. He couldn't. Every heartbeat was a hammer, every breath fire.
They crossed a trench filled with bodies, mud sucking at every step. Limbs poked like grotesque stakes from the black muck. Lin Yao's feet slipped. The cart tilted dangerously. He gritted his teeth, digging fingernails into the rope, yanking with everything he had. A horse screamed, panicked, hooves trampling bodies. Lin Yao fell sideways, almost buried under the wheel. Pain exploded in his shoulder. His ribs protested, a sharp, stabbing agony. But he clawed his way up, pulled, and kept moving.
An arrow grazed his arm, skin shredding, blood spraying. The scent of iron was overwhelming, thick, choking. He tasted it in his mouth. He spat and moved. Every nerve screamed, adrenaline and terror flooding him, turning pain into something almost bearable. Survival was singular. Nothing else existed. Not fear, not morality, not pity. Only the rope, the cart, the blood-soaked mud, the screaming bodies, and the arrows falling like rain.
The sun began to sink behind the distant hills, though it barely mattered under the storm of death around him. Darkness approached, but he did not pause. A soldier screamed, sword swinging wildly. He fell in front of Lin Yao. The cart tipped. Wheels threatened to crush him. Instinct took over. Hands gripped, body yanked, muscles tearing. A scream of effort escaped him. Pain, fear, exhaustion—they fused into a single, driving force.
The battle raged around him as if the world itself had gone mad. Arrows, swords, fire, bodies. Lin Yao did not see it all. He could only feel. Every movement was agony. Every breath, an act of defiance. One by one, the slaves fell. Some twisted under arrows, others collapsed in exhaustion, screaming or silent. The air was alive with terror and death, electric, pungent, almost sacred in its brutality.
He stumbled over a corpse, recognized its face, then looked away. Could not afford to dwell. The rope cut into his palms. Blood mingled with mud. Limbs screamed. His vision blurred, sweat and blood dripping into his eyes. But he kept pulling. Kept moving. Kept breathing.
Night fell. Shadows swallowed the battlefield, turning the screams and groans into a low, rolling echo. Lin Yao's body moved without thought, driven by instinct alone. His lungs burned, heart hammered, legs threatened collapse. And then he stumbled, hands sliding over a wet, soft mound. He froze. Darkness, stillness. Blood-soaked mud beneath him.
He looked down.
The face staring up at him was his own. Pale, bloodied, eyes half-closed in death. His old body. His old life.
The world seemed to pause. Silence pressed against him like a physical weight. He wanted to scream, to move, to wake up—but this was no illusion. The battlefield had claimed it, claimed him, and left a body as a warning, as proof.
Lin Yao did not know if he shivered from cold, terror, or rage. The chains on his wrists bit into him. The cart behind him groaned. Arrows still hissed in the distance. Somewhere, men were screaming. Somewhere, fire burned. Somewhere, death waited. And now, so did the question: what had he become, and how would he survive this new skin in a world that had no mercy?
His hands gripped the ropes again. The cart waited. The battle waited. And somewhere in the shadows, the dead face of himself stared up, accusing, silent.
Night swallowed the battlefield, but Lin Yao moved forward.