Lightning struck.
And a dead body slumped over a cluttered desk.
Logan Collins died in the dumbest way imaginable.
He'd been hunched over his PC, reading web novels, when a random bolt of lightning surged through the power lines — and straight into his computer. The screen exploded. So did Logan.
Then nothing. Just pure darkness.
"Gah!"
Logan gasped awake, pain burning through his chest and arms. Cold metal pressed against his back. The walls around him were scarred and bloodstained, reeking of oil and burnt circuits.
It looked like a sci-fi movie set of some xenomorph film.
"Is this... a lucid dream?"
He tried to sit up. His body felt wrong. Heavy. Alien. He looked down.
Futuristic armor that was dented, scorched, and smothered with something dark. One arm was gone. Sliced off cleanly. The stump had been cauterized, the pain flaring.
His surroundings were a metal corridor. Red lights flickered above. Corpses - human corpses littered the floor.
"What kind of weird-ass dream is this?"
Maybe it was the sleep deprivation. Maybe his brain had finally tapped out. He'd been binging isekai stories for weeks.
But this pain? It was too sharp. Too real.
He took a shaky breath.
"Did I... actually die?"
Flashes of his computer blowing up. Electricity. Burning nerves. Then darkness.
He stared at his reflection in a cracked console screen. A scarred, older face stared back — square jaw, short hair, eyes hardened by war.
Not Logan. Not anymore.
A nearby wall bore a nameplate:
Captain Kael Draken — Wraithsong.
"...Guess that's me now."
And that's when it hit him.
No more home.
No parents. No classes. No friends. No late-night gaming marathons arguing about which pokemon was the most smashable.
All gone.
His throat tightened.
"Am I even me anymore?"
Before the existential spiral could finish downloading, a loud CLANG! echoed from deeper in the corridor.
"WAAAAAAGH!! WOT'Z DIS PLACE?!"
The roar rattled the floor.
Kael's eyes shot to the source. Out of the smoke, a hulking green brute stomped forward — two meters tall, muscles like a fully roided bodybuilder, jagged tusks jutting from a snarling jaw.
Naked except for a shoulder pad and a cloth covering it's pelvis. It gripped a massive cleaver made from scrap metal and spite.
"You'z a humie. Da humies gotta die. I'z gonna krump ya!"
Kael blinked. Then panicked.
"Wait. Did I reincarnate into Warhammer 40k?"
He froze. No weapons. One arm. No time.
"Why does everyone else get cheat skills and harems and I get an Ork mini-boss five seconds into spawn?!"
He shut his eyes, raised his remaining arm — like that'd help — and braced for the end.
But instead of getting chopped in half, everything around him shifted.
Time slowed.
The metal hallway dissolved into a pulsing green void — glowing nodes and psychic static swirling like a corrupted circuit board.
The Waaagh field.
A psychic network of shared Ork rage and violence.
Somehow, Logan — Kael — was inside it. Plugged in.
The Ork's presence surged toward him a raw, furious figure. A green avatar hurtling through psychic space.
"This is... his mind? Like logging into a murder-server?"
Logan reached out instinctively.
"STOP!"
He grabbed the Ork's essence.
It stopped like it hit a wall.
"WOT'Z DIS?! WHO ARE YOU IN MAH 'EAD?!"
The Ork flailed psychically, its avatar howling.
"You can't hurt me in here!" Logan gritted his teeth, panic rising.
And then — he bit down.
Not literally.
Spiritually. Mentally. Like swallowing concentrated fury.
The Ork screamed.
"AAAGH! YOUZ EATIN' ME MIND!!"
The psychic space collapsed in a flash of green.
Back in the hallway, the cleaver froze mid-swing.
The Ork staggered back, wide-eyed, breathing hard.
"You... you'z a god. You went in me 'ead... an' ATE me! No Ork does dat! Dat's god-stuff!"
It dropped its weapon. Threw its hands up.
"I'z yer boy now, boss! No more krumpin' from me! Just... no more brain-snackin'!"
Kael stared.
This wasn't a dream.
The pain was real.
And so was the fear in the Ork's eyes.
He didn't win with strength.
He didn't need a bolter or power armor.
He had fear.
And something deeper.
He took a slow breath.
"...Guess I'm the boss now."
"Yeh! You'z da Big Humie Boss, picked by da godz themselfz!"