Soldier Boy stepped forward, his fingers darting toward Lynn's neck.
Before the chill of his fingertips reached him, the force of the movement had already stolen Lynn's breath.
The shadow of death descended, more tangible and inescapable than artillery fire on a battlefield.
Was I going to die at the hands of a character I'd summoned?
What a disgrace to transmigrators...
[Host authority activated. Establishing preliminary disciplinary link.]
Soldier Boy's fingertips froze less than a centimeter from Lynn's skin.
His own body had betrayed him.
The hand Soldier Boy had reached for Lynn with bent backward beyond his control, curling around his own neck at a grotesque angle.
The anger on his face gave way to shock.
He could feel his knuckles tightening, as though someone else inside his body were trying to crush his windpipe.
He stared fixedly at Lynn, his eyes full of disbelief.
"You..."
At the same time, warmth surged from Lynn's heart and swept through his body.
Ten percent of Soldier Boy's power flowed back to him.
Lynn felt every cell in his body rejoicing.
The dull ache that had persisted in his head vanished, leaving his mind clear, and the lingering weakness was washed away by the power.
An unprecedented sense of fullness welled up inside him.
He slid out of bed, planting his bare feet on the floor.
Lynn calmly regarded the disheveled "superhero" kneeling on one knee.
Now, the hunter and the prey had switched places.
Several distinct red marks had been left on Soldier Boy's neck, and he was now gasping for breath.
His arrogance was gone.
"What did you do to me?"
"A reminder." Lynn flexed his wrist, feeling his healthy body. "A reminder that if you want to kill me, you'll have to kill yourself first."
"Bullshit!"
Soldier Boy stood up.
"Nobody controls me! Nobody!"
He raised his hand again, but the movement was noticeably slower, and his eyes were full of wariness.
"You can try again."
Lynn pointed to his own neck.
"This time, I can't be sure your fingers won't go straight into your throat."
Soldier Boy stopped and glared at Lynn, but in the end, he didn't take another step.
The sensation of being at death's door just now had been all too real to him.
"Who the hell are you?"
"I'm Lynn Morris. I brought you here to be a real hero, a legend who can end a war. It's good for both of us."
"What the fuck does that have to do with me?"
"I need you to be a real hero."
"A hero? Ha!"
Soldier Boy snorted.
"I am a fucking hero!"
"No."
Lynn cut him off.
"Ask yourself honestly: are you really a hero?"
"How many days have you spent on a real battlefield? Do those staged photo ops Vought International arranged for you count as fighting?"
"Have you seen the ruins of a city leveled by artillery? Have you smelled thousands of corpses piled together, rotting and festering?"
"What this age needs is a monster who can tear tanks apart, not an idiot who smiles for the cameras."
"You, Soldier Boy, will become that legend."
"A legend?"
Soldier Boy pointed at his face.
"Buddy, from Maine to California, every kid's got my face on their lunch box! I am a legend!"
"That was then."
Lynn corrected him.
"Those lunch boxes, that country, those people who worship you-they're all in another world, seventy years from now. Here, you're nothing."
Lynn stepped forward, closing the distance between them.
"What the hell do you want?"
Soldier Boy met his gaze, then abandoned the idea of attacking.
"I want to help you."
Lynn sounded as sincere as a preacher.
"Help you become the man you've always wanted to be, but never managed to become."
"You made movies for Vought International, went on talk shows, attended all sorts of boring ribbon-cutting ceremonies... You call that being a hero?"
"How many of your exploits were made up by your PR team? How many more were built on connections and drugs?"
Soldier Boy's breathing gradually grew heavier.
His fists clenched, his knuckles cracking.
He glared at Lynn.
He couldn't even conceal the violence in his eyes.
But mixed in with it was a fear he hadn't even noticed himself.
All of it was filth hidden beneath his heroic halo.
This kid came out of nowhere...
How the fuck did he know everything so clearly?
He felt as though he'd been stripped naked and made to stand before him.
"I know everything."
Lynn looked straight into his pupils, slightly dilated with shock.
"Including why they betrayed you. Payback... They were jealous of your glory, and even more afraid of the power you couldn't control. So they chose to send you into the Russians' hell, where you'd never recover."
"Shut up!!"
Soldier Boy finally lost control and roared.
But to Lynn, the roar sounded fierce on the surface and hollow underneath.
He took a step back, as though trying to put some distance between himself and the devil who had seen through everything about him.
That betrayal was the source of his decades of nightmares.
Yes, he wasn't a hero.
He was just a wretch betrayed by his own people and abandoned by his time.
"But here, it's different."
"There's no Vought here, no media, and none of those treacherous bastards. There's only war and countless eyes longing for a hero."
He pointed out the window.
"Imagine it: you drop from the sky and tear an opening in the German lines. You block machine-gun fire with your shield and smash tanks with your fists."
"The soldiers here won't care what drugs you've taken, or whether your PR copy is any good."
"They'll only see a god, a god of war who can end this damned war."
"People will cheer for you and weep for you. They'll build the tallest statue in your honor and write your name into the history books. You won't be a manufactured product anymore, but a true, immortal legend! A man who changed the course of world history single-handedly."
Soldier Boy's breathing grew uneven.
He instinctively looked away from Lynn, his gaze passing through the wall toward the unknown world shrouded in war.
Lynn knew the future he'd described was like a seed taking root and sprouting in the beast's heart.
No betrayal, only power and worship.
Wasn't that everything he'd ever dreamed of?
"But why should I listen to you?"
He still couldn't accept it; this was his last struggle.
"Because I'm the only one who can give you this opportunity."
Lynn spread his hands.
"Or you can choose to refuse."
His tone turned casual.
"I'll send you back. Back to where you came from. That dark, cold hellhole with nothing in it."
"You'll stay there alone forever, and no one will remember the name Soldier Boy. You'll vanish completely, as though you'd never existed."
"You..."
He had been imprisoned by the Russians, and he knew the despair of being powerless.
By comparison, even death seemed like a gift.
After a long silence, Soldier Boy seemed to deflate like a punctured ball.
Much of his hostility subsided, but his eyes remained fierce.
He ground his back teeth and forced out a word.
"Terms."
He hadn't asked "what do I do?" but "terms," which meant that, to him, this was still a deal rather than a surrender.
Lynn smiled. The unruly beast had finally been forced to the negotiating table.