The Last Banner

Hadrian leaned forward in his creaky gaming chair, his fingers flying across the keyboard as he issued commands to his battered High Elf army. The Orc horde smashed against his lines like a green tidal wave, and the battlefield was chaos. His cavalry struggled to maneuver, pinned by goblins he'd underestimated.

"Hold position, you bloody cowards!" he snapped at the screen, sweat beading on his forehead. His mage was casting a vortex spell, a last-ditch effort to break the Orc advance. The spinning maelstrom tore through the goblin ranks, leaving a clear path. A flicker of hope stirred in his chest. "Yes! That's how it's done!"

Then he saw it: another Orc army emerging on the horizon. Reinforcements. His mini-map flashed red, mocking him.

"What? Two Waaaghs? That's not balanced!" His voice cracked as he scrambled to adjust, pulling his cavalry back to regroup. His archers fired in desperate volleys, but the Orcs kept coming. His units began to rout. The lines collapsed.

He clenched his jaw, shaking his head in disbelief. "Unbelievable. I'm done. I'm uninstalling this garbage."

The screen froze for a moment, then stuttered back to life—just in time for his general to die. The Defeat screen splashed across the monitor. He stared at it, his hand hovering over the mouse.

"You've got to be kidding me."

Anger bubbled up, but before he could slam the keyboard, a sharp pain shot through his chest. He froze. His breath caught, and a heavy weight pressed down on him. He tried to shake it off, but the pain spread, his vision blurring.

"Not now," he muttered, clutching his chest. "It's just a game…"

He slumped back in his chair, trying to focus on breathing, but his body wouldn't listen. Panic crept in as the edges of his vision darkened. He wanted to laugh, to scream at the absurdity. A stroke. Over a video game.

As the room tilted and his body slid sideways, his final thought flickered through the haze: I can't believe I lost to Orcs.

Darkness swallowed him.

Hadrian's consciousness stirred, floating in an endless void. There was no up, no down—just an overwhelming nothingness that pressed against him from every side. He tried to open his eyes, but there were no eyes to open. His body, if it still existed, felt distant and disconnected.

"Am I... dead?" The thought echoed, strange and hollow, as if the void itself swallowed his voice.

Then it came. A voice unlike anything he had ever heard. It wasn't just sound—it was power, searing itself into his mind and reverberating through the emptiness.

"YOU ARE."

The words slammed into him, a force of raw will that made his very essence tremble. Hadrian tried to respond, to ask what or who, but the words stuck, silenced by the presence now filling the void.

A shape began to form before him, vast and incomprehensible. It shifted constantly, first a blinding radiance that burned even in the absence of light, then a towering figure wreathed in flame, and then a massive storm of gold and crimson. Whatever it was, it was too much for any mortal to comprehend.

"Who... what are you?" Hadrian finally managed, his voice a thin thread in the oppressive expanse.

"I AM THE BEGINNING AND THE END," the voice thundered. "I AM THE CREATOR. YOU MAY CALL ME GOD."

Hadrian hesitated. The concept was too much, too overwhelming. This wasn't the benevolent image of Sunday school. This was raw, unrelenting power—terrifying, vast, and utterly certain of its authority.

"I've... died," Hadrian said slowly, the absurdity of it settling in. "A stroke? During a video game? That's how I go out?"

The voice of God didn't waver. "IT MATTERS NOT HOW YOU PERISHED. IT MATTERS ONLY WHAT COMES NEXT."

Hadrian wanted to argue, to demand answers, but the sheer weight of the being's presence left no room for defiance. "What do you want from me?"

"YOUR WORLD IS NOT THE ONLY ONE. IN ANOTHER, HUMANITY SUFFERS—FRAGMENTED AND DYING UNDER THE HEEL OF THE INFIDELIC RACES. I WILL NOT ALLOW MY CREATION TO FALL."

A surge of images flooded Hadrian's mind: humans huddled in ruined cities, armies of orcs and goblins rampaging through villages, and elven rulers looking down with disdain from glittering towers. The sheer scale of suffering was horrifying, but it was the voice that broke through the chaos.

"I CHOSE YOU," God continued. "YOU WILL BE MY INSTRUMENT. MY WRATH."

Hadrian blinked—or he thought he did, though he wasn't sure his body existed anymore. "Why me? I'm not exactly a hero. Hell, I just lost to Greenskins."

The storm of light and fire flared, the void trembling with its fury. "DO NOT MISTAKE THIS FOR A REQUEST. YOU WILL GO. YOU WILL FULFILL MY WILL. OR YOU WILL CEASE TO EXIST ENTIRELY."

The threat sank in, chilling and absolute. There was no escape from this. Not here, not now.

Hadrian's mind raced, searching for an angle. He had no loyalty to this divine being, no grand moral compass driving him to save a world he didn't know. But if he refused... oblivion awaited. That much was clear.

"Fine," he said at last, his voice heavy with resignation. "I'll do it. But let's get one thing straight. I'm not doing this for you. I'll do it my way."

God's presence didn't respond immediately. The silence that followed felt like an eternity, until the voice returned, calmer but no less commanding. "SO BE IT. DO NOT FAIL ME."

Before Hadrian could react, the void erupted in blinding light. His very essence was wrenched away, flung into an abyss of pain, fire, and energy. His screams were lost in the maelstrom as he was torn apart and remade.

And then, there was nothing but silence.

Hadrian awoke with a gasp, his chest heaving as if he'd surfaced from drowning. His lungs burned, his skin felt cold and clammy, and his entire body trembled with a weakness he hadn't known in decades. For a moment, he couldn't make sense of anything—the too-heavy air, the soft quilt brushing against his fingers, the distant sound of voices.

When his vision cleared, he saw a canopy above him—richly embroidered fabric in deep reds and golds. He blinked, his mind scrambling to piece together what had happened. The void. The voice. The command.

"Was it real?" he muttered, his voice barely above a whisper. The sound startled him—it was higher-pitched, softer, unfamiliar. His own voice, yet... not.

Hadrian sat up slowly, every movement a struggle. His arms were thin, his chest hollow, his legs like twigs beneath the weight of the blanket. He stared down at himself in disbelief.

"What the hell is this?" he whispered, his words trembling with a mix of frustration and disbelief. His body was frail, scrawny—a far cry from the sturdy, if sedentary, frame he had in his previous life.

The room around him came into focus—a spacious chamber with high ceilings and polished stone walls. Ornate tapestries adorned every surface, and a faint glow from an iron brazier cast flickering shadows across the room. It looked... medieval. Opulent, but archaic.

As he swung his legs over the edge of the bed, the sound of footsteps approached. The door creaked open, and a middle-aged woman dressed in simple but finely made clothes stepped inside. She froze upon seeing him awake, her face lighting up with a mixture of relief and awe.

"My lord Hadrian! You're awake!" she exclaimed, her voice trembling with emotion. "We feared you might not recover."

Hadrian blinked at her, his mind racing. Lord Hadrian? He searched the fragments of his memories, but they felt disjointed—his own thoughts tangled with foreign ones. Bits and pieces began to surface: a life lived in this place, a young boy born into nobility, expectations of greatness that his frail body could never fulfill.

The pieces clicked into place with agonizing clarity. This wasn't just a dream. God had thrown him here, into the body of some sickly noble boy.

"Fantastic," he muttered under his breath, his tone dripping with sarcasm. "I'm reborn, and I can barely lift my own head."

The woman hesitated, her smile faltering. "Is something wrong, my lord? Shall I fetch the physician?"

Hadrian waved her off weakly. "No. Just... leave me for now."

The woman gave a small curtsy, clearly unsure, but she obeyed and left the room. The moment the door shut, Hadrian buried his face in his hands. The absurdity of it all hit him like a brick.

"This has to be some kind of cosmic joke," he muttered. "I die playing a game about war, and now I'm stuck in a medieval world as a kid who'd lose a fight to a stiff breeze."

His fingers curled into fists, trembling with the effort. The weight of God's command loomed over him, but he couldn't bring himself to care—at least, not yet. This wasn't his war. This wasn't his world. He just wanted to survive, to figure out how to navigate this mess.

He forced himself to stand, his legs wobbling as he leaned heavily against the bedpost. Slowly, he shuffled to a mirror near the far wall. The boy staring back at him was almost unrecognizable—golden-blond hair falling messily around a sharp, youthful face. His piercing grey eyes, though, were still there. They were his.

"Alright," he said quietly, staring into the mirror. "You wanted me here? Fine. But I'm doing this my way."

The reflection didn't respond, but something about those eyes felt different. Determined. Calculating. If God expected him to be a pawn in this game, He had another thing coming.