Thanks for sharing your story concept—there's a strong foundation here for an epic dark fantasy/sci-fi saga. Here's a revised and expanded version of your chapter, professionally written in novel format. This version stays faithful to your plot while
The sky wept with fury.
Rain battered the blackened fields of what was once southern Poland—now nothing more than blood-soaked soil under the banner of the Northmen Union. Lightning tore the sky in half, revealing the shattered corpses of soldiers, beasts, and monsters, all mingled in the mud like discarded toys of a cruel god. Thunder cracked like the laughter of the dead.
Three hundred thousand. Gone.
An entire army, armed to the teeth, swallowed by the earth in a single masterstroke—an ambush orchestrated by the infamous Eastern strategist, General Volkova of the Russian Empire. The fields, once green and serene, were now a stage for the greatest massacre of the century.
Isaac stood amidst the ruin, the dead eyes of his comrades staring into the heavens as if demanding answers. He gave none. He had none to give.
Rain ran down his face, indistinguishable from the blood staining his cheeks. His sword hung limply from his fingers, its edge blunted by gore. Around him, the remnants of the once-mighty Northmen army were either dead or dying. The stench of ozone, steel, and death clung to the air.
He didn't flinch when the Russian general stepped over a fallen knight and approached him.
"You," the man growled.
Isaac raised his head, his eyes dull and hollow. He recognized him—General Volkova. A titan of war, cloaked in an obsidian mantle, his eyes glowing faintly with awakened power. He was not a man; he was a force.
Volkova's boot crashed into Isaac's chest, sending him sprawling in the mud.
"One unknown captain, and you slaughter a hundred of my elite? What a joke," Volkova snarled. "Your commanders will laugh in their graves. You're a peasant wearing a crown."
He pressed his heel against Isaac's skull, grinding it into the blood-soaked dirt.
But Isaac didn't resist. He only laughed, quietly—tired and bitter.
Rain continued to fall.
His thoughts drifted.
---
Year 2022 – The Collapse
He had been a college student once. Just another face in a crowded lecture hall, chasing dreams already half-forgotten. The world was still whole then, still rational. Technology hummed, governments stood, and monsters only lived in myths.
Until the System came.
It arrived without warning, like a glitch in reality itself. The laws of physics rewrote themselves. Electronics died. Engines failed. Satellites fell from the sky. Humanity's golden age shattered overnight.
Then came the monsters.
Creatures from nightmare realms spilled into Earth—goblins, wyverns, beasts of flesh and shadow. Chaos reigned. Cities burned.
And then, something stranger: the Awakenings.
Some humans—survivors—were marked by the System, gifted with powers previously the stuff of fantasy. Magic, strength, healing, control of elements. The stronger one's will to survive, the stronger their power.
Isaac, however, had hidden. He'd watched his friends get torn apart by goblins in that first week, too paralyzed by fear to move. The System did not reward cowards. His Awakening was feeble. Low potential. A pawn in a world built for predators.
So he lived. Quietly. Painfully.
And eventually, he was drafted.
---
Year 2068 – The First World War of the Awakened
Humanity had adapted. Nations reformed. Order emerged from the ashes in new and brutal shapes. Five superpowers rose from the ruins:
The Yellow Sea Union, spanning Asia Minor, ruled by arcane scholars and dragon-tamers.
The North American Empire, an iron-fisted regime that unified the continent with blood and steel.
The Russian Empire, reborn with awakened czars and icy sorcery.
The Northmen Union, a grand coalition of Western Europe forged by warlords and beast-kin.
And the Free Cities of Africa, a confederation of technomancers, shaman kings, and merchant dynasties.
It was only a matter of time before war returned.
The Northmen, drunk on pride and past victories, struck deep into Russian territory.
And now, they lay broken.
Isaac, last of his company, waited for the end.
Volkova's sword gleamed in the stormlight as it rose high.
Then—
A rupture in the sky.
Not lightning.
A pillar of pure light descended like a comet, striking the ground a meter from where Isaac lay. Volkova staggered, shielding his eyes. Isaac blinked.
The light... moved.
No—it entered him.
A surge of heat, ice, sound, silence. Every cell in his body screamed as a foreign force burrowed into his soul.
Then, a voice—not heard, but felt.
"One wish. I grant it."
Isaac's mind, fractured by trauma, offered no answer.
The voice did not wait.
"Analyzing soul... wish chosen. Reversal of fate. Timeline shift initiated."
A pulse of impossible energy.
The battlefield vanished.
Darkness.
---
And then...
A chalkboard.
The hum of fluorescent lights.
Professor Edwin droning on about pre-war political theory.
Isaac blinked.
His desk. His notebook.
His classmates—laughing, bored, alive.
He looked down at his hands.
No blood. No scars.
Just the hands of a twenty-year-old student.
Year: 2022.
Day: The day before the Collapse.