THE TRANSMIGRATED LORD: RISE OF THE NEW KINGDOM

“Open the gates!”

The roar slammed against the castle walls.

Jade’s eyes snapped open. A deafening BOOM! shook the room. Dust rained from the ceiling beams. Another explosion followed, closer this time. The wooden shutters rattled like they were about to tear free.

He rolled off the bed, a heartbeat before a flaming arrow smashed through the window and buried itself in the wall beside his head.

He froze. “What the hell…?”

A second arrow whistled through the broken frame. Jade ducked, it sank deep into the wooden bedpost with a sharp thunk.

Fire, screaming, and horses echoed in the distance. The clash of steel on steel invaded the chaos.

A siege, that should have been the most terrifying part but it wasn’t.

 Jade looked down at himself. He wore a white linen shirt which wasn’t his. His hands looked so slim and his skin, pale. A silver ring sat on his right index finger, cool and unfamiliar.

He stumbled to the cracked mirror on the far wall.

The reflection nearly knocked him backward. The figure staring back had black hair with sharp features and a pale skin. Coupled with golden-brown eyes which did not belong to him.

He touched his face, but the stranger in the glass did the same.

“No.” Memories crashed into his skull like broken glass.

Name: Jade Hayden, twenty years old. Lord of Hill Villeran, a fading territory in the Kingdom of Elarion. His father died two years ago and mother, long before that. He was left with a younger sister, mountains of debt and enemies on every border.

Last night, the original Jade had received a royal decree: pay the overdue taxes within thirty days or lose everything. He had finished an entire bottle of wine in his study and collapsed.

Now someone else was wearing his body.

Another explosion ripped Jade back to the present. “LORD JADE!” The door burst open. A young soldier staggered in, his armor slick with blood.

“Milord, the western wall has fallen!”  Jade stared at him for half a second, then forced the words out.

“How many?” He had no time to cry or break down. For now, it was a do or die affair and he had to survive at all cost if he wants to leave this world alive.

“Three thousand, maybe more. We have less than two hundred men left.”

Silence stretched between them, broken only by the distant roar of the battle.

“They’ll reach the inner courtyard soon.” The soldier’s voice cracked.

Three thousand against two hundred, a ruined castle with no reinforcements, or modern weapons. And absolutely no way back home.

Jade should have panicked, instead, the fear drained away, replaced by colder and sharper gaze. He walked to the shattered window.

Smoke blanketed the fields as the black banners snapped in the wind. A massive siege tower ground forward. And far behind the main force, almost hidden by the haze, a large body of cavalry waited in perfect stillness.

“They’re not trying to take the castle,” Jade quietly said.

“Milord?” The soldier blinked. “Look at the cavalry, they’re holding back. The western wall is a distraction. They’re going to circle around, burn the villages, cut off our food, and force us to surrender without a real fight.”

The soldier’s face went white.

Jade turned from the window “Pull every remaining soldier from the western defenses. Move them to the eastern gate. Gather every barrel of oil we have. Rope, scrap, metal, everything from the abandoned stores.”

“But the wall—” The soldier stared at him as if he had lost his mind.

“Will fall,” Jade finished. “I know, I only need time.” Another explosion shook the stones beneath their feet. “How much grain do we have left?” He asked.

 “Three days, maybe less.” The soldier swallowed.

Three days of food, three thousand enemies with two hundred exhausted men. And an already dying territory, Jade smiled.

“Then we have three days to change everything.”

He stepped into the corridor. The soldiers immediately turned toward him, their faces dirty, with hollow eyes. It was the look of men who had already accepted defeat.

For years their lord had been known as weak, careless, and useless. But the man standing in front of them now looked nothing like that.

His posture was straight and his eyes were calm. When he spoke, his voice carried cleanly down the stone hallway.

“Listen carefully. Move every barrel of oil to the eastern courtyard. Bring the rope. Break open the abandoned storage rooms and collect every piece of metal you can find. Do it now.”

“Milord… what are you planning?” One of the older soldiers hesitated.

 The western wall finally gave way with a grinding CRASH. The enemy soldiers poured through the breach like a black tide. Jade’s smile vanished.

“I’m planning to win.” He walked past them toward the eastern gate without looking back.

For the first time in years, the soldiers felt the fate of Hill Villeran began to shift. The man now standing behind its walls was not the lord who had nearly destroyed it. He was a stranger from another world.

And he had no intention of dying here.