1918: The Ironclad Red Road

Berlin, New Year’s Day, 1917. A cold fog thick with smoke and coal ash enveloped the city. Major Leon von Hoffmann stood before the window of the OHL (Supreme Army Command) General Staff. The glass reflected his somewhat pale face, as well as the vast map of the Eastern Front behind him, now stiff and lifeless.

The bitter taste of cheap ersatz coffee lingered on his fingertips, while a fire that did not belong to this age raged in his chest: the fire of Lin Fu, a soul from the future. Two sets of memories tore at each other, then fused in his mind: a major in the Kaiser’s army, and the heir to an idea born in the East, one powerful enough to set the world ablaze.

Outside, the streets were silent beneath the blackout. He saw more than the bitter cold and scarcity before him. He saw the despair spreading in the wake of the meat grinder at Verdun, the resentment surging beneath the skin of sailors and workers, and the November Revolution from his history books, set to erupt the following year only to be hastily crushed.

The old world was rotting in the blood and mire of its own making. And the new... He gently pressed a hand to the old wound that still ached. A bullet had once nearly taken Leon von Hoffmann’s life, but it had awakened Lin Fu completely.

“The time is coming,” he whispered soundlessly. In the depths of his ice-blue eyes, a new vision took shape, woven from the dawn of the East and a will of steel.

This bitter night had to end. He would kindle a different flame with his own hands.