Starting out as a Dragon Slave

Isaac remained there, prostrate, his body ravaged by sobs that shook him like a storm, his hands desperately searching for warmth, a sign, a trace of her presence. But all he found was absence a bottomless chasm that expanded within his chest, a void that devoured everything in its path, leaving a glacial cold in its wake. ƒree𝑤ebnσvel.com

Time a measure now devoid of meaning passed without him noticing. Seconds turned into minutes, minutes perhaps into hours. He no longer knew. He didn’t want to know. His mind was fractured, his heart bleeding dry, and all he could do was cry.

Cry for her.Cry for her unfinished dreams.Cry for the life he had failed to protect despite all his promises.

And then, slowly, almost imperceptibly, something changed.

The pain was still there burning, omnipresent. But beneath that suffering, something else began to emerge a cold flame, a restrained rage, a new determination.

When he finally lifted his head, his face was transformed. His eyes, reddened by tears, now reflected a new light a cold flame, fueled by pain, turned into fuel for his will. The tear tracks had dried on his cheeks, leaving pale streaks in the dust and blood.

- "I will fulfill your dream..." he murmured, his voice now sharper than a blade. "No matter the cost... the dragons will die, and humanity will rise again."

His fist struck the ground with restrained violence, shaking the blackened tiles beneath the impact. Ashes rose in a fleeting cloud, dancing around him like ghosts of a possible future. His pupils glowed with a deep, almost sanguine orange not the warm color of comforting fire, but the implacable hue of a blazing forge.

A low rumbling, barely perceptible at first, began to vibrate in the tainted air. It echoed off the fractured walls, the agonizing pillars, the tiles blackened by the inferno they had endured. Isaac slowly raised his gaze towards the collapsed ceiling, his features now carved by suffering and inexorable resolve. A thin line of dried blood traced a dark path down his cheek, from his temple to his chin like a scarlet tear frozen in time.

The walls cracked again, the air thickening with fine, acrid dust that burned the lungs. Rubble slid with a sinister whisper, the metal structures groaned like tormented souls. The entire dungeon seemed to buckle under an invisible force, a breath of imminent death.

Isaac clenched his fists, ignoring the pain that radiated through every fiber of his body. His eyes swept once more across the devastated floor, searching despite himself for one last proof, one final testimony of her existence. But there was still only emptiness. A desert of ashes and desolation where the end of a world his world had played out.

A sharper crack shook the ground beneath his feet. Dust rose in thick whirls, swirling in the stagnant air like hungry specters. The ceiling cracked further, and a massive block of stone crashed near him with a deafening crash. The rumbling intensified, becoming the roar of a dying beast.

The dungeon is collapsing...

The realization struck him with icy clarity. The portal remained open, flickering in the unstable space. If he lingered, he would be buried under the rubble, trapped forever in this improvised mausoleum a tomb shared with the ghost of the one he hadn’t been able to save.

He stood up with effort, his body protesting every movement. His legs wavered, his breathing was labored, but he no longer had a choice. The dust-saturated air burned his eyes and lungs, each breath a cruel reminder of his undeserved survival. Yet he forced himself to move forward, step by step, his feet dragging over the rough ground, avoiding the falling stone blocks that crashed around him like a deadly rain.

The dungeon was disintegrating at an alarming rate. Walls collapsed in entire sections, the floor opened up into gaping crevices that swallowed the debris into bottomless pits. The atmosphere, heavy with suspended particles, reduced his visibility to only a few meters. But he kept moving, guided by the flickering glow of the portal, each of his steps echoing faintly in the surrounding chaos.

The portal finally appeared before him, unstable, its edges shimmering like the surface of a pond disturbed by a funeral breeze. Isaac paused briefly, casting one last look back. The ashes still floated, eternal witnesses of the tragedy. The rubble continued to collapse in an apocalyptic clamor. Beyond the noise, he searched one last time in vain for a sign, a trace, an echo of her.

- "I promise you, Akane..." he whispered, his words immediately swallowed by the voracious dust.

Then he stepped through the portal, carrying with him the weight of a promise and an impossible mourning.

Silence slowly settled over the ravaged dungeon, like a dusty shroud over a corpse. The air, dense and suffocating, carried the acrid smell of soot and death. The collapsed pillars let through meager rays of light through the cracks, creating a tableau of darkness pierced by pale gold—a macabre beauty born of cataclysm.

But in that apparent silence, a slight movement suddenly disturbed the surface of the debris. A pile of stones shuddered, as if animated by its own will. The rocks began to vibrate, then slide against each other with a sinister whisper. A deep growl, barely human, emerged from the dark depths—a ragged, cavernous breath, heavy with primal fury. The rubble trembled violently, then exploded in a burst of dust and shards of stone.

A hand emerged from the bowels of the chaos—massive, scarlet, its claws blackened by the intense heat of the explosion. It slammed heavily against the ground, carving deep furrows in the ashes like fresh wounds. A bestial growl rose, a guttural noise that did not belong to the world of men a snarl charged with ancestral rage and a promise of vengeance.

Belgaroth emerged from the wreckage, each movement manifesting immense suffering but also terrifying strength. His body was a map of mutilation. Half of his face had been torn away, revealing a grotesque network of flesh and bone. His right eye was nothing more than an empty socket, a gaping wound oozing a black liquid that was not entirely blood. His left arm, broken in multiple places, exposed fragments of bone protruding through shredded flesh.