In the old days, many races fought for supremacy and control over the world. After several wars, the world was exhausted from countless fights and the piling of endless bodies of the dead.

One day, the Demons ruling over hell came out to wreak havoc and kill the existing races. They took the chance to strike down the weakened armies and pushed them to the brink of extermination.

The Gods, unable to stay neutral, decided to bestow upon the Humans ten holy weapons to fight against the rampaging demons.

All the races came together and gave their powers to the humans to use the weapons to their full capabilities.

During the final war, the humans defeated the demons and pushed them back to hell where they were sealed for eternity, but the weapons were lost and no longer part of the world.

After the war, the other remaining races swore loyalty to humans, and a council was made to unite the world and protect it from any future harm.

Several centuries later, many dungeons appeared from nowhere, and monsters came out from them.

At the same time, a lot of people started awakening to new powers. Later, the awakeners were called the Warriors. They were divided into ranks, and with proper training, each warrior could rank up and gained new powers in the process. This awakening made it possible to retaliate against the monsters.

The discovered dungeons could spawn monsters infinitely and give various rewards to the warriors. This function gave birth to more possibilities to counter high-leveled dungeons and protect the world.

Also, Mana, a type of energy, was discovered and used in all types of manners, from fighting to creating weapons and even in daily lives.

The people who awoken to new powers grew in numbers exponentially and were later divided into three groups: the main battlers who fight against the monsters were still called the Warriors. The back-row who helps the front-row in their battles were called the Healers. And the final group was called the Jack-of-all-Trades, or JT, they were capable of doing various works, from making weapons, scouting areas, providing support, etc.

This became the state of the world until the present.

----Present-day-----

*Huff* *Huff*

“What has happened to me?” I asked myself.

I felt a soaring pain in my chest and head. I tried opening my eyes, but I could barely see the scenery in front of me. Everything was a hazy red. I tried putting my hand in my head and felt a liquid going through it. As I tried putting my thoughts together, it came up to me. I must have hit my head and it’s bleeding.

“What is this pain in my chest?” I gasped.

I wiped off some blood from my eyes with my arm to have a better look at my body. I lowered my head and I was in awe. There was a big burn mark on my chest and my legs were broken. I couldn’t move them.

As I raised my head to get a better idea of what was happening around me, I saw a big winged creature in front of me. The red monster with four legs was around 6 meters tall with a big tail, enormous claws coming from its legs, a body full of scales, and fangs with fresh blood around them. It was a Dragon.

“But why am I fighting a dragon?” I shrugged my head and tried to think back on what brought me to this state.

As the red dragon started lowering the distance between us, I started remembering back what has happened and the fear of death took the best out of me, and I lost consciousness. My mind started fading back into the darkness, and suddenly several memories from the past days flashed in front of me.

***

The first memory that I recalled was when I was resting in my home after I just came back from my first raid as a C-rank swordsman warrior a few days ago. I was excited to finally rank up after several years as a D-rank warrior. I’ve been training my swordsmanship non-stop and honed my skills so I could deal with any danger.

Then the scene changed from inside my room to the dungeon management office where I was called to participate in another C-rank dungeon. I was excited at that time, but I don’t blame myself nor the other warriors because we didn’t know what was awaiting us…

Afterward, I remembered looking up my name in the list of participants until I found it. “There it is,” I said excitedly.

“Shiryuu Ackford. That’s indeed my name.” I confirmed.

***

The next scene was when we arrived at the entrance of the dungeon. During the way to it, I checked the network for any useful information that may help us in this raid. It was a habit that I developed over the years.

The name of the dungeon was the dragon tombs. Supposedly, it was a shrine dedicated to the Dragons of Ancient times, and since it could be related to them, it was speculated that one of the Mythological Weapons could be there.

Many raid parties, guild teams, and other warriors went into this dungeon in the past to look for the lost weapon, but it was nowhere to be found. And like all the other dungeons, the same boss kept re-spawning every few weeks, so all the theories behind this dungeon were invalid and were given the C-rank.

There were several reptilian monsters inside it, and the boss was a black double-headed giant serpent, with a spiky back and can use poisonous attacks. We were all prepared for these monsters, but not for what we found.

***

Moving forward to the next memory, I remembered fighting different lizard monsters. They didn’t put much of a fight against a party full of C-rank warriors, three healers, and one JT scout. As we pushed our way to the next zone of this dungeon, we kept meeting high-leveled monsters, but they were still in the mid-C-rank, so it wasn’t a big deal. Unfortunately, things changed when we arrived at the boss's room.

We were expecting the double-headed snake and some of its minions, but to our surprise, there were no monsters inside the room.

The scout moved to the center to check for any signs of the monsters, but suddenly a big figure jumped at him from the roof.

One of the nearby Tank-type warriors managed to protect the scout from the big hairy monster and pushed it aside.

Everyone was shocked by what we found. The boss has changed, and instead of the serpent, we met a one-thousand-eyed black hairy spider. A rank-B monster known for its ferocity and reign over the other insect-based monsters. It’s much harder to fight than the snake and needed some extra preparations to counter it. We didn’t even bring a single fire mage warrior. Nonetheless, we went into formation and started attacking the boss relentlessly.

We paid a heavy price to defeat this monster. Many warriors ended up dying and we suffered more than we expected. This was a disaster of a raid, but this wasn’t the end. After killing the boss, a new door revealed itself at the far end of the room. Normally, all the participating warriors should receive a chest full of items as a reward for clearing the dungeon, but we got nothing.

The mana of the healers was not enough to heal all the remaining warriors, so we decided to call for help from the outside since we couldn’t exit the dungeon until it was cleared, but other outside parties could join.

Suddenly, right after sending the message, we heard a voice speaking to our minds directly.

“You have thirty minutes to clear this dungeon, or else, everyone will die.” The words ring in our minds with a menacing tone.

The message sent shivers down our spines. Silence overwhelmed the room for several minutes until one of the surviving warriors talked.

“We should advance and defeat the boss in the last room.” Said the warrior.

The one who took the initiative was the appointed party leader. He was a mage-type C-rank warrior who was close to breaking the B-rank barrier, with over ten years of experience. He was a tall man wearing a leather blue robe covering from his head until his legs, and a black staff with a magic orb on top of it. From the stories that I’ve heard about him, he got that orb from a B-rank dungeon he participated in a few years ago. So he was a capable warrior.

“If the one who used telepathy to send us that message is saying the truth, then we shouldn’t waste any more time.” He added.

Some other warriors started arguing, but in the end, we decided to leave the ones who didn’t want to fight behind and went to defeat whatever was waiting for us behind that door.

I was one of the participating warriors. I couldn’t let a chance like this slip by, but thinking about it, I regret my choice. In the end, we marched to our death.

Trying to break away from my self-regret, I returned to the flood of memories going through my mind.

***

The next thing I remembered was the face of my party members after looking at the enormous creature in the final room.

Everyone had grim expressions on their faces. Some inexperienced warriors even lost hold of their selves and started screaming. But no voice could get out of this room because the door was shut down behind us. Some even started muttering their final wills as they lost hope by only looking at the monster in front of us.

The creature that we found was non-other than an S-rank monster. A dragon.

Dungeons with dragons inside them were rare, only a few of the top-tier warriors fought them and could survive.

What could a party of C-rank warriors do against a dragon if even a party of high-ranked Warriors can’t defeat? Even if help came from the outside, they would find everyone dead inside. We couldn’t be saved anymore. This was the end.

***

Fast-forward in time, I saw lifeless bodies on the ground. The party leader was all burnt down. Another warrior was missing half of his lower body. Wherever I tried to gaze, I saw gore and blood.

I didn’t want to lose hope. One of the things that I grew up with was to never give up. I was the first one to attack the dragon and was completely thrown away by a wing smash. I tried standing up again and again just to get bodied by the fearsome dragon. Even with all my struggle, I ended up being the last one alive, but not for a long time.

I put all the strength I still had in both of my legs and decided to gamble everything on my ultimate technique that I learned from my swordsmanship master. I put everything I had in that final slash.

I took my stance by sheathing my sword in its scabbard, moved it to the extreme of my side, leaned forward a little, closed my eyes to see the flow of mana in the air, tried to concentrate all the surrounding mana into the tip of my sheathed sword, and with a blink of an eye, I stepped forward in an instant dash and slashed the mighty dragon.

“Ono-ha-Itto-Ryu ougi, FLASH SLASH”. I roared.

When I opened my eyes, my gaze fell directly into my sword. I was expecting to see the blood of this creature, but I was stunned to see my blade broken in two. I couldn’t believe what I saw, and before I realized what has happened, the dragon flew and then landed in front of me, and fired off a fire blast that hit me directly in the chest, and threw me to one of the small altars near the edge of the room.

Due to the impact, both of my legs broke, and I hit my head so hard that I started bleeding and lost consciousness.

***

After the surge of memories, I regained consciousness, but I’ve used all my powers while fighting the deadly beast. I felt tremendous pain going through my whole body, and the dragon was slowly marching towards me like it was trying to enjoy the state of its meal before it devoured it.

I felt miserable. All the hard training I had done was useless against this beast.

“I don’t want to give up. I refuse to.” I muttered to myself.

I tried standing up, but my legs failed me.

I tried again and again until I managed to find a small place inside the altar that I was leaning on. I put my arm inside it and managed to turn around, and pushed myself on top of the altar to stand up.

“I think this is the end of the line for me. If I’m going to go down, at least I’ll die fighting. I refuse to give up”. I shouted.

After hearing my last screams. The dragon charged at me with his big claws trying to cut me into pieces.

At the moment of the impact, the altar started shining, blinding the dragon, and forcing it to fall back.

After the light started fading, a sword came out from inside the altar.

“The contract has been signed.” I heard in my head.

I felt a surge of power going through my whole body.

“What’s going on?” I confusedly asked.

The only thing I understood is that I got a new chance to fight back. So I took the sword that came out from the altar and took my stance to face off against the beast.