MMORPG : Ancient WORLD

541 Second Trial

Alex could be seen going against a Dark Dragon, a ferocious creature that stood nearly six meters tall and stretched double that in length.

Its hulking physique was cloaked beneath a nearly impenetrable layer of dark scales that glinted ominously under the barely present light in the chamber.

The dragon lunged at Alex, his claws swinging wildly, sending elemental slashes of darkness, his jaws snapping with such force that he was crushing the surrounding space and sending shock waves.

Alex countered with swift, precise strikes, his blade slicing through his attacks, leaving a trail of darkness in the wake of each swing.

Their forms were two blurs, each clash resulting in an explosion that shocked the very space, but as moments passed, it was clear that Alex had the upper hand, as under his precise strikes, the scales of the dragon were cracking open.

After suffering fatal strikes, the dragon roared as he unleashed a torrent of flames from its body, setting himself ablaze.

The dragon was covered in deep gashes that painted his dark form and made it bloody, leaving him slower and weaker, but under the influence of the flames, he began to heal and become stronger than ever.

The flames licked at the air, turning the space between them into an inferno, generating heat of such nature that it made Alex's skin deteriorate even with his immunity against the darkness.

The dragon roared once more, an armor of flame forming around his body, manifesting tendrils of abyssal fire with jaws at their end that snapped at Alex, accompanied by flame slashes that created every inch of the chamber ablaze with them.

Alex quickly discovered that the flame once stuck to his body burned with ferocity, and it was extremely hard to put out as it was being fueled by his vitality and mana, but that did not deter him.

Alex used thought Acceleration and rained down as much damage as he could in the following half a minute, and as the time ended, the reaper manifested and delivered an unavoidable attack that claimed a solid portion of the remaining life of the dragon, leaving him at death's door.

In retaliation, the dragon jumped into the air, spreading its wings wide, and began creating a massive orb of darkness in his maw.

The sphere began to condense at a rate faster than it grew, quickly forming into a singularity of destruction that twisted the surrounding space with its intense gravity and mass.

Moments later, it was hurled toward Alex, swiftly expanding into a sphere of annihilation that erased the very space, like fire burning through the air.

"Concept Eraser: Deterioration,"

Alex identified the danger and used his trump card, conjuring a sphere of pure darkness that began to expand rapidly, and as the darkness reached him, his sphere exploded into a calm wave of darkness, phasing into the incoming destruction.

Alex zoomed into the spreading darkness, his sword pulsing with the concept of unification, and while the darkness from the dragon did sap away his energy and affected his mind negatively, it no longer physically harmed him.

Alex targeted the wings of the dragon, delivering precise strikes, with each swing of Misery slicing through bone and sinew until the wings were nothing but useless appendages dangling by threads of muscle.

The dragon still fought fiercely, but Alex was quicker, and within a few exchanges, he took out one of his arms while leaving deep gashes on the other.

Now almost disabled, it took a few powerful slashes, and finally, the battle came to an end as he decapitated the dragon, the head split cleanly from its neck.  

The massive body of the Onyx Dark Dragon collapsed to the ground, and Alex looming over the fallen beast, his body bearing many injuries. This showed that it was by no means an easy battle, but seeing that he was using the challenge to test his strength, it was within his expectations.

As Alex watched, the dragon's colossal corpse began to dissolve, its form disintegrating into a wave of darkness. The darkness spread and swirled, leaving nothing behind but a glowing magic circle etched into the ground.

Alex was a bit surprised, but he quickly regained his composure and stepped onto the circle, feeling the darkness rise around him, enveloping his form.

His vision faded into darkness, and when it returned, he found himself standing inside a shadowy chamber, the air heavy and still, and before him looming a dark slate with twisting words carved into its surface.

'Tragonth was the first dragon among the thirteen to die, but as I expected, he was not the one mentioned in the riddle,' Alex thought, a feeling of disappointment washing over him.

'It is as I thought, by falling the riddle is not referring to death but rather falling of a dragon to a curse, betraying the others, or experiencing something similar,' Alex thought before he said the riddle aloud.

"The kin of old hold the truth of the past, a tragedy that struck and claimed all at last. Seek the one first to fall as he holds the shard for you to advance."

Alex was in the second stage of the trial, called the Dragon Graveyard, and according to the riddle, his objective was to find a specific dragon tomb and defeat the dragon within to obtain the second shard of the artifact.

However, unlike the previous stage, where he had all the time to experiment, this stage presented a unique challenge.

As there were thirteen dragon tombs, and he was only given three keys, and failing to find the correct tomb in three tries would result in disqualification, he couldn't afford to clear all thirteen tombs to get what he needed.

The second stage was a vast island, stretching for tens of kilometers and featuring diverse biomes, and it housed thirteen clans of dragonkin, each descended from one of the thirteen true dragons.

Alex had been given basic information about this place and the thirteen dragons, including the fact that, in the past, a tragic incident resulted in the deaths of seven of the thirteen dragons.

However, there were no details on what exactly happened that caused the deaths, and the dragonkin clans knew as much as Alex did about the dragons and the tragic event, offering little help in his quest.

However, Alex knew the clan members harbored some knowledge since the riddle blatantly pointed to it, but how he would get it was still a mystery.

As even after spending many hours searching and even torturing some of the strong dragonkin, he found nothing, forcing him to enter the tomb of the shadowy dragon, the first one to die, to see if he could gather any intelligence by fighting it.

'If it was a curse, then the clan members should have some clue about it or be affected by it to this day.'

'But the problem is that the only abnormalities they experience are those through their bloodline, and most of the thirteen clans have one.'

'The red dragon clan experiences extreme rage and loses their sanity to it. The silver dragon clan can extract the life force of others and become addicted to it. The blue dragon clan can heal others at the cost of their own life force.'

'Each clan has a unique ability they gained from their ancestor, each one that could have caused one of the dragons to lose their sanity and attack others.'

'Damn it, these riddles make no sense.' Alex thought, frustration gnawing at him as the answers seemed just out of reach, hidden behind layers of mystery.