"Parkour!" I shouted, vaulting over a mossy log and slicing a goblin in half mid-air.

  (Okay, I didn't actually shout 'parkour', but I definitely thought it.)

  Life in the forest had become a rhythm. A violent, bloody rhythm.

  Run. Kill. Eat. Cultivate. Repeat.

  For months, I was a blur of white hair and black steel. I carved a path toward the edge of the Death Forest. My luck was incredible—honestly, it was suspicious. Every monster I encountered was F-Rank. Overgrown rats, angry badgers, the occasional goblin scout. They were XP pi?atas, and I was swinging the bat.

  "Too easy," I muttered, wiping green blood off my cheek. "At this rate, I’ll be at the Academy in time for the opening ceremony. Maybe I’ll even have time to get a haircut."

  But as any veteran reader knows, the moment the protagonist says "It's too easy," the universe takes that as a personal challenge.

  It happened on a Tuesday. (I think. It feels like a Tuesday.)

  The birds stopped singing. The wind died. The air grew heavy, smelling of sulfur and ancient, rotting meat.

  Thud.

  The ground shook.

  Thud.

  I froze. My Spirit Sense—which usually tingled like a spider-sense—wasn't tingling. It was screaming. It was blaring an air-raid siren inside my skull.

  RUN.

  I turned to bolt, but it was too late. The trees ahead of me parted like grass, snapping like matchsticks.

  Emerging from the shadows was a nightmare scaled in iron-grey. It stood twenty feet tall, with jagged spikes running down its spine and eyes that burned like molten slag.

  A Dragon.

  Okay, let’s be technically accurate. It was an Earth Drake. A lesser cousin of the true dragons. But in the grand scheme of the food chain, the difference between a Drake and a Dragon is irrelevant when you are ten years old.

  Even the weakest Drake is ranked C-Rank.

  Remember my chart?

  C-Rank = Write your will.

  "Oh, come on!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "Where is the level scaling? This is a beginner zone!"

  The Drake looked down at me. It didn't roar. It didn't snarl. It just exhaled, a cloud of toxic gray steam rolling over me. It looked at me the way I look at a particularly annoying ant.

  Then, it swiped.

  I didn't think; I reacted.

  "Wind Walking! Max Output!"

  I exploded upward, stepping on the air itself to dodge the massive claw. The tree I had been standing next to vanished—splintered into sawdust by the sheer force of the blow.

  I can't run, I realized with cold horror. It’s too big. It’s too fast. If I turn my back, I’m dead.

  "Fine," I gritted out, gripping the Black-Red Sword with both hands. "You want a fight? Let’s dance, you oversized lizard."

  I dove from the air, spinning like a buzzsaw. I channeled everything—Phoenix fire, Dragon pressure, every drop of Mana I had.

  "Infernal Dragon Slash!"

  CLANG!

  My sword struck the Drake’s shoulder.

  It didn't cut. It didn't scratch. It sounded like I had hit a solid wall of diamond with a plastic spoon. The recoil vibrated up my arms, nearly shattering my wrists.

  The Drake didn't even flinch. It just turned its head slowly, its yellow eyes narrowing.

  It tickled him. My strongest attack... was a tickle.

  "Well," I whispered, hovering in the air as gravity started to pull me down. "That’s not good."

  The Drake’s tail whipped around.

  It was a blur. I couldn't dodge. I couldn't block.

  CRACK.

  The impact felt like getting hit by a freight train. I heard my ribs snap like dry twigs. The air was forced out of my lungs in a bloody mist. I was launched backward, crashing through one tree, then another, before slamming into a rock face.

  I slid down to the ground, a broken mess.

  "Cough..."

  Blood poured from my mouth. My vision was swimming. I couldn't feel my legs.

  Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

  The Drake stomped toward me, shaking the earth with every step. It opened its massive maw, rows of razor-sharp teeth glinting in the twilight. It was going to eat me.

  So this is it, I thought, my consciousness fading. Sorry, Dad. Sorry, Mom. I guess... plot armor has an expiration date...

  Darkness took me.

  The Golden Avatar

  The boy lay broken on the rocks. The Drake loomed over him, ready to feast.

  But as the monster lowered its head, something deep inside Ragna Crimson’s soul woke up.

  The Green Slot in his core—the one housing the essence of Mizuki, the Invincible Dragon—pulsed.

  HOOOOOOOOOOOM.

  A sound unlike anything in this world resonated. It wasn't a roar; it was the hum of the universe.

  Brilliant, blinding Golden Light erupted from Ragna’s unconscious body. It didn't burn; it was majestic. It swirled into the air, coalescing into a form that defied the laws of physics.

  It was a Serpentine Dragon. Long, winding, and elegant, with antlers of pure light and whiskers that flowed like rivers. It was a True Dragon of the East.

  The Golden Projection of Mizuki.

  The Earth Drake froze. Its instincts—the primal fear encoded in its DNA—took over. It wasn't looking at an enemy. It was looking at a God.

  The Golden Projection didn't attack. It simply floated behind Ragna, coiled protectively. It lowered its head and looked at the Earth Drake.

  Then, it released a fraction—a microscopic speck—of its Aura.

  The air solidified. The gravity in the area increased a thousandfold.

  The Earth Drake didn't even have time to scream. Its eyes rolled back into its head. Its heart, unable to handle the sheer terror of facing a Progenitor Dragon, simply stopped.

  Thump.

  The massive C-Rank monster collapsed, stone-dead from pure fear.

  The Golden Dragon let out a soft snort, circled Ragna once, and dissolved back into motes of light, sinking into the boy’s chest. The light turned from gold to a soft, healing green, knitting bones back together and sealing wounds.

  The Loot

  "Gah!"

  I sat up, gasping for air, clutching my chest.

  "I’m alive? I’m..." I patted my ribs. "I’m fixed?"

  I looked around frantically. "Where is it? Where is the—"

  I froze. The Earth Drake was lying in front of me. Dead. No wounds. Just... deactivated.

  "What the hell happened?" I whispered. "Did it have a heart attack? Did it choke on a fly?"

  I stood up, my legs feeling surprisingly strong. I walked over to the massive carcass cautiously, poking it with my sword. Nothing.

  "Well," I sighed, the adrenaline fading. "I’m not looking a gift horse—or a gift dragon—in the mouth."

  I reached out to touch the scales, thinking about how much Essence I could harvest from this bad boy.

  The moment my fingertip brushed the grey scale, the entire massive body of the dragon shimmered. It began to glow, collapsing in on itself. The flesh, the bones, the scales—they all swirled into a vortex of light.

  Zing.

  The dragon vanished.

  In its place, hovering in the air, was a book.

  "A... book?"

  I grabbed it. It was heavy, bound in grey dragon leather.

  "I kill a dragon, and I get homework?" I groaned, flipping it over. "What kind of logic is this?"

  I held the book in my hands, squinting at the cover.

  [ Technique: Draconic Meteor Crash ]

  [ Rank: D ]

  "D-Rank?" I scoffed, though my hands were trembling with excitement. "Alright, I have questions. First: Who killed that C-Rank Drake? Second: Why did they leave the loot? Are they so strong that a C-Rank Essence and a Spell Book are trash to them?"

  I looked around the empty forest. "Hello? Rich mysterious savior?"

  Silence.

  "Whatever," I shrugged, shoving the book and the massive grey Essence orb into my spatial bag. "I’m happy. I got a Spell and a C-Rank Essence. I’m not complaining."

  I felt invincible. I had loot. I had a sword. I was the king of the jungle.

  BOOM.

  An explosion erupted ten feet to my left, blasting a crater into the earth and sending me tumbling into a bush.

  "Okay," I coughed, spitting out dirt. "Who is throwing fireworks?"

  BOOM. BOOM. CRASH.

  The forest around me disintegrated. It wasn't fireworks. It was an airstrike.

  I rolled to my feet, looking up, and felt the blood drain from my face. Circling in the sky above the tree line were five silhouettes.

  Two Lesser Phoenixes.

  Three Wind Dragons.

  "Are you kidding me?" I yelled over the roar of flames. "Is this a raid party? Did I aggro the whole map?"

  A Phoenix swooped down, screeching, and vomited a stream of liquid fire. I jumped back, feeling the heat singe my eyebrows. A Wind Dragon followed up with a blade of compressed air that sliced the rock I was hiding behind in half.

  "I can't reach them!" I gritted my teeth.

  I activated Wind Walking, stepping onto the air. One step. Two steps. Three steps.

  I was thirty feet in the air. But they were a hundred feet up.

  "Damn cooldown!" I cursed as gravity took hold, dragging me back down. My Wind Walking had a hard limit of three steps before the Qi structure destabilized. I was a melee fighter trying to box with bomber planes.

  BOOM.

  Another fireball caught me mid-fall. I slammed into the ground, my vision blurring. My HP was in the red. My body felt like it had been put through a meat grinder.

  "Sorry, Talestia," I wheezed, staring at the circling beasts. "I guess... I have to leave this world shortly. I barely lasted four years. Worst hero ever."

  I closed my eyes, waiting for the final blow.

  Release your aura.

  The voice didn't come from the sky. It came from inside my chest. It was deep, ancient, and sounded like a mountain shifting.

  "What?" I mumbled, delirious.

  Release. Your. Aura.

  I didn't have a choice. I didn't have a plan. So, I grabbed the core of energy inside me—the swirling mix of Purple and Green—and I just... let go.

  WOOOOOM.

  A shockwave of pressure exploded from my body. It wasn't wind. It was pure, distilled Fear.

  In the sky, the five beasts froze. The Phoenixes stopped flapping, their flames sputtering out. The Dragons whimpered, their eyes rolling back in terror. They weren't looking at a boy anymore. To their primal senses, they were looking at the King of All Monsters.

  They were shivering. Trembling.

  "They're... scared?" I realized, shaking off the concussion. "They’re paralyzed!"

  I didn't waste the second chance. I grabbed the knowledge from the book I had just looted—somehow, it flowed into my mind instantly, probably thanks to my 'Wisdom' blessing.

  I pointed my sword at the clustered, terrified group in the sky.

  "Draco Meteor Crash!"

  I poured every drop of Qi I had left into the spell.

  The sky turned red. A massive, flaming meteorite—shaped vaguely like a dragon's head—tore through the clouds.

  CRASH!

  It smashed into the group of monsters like a bowling ball hitting pins. There was no screeching. No fighting back. Just a blinding flash of destruction.

  "Ha..." I smirked, my knees buckling. "Strike."

  My vision tunneled. The Qi exhaustion hit me like a sledgehammer. I tipped over and face-planted into the dirt.

  The Meeting

  I don't know how long I was out.

  When consciousness slowly trickled back, the first thing I heard was voices. Not human voices. They sounded like... vibrations.

  "You show-off," a feminine, haughty voice echoed. "You barely left any XP for the boy."

  "He was dying, Phiona," a deep, rumbling masculine voice replied. "I had to intervene. Besides, your fire chickens were the ones attacking him."

  "Don't call my descendants chickens, you oversized garden hose."

  I cracked one eye open.

  Floating in the air above me were two small, glowing projectiles. One looked like a miniature, spectral Phoenix made of purple starlight. The other was a tiny Serpentine Dragon made of golden light.

  They were bickering. Like an old married couple.

  My brain tried to process this. My core... the projections... they’re alive?

  The tiny Phoenix noticed me awake. She turned her burning gaze toward me. The Dragon floated closer.

  The silence stretched. It was awkward.

  "Hi," I squeaked.