This concludes the First Arc, let me know your thoughts down below!
Also if you wish to get started on the Second Arc it is nearly done on Patreon so check it out there!
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The tower was burning. Molten crystal dripped from the walls and ceiling in slow, glowing rivulets that hissed when they hit the shattered floor. The air was thick with smoke and light amber and gold bleeding into one another like a dying sun. Every breath tasted of iron and ash.
Artorius stood in the center of it all, chest heaving, his lance still glowing red-hot in his grip. The Noble Dragon was gone, blasted through the wall in a storm of fire and crystal, its massive body vanishing into the chambers next door. For the first time in what felt like forever, there was silence.
No chime. No whisper. No prompt. Artorius frowned. Normally, the System's voice came like a bell after every battle, cold and absolute. But now, there was nothing. No You have slain... No Experience Gained. Just the sound of the tower dying around him.
Behind him, one of his soldiers let out a rasping cheer, half sob, half victory cry. "It's over!" Another joined in. Then another. Soon, the air filled with weak, broken laughter, relief spilling out like blood from an open wound.
Artorius turned slowly. His eyes, still glowing faint gold, swept across the room. "Stop." The word wasn't loud, but it carried. The sound cut through the noise like a blade. Every head turned toward him, the cheers dying on trembling lips.
He stood perfectly still, his wings half-unfurled, the firelight casting him in molten silhouette. "I did not hear it. Did anyone hear it?" he asked quietly.
Confused looks passed among them. "Hear what?" one of the wyverns croaked.
"The confirmation," Artorius said, his tone even. "Did anyone hear the System mark the kill?" The silence that followed was suffocating. When no one answered, he exhaled slowly. His grip on the lance tightened until the metal creaked. "Then it's not over."
Ouroboros stirred from his perch on a fractured column. The serpent's scales caught the firelight, eyes narrowing to molten slits. "You're right, boy. The tower's pulse hasn't stopped." Artorius looked up. The entire structure seemed to breathe each beat sending faint ripples through the air, like the echo of a giant's heart buried deep below.
Artorius turned to his followers, the broken, battered few who still stood. "Finish off the war-chimeras," he ordered. "No survivors. If it can crawl, it can fight."
They hesitated, staring into the molten ruins where fragments of the Noble Dragon's army still twitched. Then, wordlessly, they moved. Artorius joined them. He didn't fight with fury this time just precision. His movements were clean, efficient, and mechanical. A thrust through a half-dead chimera's chest. A twist of the lance through another's skull. He moved like a machine built for a single purpose.
But even as he worked, his eyes never left the hole torn in the far wall, the place where the Noble Dragon had fallen. Smoke and light bled from it, curling upward in long, lazy streams.
It wasn't just destruction, there was movement. Artorius straightened slowly, wiping blood and ash from his face with the back of his hand. Around him, his allies finished the last of the war-chimeras. Their exhaustion was palpable. Some were limping, others bleeding, but all had the same look in their eyes, a fragile hope to see it done.
The tower creaked above, a long, low groan like something waking from sleep. He raised his lance, eyes locked on the ruin. "Form up," he said quietly. "This isn't over. Not yet."
As the last fragments of crystal fell from the ceiling and the silver haze deepened, a new sound joined the fire's roar. A slow, heavy rhythm. A heartbeat. Ouroboros's voice came like a whisper of dread. "It's coming back."
The ruins started to move.
At first it was small, a tremor running through the fractured floor and a flutter in the hanging sheets of smoke. Then the crystal piles began to slump. Shattered spires softened at the edges and slid into themselves, turning into glossy streams that ran down the broken walls. Silver light pooled across the tiles like spilled mercury. "Back," Artorius said.
His people staggered a step, then another. The pools gathered in the crater where the Noble Dragon had vanished. The light thickened there, roiling as if something huge were breathing underneath it. The glow bled up the torn columns and along the ceiling ribs, veins filling, pulsing.
A shape rose from the pool. It broke the surface slowly first a horn like a hooked blade, then a wedge of skull, then shoulders big enough to crush pillars by existing. The outline was wrong. Too many angles, too many edges. It wasn't just large; it was overbuilt, as if several designs had been forced into one frame.
The silver hide split. Scales cracked along the seams with wet, brittle pops. Where they opened, pale flesh swelled through in slick ropes and plates of raw crystal. Tendons of molten glass flexed and hardening bone pushed outward in ridges. The creature shook itself, and shards fanned out in a glittering storm that pattered across the floor like hail.
The head was the worst. The face split along four fault lines with a sound like stone tearing. Jaws opened in quarters, unhinging outward to reveal a furnace glow inside the throat. From within the skull, eyes burned up through the bone like two suns caught in a cage, blazing through thin crystal until the sockets became windows.
Ouroboros lowered himself along a broken beam, head level with Artorius's shoulder. Even the serpent sounded shaken. "Its third mutation," he said quietly. "It's forcing an early molt. Unlocking a piece of what it should become in a century."
"So it's—"
"—cheating time," Ouroboros finished. "Borrowed adulthood. False, but enough."
The thing stepped free of the pool. Each footfall left a crater that filled immediately with more liquid crystal. The ceiling bowed as it straightened to its full, hideous height. It was still a juvenile in mind and spirit, but the body was big enough. Big enough to unmake rooms by turning in place.
Image: https://www.deviantart.com/carpet-crawler/art/The-False-Dragon-1020380983
Its aura hit them like altitude sickness. Air went thin. Knees buckled. The survivors who had fought through deadly foes a moment before now struggled just to breathe. One of the wyverns collapsed outright, claws skittering against the floor as it tried to drag itself backward. The limbless crawler's tail thumped, searching for purchase that wasn't there. Even the flames guttered lower, as if sound and heat both were being pulled into the thing's gravity.
Artorius felt it press against his ribs and skull, pressure without hands, weight without mass but then his body quickly adapted to it. Standing up and taking in steadying breaths, "It looks like Round two starts," Artorius said. His voice sounded smaller than he liked. He tightened his grip on the lance anyway. "Form on me!"
The order powered by his Commander trait steadied them. Not much, but enough to get bodies moving again. The flyers clawed for altitude. Those who could still stand locked together in ragged lines. Every step and wingbeat looked heavy, like moving through syrup.
"I SHALL CRUSH YOU LITTLE BUGS," the False Dragon roared as the it took another step, then another, until it filled the chamber's width. Light bled out of it in waves, cold and white from the chest, a deep furnace from the splits along its sides, stabbing silver from the mirror-wings when they flexed. Where its aura touched the walls, the crystal bowed inward as if the structure wanted to kneel.
"It's not stable," Ouroboros commented. "Watch the seams. The joints. It's holding a much greater shape that is well beyond its means."
"Good," Artorius said. "Those will be our targets." He rolled his shoulders, testing the pain. Everything hurt. That was normal. He pulled a breath as deep as the room allowed, let it out slow, and felt the rhythm of the tower under his feet. It was time!
"Residents of the Tower," he sent through Draconic Communion. "Your time has come to seek your just rewards. Your tormentor stands before you, near his end, come now and claim your revenge!"
His words to reverberate everywhere and then at first only whispers answered, the memory-rattled echoes of the tower. Then the walls began to shake. Out of cracks and shadows, shades stirred: tormented faces, thin and pale, the fused remnants of those the Noble Dragon had used and broken. They poured out like dust from rafters, an uncountable force—old victims, half-remembered and now freed to move.
They came in their multitudes, the hidden backup force he had made in the shadow. Now they could use all the help they could get!
They hoovered in the air, an uncountable amount, a storm of grievance and hunger. All who suffered here and could not pass on as they were made one with the tower. Now that he was in charge he could set them free, and have their sweet, sweet revenge. Their presence steadied his followers; their numbers turned dread into momentum.
"Attack!" he shouted.
The False Dragon moved, and the world bent around it. Every step it took sent ripples through reality, light bending and stretching as if the room itself refused to hold its shape. The sound of its claws on crystal was like the cracking of glaciers, echoing through every bone in their bodies. Then it attacked.
A wave of crystal shards exploded outward in every direction, each one sharp enough to slice through stone. Artorius dove forward, the storm screaming past him, carving trenches into the floor where he'd been. His followers weren't so lucky. The crawler's tail was shredded into ribbons; one of the wyverns lost a wing mid-flap, crashing into the molten ground with a shriek.
The creature inhaled, chest swelling like a furnace about to erupt, then exhaled a beam of crystal light, not flame, not heat, but pure distortion. The beam tore through the chamber, splitting the world in two. Everything it touched turned to faceted crystal.
Artorius braced, raising his lance. The impact hit like a tidal wave. The ground vanished beneath his feet. He felt his body crack as he felt himself splinter. For a heartbeat, he thought he'd been erased then the flames inside him flared. His Word of Flame burned through the distortion, fire overtaking glass.
When the light faded, he was still standing. Barely. His body smoked, crystals growing on places, his wings half disintegrated. But his eyes still glowed gold. "You'll have to do better than that," he rasped.
He lunged, the lance igniting in his grip. Flames coiled along its shaft, the tip stretching into molten plasma. Heroic Blow. He swung with everything he had, every scar, every scream, every hour he'd spent under the Dragon's knife.
The impact hit like a meteor. The entire floor cratered. Shockwaves blew outward, ripping stone from the walls, knocking the smaller creatures off their feet. The False Dragon staggered back, its massive head snapping to the side, one of its mirror-wings shattering into a cloud of shards.
For a brief second, Artorius thought he'd done it. Then the shards flowed back together. The damage closed. The creature straightened, unbothered. The cracks along its neck sealed as if time itself had been rewound.
"Of course," Ouroboros hissed. "It's feeding on its lifeforce and very soul. It has gone insane!"
Artorius's jaw tightened. "Then I'll have to burn it down to nothing."
The Dragon's four jaws split open. "You are a FRACTURE in my DESIGN," it thundered. "A MISTAKE MADE FLESH."
Then it screamed. The roar wasn't sound. It was a mental attack. Everything stopped, the air, the flames, even the falling dust. Artorius's body froze mid-step, his mind burning as the world around him fractured into still images. He could see the vibrations of sound trapped midair, shards of glass hanging like stars.
Move. He tried to will himself forward. Move.
Then the heat returned, the flame within his chest, he felt it burning it away the mental attack and his Stoic trait acted as an iron bulwark. The Word of Flame ignited again, freeing him from the Dragon's mental attack.
The world slammed back into motion. Artorius tore forward, his lance a streak of burning light. He swung upward, striking the Dragon's neck again, molten sparks exploding from the impact. The False Dragon reeled, its voice booming like a storm. "IMPOSSIBLE."
"Get used to it," Artorius snarled. "Come brothers!" he called out as from the edges of the battlefield, shapes stirred. The wyvern brothers limped into the air again, charred and half-molten but still breathing. The azure serpent slithered through rubble, scales glowing faintly blue. The crawler, missing half its limbs, dragged itself across the floor.
And then the shades came. Hundreds of them pouring from the tower's cracks, spectral forms of the experiments the Noble Dragon had butchered over the centuries. Their eyes burned with gold fire, their mouths moving in silent screams. They surrounded the monster in a storm of vengeance.
Artorius raised his lance and pointed. "All together!"
The survivors obeyed. Fire, lightning, and acid filled the air, a storm of destruction crashing into the False Dragon's side. The shades dove like spectral comets, tearing into its molten wounds. The creature vanished in a blinding explosion of light.
For a heartbeat, hope. Then the light cleared and the monster still stood. Wounded, but still alive. "HAHAHA, I AM UNKILLIABLE! I AM THE PERFECT BEING!"
"Its trait is at work," Ouroboros commented. "As long as it believes it has a fighting chance then it will be able to eke on some more."
"What the hell is that," he swore. How on earth was he supposed to bring something like that down. He barely finished the thought before the monster exhaled.
The beam that followed wasn't light, it was extinction. The air fractured as if made of glass. The shades screamed and dissolved into ash. The wyverns fell from the sky, their wings snapping like paper. Artorius's stomach dropped. He watched his army die all around him.
The False Dragon turned its eyes to him, voice shaking the world. "YOU CANNOT KILL THE ONE THAT MADE YOU."
He screamed, his lance met its chest, fire bursting outward. Flames wrapped around the beast like a cloak, swallowing it whole. The heat was unbearable, the light blinding. For a moment, it was as if he was trying to stab the sun itself. And still, it didn't die.
The creature broke through the inferno, swatting him aside with one massive limb. He slammed into a broken pillar, every bone in his body screaming. Ouroboros darted in front of him, voice sharp. "You're breaking yourself apart!"
Artorius spat blood, forcing himself upright. "Then I'll only have to break it first!" He leapt again, wings burning with firelight. His body was half shattered, his breath ragged, but the flame in his heart refused to die. Every strike now was instinct, driven by rage and survival.
He carved through the air, each swing a comet trail of molten gold. He struck the Dragon's wings, its throat, its limbs each blow detonating with concussive force. The creature's movements slowed, not from damage but from confusion, it didn't understand why he was still fighting, why he hadn't fallen like the rest.
Artorius didn't understand it either. He just knew he couldn't stop. They collided again, man and monster, god and mistake. The tower groaned, its spine breaking apart from the sheer violence of their clash.
Artorius's lance pierced one of the Dragon's eyes, it burst, spraying molten crystal but even that wound began to close. The creature's voice filled his skull. "YOU ARE AN ERROR IN MY CREATION. A STORY THAT SHOULD HAVE ENDED."
Artorius smiled through blood. "Then let's see how this story ends." He thrust the lance forward again, one final desperate strike but the beast's tail whipped around, catching him full-force.
The impact sent him flying through debris, crashing through several pillars before he hit the far wall hard enough to make it crumble. He slid to the ground, coughing blood, his lance flickering dim.
Smoke filled his lungs. The world tilted sideways. His allies were gone. Ouroboros circled overhead, screaming something he couldn't hear. The False Dragon reared back, filling the room with its shadow. Everything hurt. His vision tunneled. He could taste copper and fire.
He tried to get up, but couldn't, his body refused as it had simply given up. Trying with everything he had, he couldn't even move a muscle. Looking at his character sheet, he saw he was bottomed out when it came to Mana and Stamina and his Health was dangerously close to zero. He had nothing left.
Struggling in vain, the monstrous enormous form of the dragon saw him and laughed. "I SEE THAT IT IS OVER FOR YOU!" With a wicked grin, it turned to his allies and started picking them off, one by one. "I WILL DEAL WITH YOU LAST. I HOPE YOU ENJOY WATCHING WHAT YOUR REBELLION HAS LEAD TO!"
Artorius could only watch as the poor tormented souls he led to rising up got slaughtered before his eyes. He wanted to shout, to move, to do something. But nothing obeyed. Every sound, every cry from his dying comrades, carved another line of guilt through him.
The creature laughed again, a sound like worlds breaking. "YOUR HOPE DIES FIRST."
Artorius's vision blurred. The world faded in and out. All he could see was death.
The battle slowed to a crawl. Even the flames seemed tired.
The tower, once alive with crystalline light was now a ruin of molten stone and smoke. The False Dragon stood in the center of it all, massive and unbroken, its mirrored hide gleaming in the firelight. Around it, only the dying remained.
Artorius lay face-down in the rubble, body broken, his lance just out of reach. His breath came shallow, each inhale tasting of blood and ash. He could feel the heartbeat of the world faltering.
The survivors, what few were left, fell to their knees. Some prayed to great dragons. Others screamed in defiance or despair. But no one moved. No one fought. The will to resist had been beaten out of them.
The False Dragon's aura pressed down like a mountain. Each breath was a punishment. Each heartbeat a rebellion. The air itself vibrated with its presence impossible, overwhelming, tyrannical.
A wyvern, its wings torn to shreds, lifted its head just long enough to cry out. "Someone... save us." Its voice broke. "Someone... please!"
The sound echoed through the ruins—raw, human, desperate. The world seemed to pause. Even the System held its breath. And somewhere deep inside that stillness, something answered.
It wasn't a voice. Not at first. It was a pulse, a forgotten rhythm beating deep in Artorius's chest. Weak. Flickering. But real. He felt it spreading through him, golden warmth rising from his core, fighting back the cold. His broken body trembled. His eyes flickered open, catching the faintest glint of light.
Ouroboros hovered low over him, his voice a whisper that cut through the silence. "If you ever had a moment to become legend… this is it."
Artorius exhaled, blood and smoke trailing from his lips. He had one final trick up his sleeve, there was a reason at the start of the battle he targeted one of the war-chimera to get his class over the hill into Level 5 so he could gain his new skill. It was a great ability, but it seemed to come with dire warnings which he didn't want to risk, but now he had no choice. He activated it.
Suddenly his hand twitched. Then, slowly, it began to move. His fingers found the shaft of his lance. The False Dragon turned its head, sensing something. The battlefield began to glow soft at first, then brighter, a light like dawn breaking through the ashes. And the System finally spoke.
[Class: Storybook Squire has reached Lv. 5]
New Skill Unlocked: Last Stand (Rare) - When all seems lost, legends are born… In most dire moments, you awaken a hidden power fueled by unwavering hope and defiance. While active: Massively increased stats. Health, stamina, and mana regenerate rapidly. Incoming damage is greatly reduced by belief alone. As long as hope remains… You. Will. Not. Die.
Warning: There are severe consequences to using this power!
The words burned across his vision, searing themselves into the air. The light spread outward. Gold. Pure. Unforgiving. Artorius's body rose not with strength, but through belief. His limbs cracked and mended, light pouring through his wounds like liquid fire. His eyes opened wide, twin suns of gold radiating heat. Every inch of him glowed as if forged anew.
He was no longer just a man. He was something powered by the collective will and belief of others. The battlefield trembled beneath his feet. The ground cracked open, molten rivers forming sigils where he stood. His body which was broken and blackened reformed into radiant flesh. The lance in his hands elongated, reforged into a burning weapon of myth.
He moved like he was pulled by fate itself, no longer conscious, only driven. Ouroboros circled high above, awe in his face.
The glow spread to the others. The survivors stirred. Their wounds stopped bleeding. Their breath steadied. A faint warmth filled their chests. Hope.
They could feel it, the fire inside him calling to them, reminding them why they had fought, why they had dared to defy gods. One by one, they rose. The wyverns spread their half-burned wings. The shades ignited anew, glowing like lanterns in the dark. The crawler's eyes burned with light once more.
The despair was gone. In its place stood something older, stronger, unkillable. Faith.
The False Dragon reared up, all four jaws opening to scream, its cry warping the air itself. Space twisted, fire froze, light bled backward. Artorius didn't flinch, he was too gone for that. He vanished, reappearing midair, above the creature's head. The Word of Flame coiled around his lance like a living sun. The impact that followed shook the tower to its very foundations.
The Dragon shrieked, its mirrored hide fracturing in radiant cracks. Gold light bled through its body as Artorius landed, rolling through molten rubble before charging again. He was everywhere at once blows raining down faster than the eye could follow. Each swing of his lance tore holes through the air. Each impact exploded like artillery.
The tower became a storm of gold and silver. And still the beast fought back. Its claws shattered entire walls; its breath turned molten rivers to glass. But every wound it dealt was undone by the light around Artorius. Every strike it landed healed before the next heartbeat. The Last Stand burned without end.
The battle seemed to go on forever, and it did, lasting hours as both sides went at it without stopping until one finally gave. The sky above the tower turned gold, then red, then black. The world itself seemed to pulse with the rhythm of their struggle; life against death, faith against power.
Artorius no longer felt pain. No longer felt time. Only motion. Only purpose. Every blow shook the tower. Every roar from the False Dragon distorted space, collapsing whole chambers into dust. Still the monster's regeneration began to falter. It's belief sustaining it wavered.
And when dawn finally broke through the cracks in the shattered roof, the False Dragon staggered. Artorius stood before it, smoke, blood, and gold fire swirling together around him. His body was broken beyond repair, but the light inside him was endless. He raised his lance one final time.
"NO, NO, NO," it shouted. "I CAN NOT DIE. I CAN NOT BE KILLED!"
Artorius said nothing as a Heroic Blow ignited—pure sunfire condensed into a single thrust. He leapt. The world froze for a heartbeat. Then the lance struck true, piercing the creature's skull. The False Dragon screamed, four voices blending into one draconic howl, before collapsing in on itself. Only silence remained.
The tower crumbled around them, its spine breaking apart in cascading brilliance. When the dust finally settled, there was no roar, no movement, no sound just light raining down like falling stars.
Artorius stood at the center of it all, unmoving. His body was cracked, glowing faintly from within, hair drifting like fire in still air. His lance was buried in the ground before him. Ouroboros landed softly on his shoulder, voice quieter than it had ever been. "You did it, boy."
Artorius didn't answer. His eyes were open, staring into the light, but he wasn't there anymore. He was still on his feet, but unconscious, held upright by belief alone.
Ouroboros coiled around him, protecting him from the falling ash. "Rest now, hero," the serpent whispered. "The tale's not done yet." The tower burned behind them as dawn broke, its ruins gleaming gold against the rising sun.
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End of Arc 1: The Stranger!
A/N: During the lowest part, imagine the Song Holding Out For A Hero playing.
The skill Last Stand is inspired like any great last stand in history; Battle of Thermopylae, Viking berserker at Stamford Bridge, and many more!