I Received System to Become Dragonborn

Sounds of guttural growls and bloodthirsty snarls surrounded Erend from every direction. The warrior zombies moved through the darkness with weapons raised, their dead eyes fixed on him as they slowly tightened the circle around their prey.

Erend had not expected the Trial to become this difficult.

He had fought a lot of powerful enemies before, but most of those battles had allowed him to rely on the overwhelming power that came with being a Dragonborn.

This time was different. Something within the Trial had severely restricted his abilities and left him with less than half of the power he normally had.

His strength had fallen. His defenses had weakened. Even the explosive force of his Magic that he usually relied on to tear through large groups of enemies was no longer available to him at its usual level.

Under normal circumstances, these warrior zombies would not have been much of a problem. They were certainly stronger and faster than ordinary zombies, but that was all. Erend would have been able to tear through dozens of them without slowing down.

But now he had to fight with what remained in his body. The situation forced him to confront something he had rarely considered before.

Maybe he had relied too heavily on his Dragonborn power. Whenever he encountered an opponent stronger than himself, he had always pushed his power further and found a way to overcome the difference.

But what else could he have relied on?

Erend could not imagine himself fighting a powerful monster or a cosmic being with ordinary strength alone. Against enemies of that level, his Dragonborn power has always been the difference between victory and death.

But now that power was taken from him. He had no choice but to adapt.

The zombies suddenly became more aggressive.

Three of them rushed toward him at the same time. Their boots hammered against the ground as they raised their spears and thrust them forward together. Three spearheads flashed toward Erend from the same angles, leaving him almost no room to move.

Erend twisted his body sharply.

The first spear passed beside his ribs. He ducked beneath the second and stepped backward just as the third spear swept past his shoulder.

He immediately raised one hand. A sphere of fire formed in his palm. Erend hurled it toward the three attackers while they were still close together.

The fireball exploded between them.

Flames engulfed all three zombies and sent them stumbling backward. Their bodies burned as they tried to regain their footing, giving Erend just enough space to breathe.

But more enemies immediately filled the gap.

Another group charged. Erend fired more fireballs at them.

Each ball of flame exploded against the advancing monsters and forced them away, but the attacks only delayed them.

The zombies showed no fear or pain. They continued rushing forward through the smoke and flames with their weapons raised.

Erend kept retaliating. Fireballs erupted one after another as he moved around the battlefield. Whenever a group came too close, he blasted them backward and created another opening.

He could not destroy them as easily as he normally would, so he focused on controlling their movements instead.

Then he saw a narrow gap had opened between two groups.

Erend did not hesitate. He lowered his body and surged forward.

Several zombies attempted to close the opening, but Erend moved faster than they expected.

He slipped between them and broke through the encirclement before they could surround him again.

He ran through the dark landscape while the sounds of the pursuing monsters followed behind him.

He did not slow down until the ground beneath his feet began rising and he stepped onto a hill.

Erend climbed it with long strides and finally reached the top.

He stopped for a moment and looked across the horizon.

The sight was almost exactly the same as the beginning of Dungeon World.

Black sand stretched endlessly beneath the dark night sky. There were no cities, forests, or signs of civilization. Only the endless barren landscape continued toward the horizon.

It was familiar. But only the scenery was familiar.

Erend had never encountered these warrior zombies when he first arrived in Dungeon World.

That made him think that the Trial was just taking a fragment of his memory and transformed it into an arena. It had recreated the landscape he remembered and then filled it with enemies designed specifically to test him.

Perhaps there was a reason this particular memory had been chosen, maybe something significant was hidden within it. But Erend could only wait and see. For now he had a much more immediate problem.

The zombies were still coming.

Erend looked down the slope and saw the dark tide of monsters moving toward him. Their numbers seemed almost endless as they climbed over the black sand with weapons in their hands.

Erend took a slow breath. His expression became determined.

"Alright. Let’s do this."

He was not helpless. His power had been weakened but it had not disappeared.

Instead of wasting his strength complaining about what he had lost, Erend decided to use everything he still had.

He raised both hands. Fire gathered around his palms.

The flames rapidly grew brighter and larger until they formed a roaring mass of heat. Erend pushed both hands forward and unleashed a torrent of fire down the slope.

The flames swept across the battlefield.

The high ground gave Erend a small advantage. The zombies were forced to charge uphill toward him, leaving them exposed to the stream of fire as they advanced in a dense formation.

The torrent struck the front ranks, the flames swallowed them. Bodies disappeared beneath the raging fire as the wave continued forward and engulfed more zombies behind them.

Erend watched closely. He expected them to stumble away. But they did not.

The burning zombies continued charging.

Some of them were already engulfed in flames from head to toe, yet they did not stop.

They did not scream in panic or roll across the ground to extinguish themselves. They simply continued running toward Erend as though the flames covering their bodies meant nothing.

Erend’s eyes widened slightly. "Seriously?"

The first burning zombie reached him.

Erend stepped forward and kicked it directly in the chest.

The force sent the creature tumbling backward down the slope, taking several others with it.

But another zombie immediately replaced it.

Erend struck again and repeated the same process again.

His fists slammed into rotting bodies while his flames burned through the approaching ranks. He kicked one enemy aside and knocked another into the ground before a third lunged at him with a weapon.

Erend caught the weapon and pulled the zombie forward before driving his knee into its abdomen.

The creature fell. Another immediately took its place. Then another. Then another.

The tide did not stop.

Erend fought continuously as the zombies poured toward him. Every time he knocked one down, several more appeared behind it. Every time his flames cleared a section of the battlefield, more enemies filled the empty space.

There seemed to be no end to them.

—

On the other hand, Eccar sees a completely different situation from what he had expected.

He had expected to find a monster nest somewhere beneath the ground. The underground area was large enough to hide a lot of creatures and the signs he had discovered suggested that something dangerous was living below the surface.

Instead, Eccar found people.

A large building stood buried beneath the earth.

Its architecture resembled an ancient shrine or temple. Much of its structure had been crushed beneath tons of soil and stone, but several sections remained intact enough to reveal what it had once been.

Eccar moved closer.

Then he realized what had happened.

There were people trapped inside.

They appeared to have been gathered within the structure when the earth collapsed above them. They had been buried alive. They had apparently been praying when the disaster happened.

The roof had collapsed beneath the enormous weight of soil above it, sealing the people inside the temple and leaving them trapped beneath the earth.

The people were still alive and in a panicked state. Was this his trial?

—