I Received System to Become Dragonborn

No matter how desperately Aesa wished that none of this was real, she could not tear her eyes away from what was happening in front of her.

The bodies of Erend, Eccar, and Sylven remained motionless on the ice with their blood spread across the ice surface.

Her emotions surged through her with an intensity she had never experienced before. Every feeling that the Trial forced to the surface seemed several times stronger than it should have been, and Aesa knew exactly why.

The environment of the Trial was amplifying her emotions and turning feelings that should have been manageable into something almost impossible to control.

Knowing that fact did not make it any easier. Understanding what the Trial was doing to her did not give her the ability to simply stop it.

Aesa finally dropped to the ground. Her body felt heavy as if the weight of everything she was feeling had settled directly onto her shoulders.

Her eyes trembled as she stared at the bodies of Erend, Eccar, and Sylven lying across the ice with their wounds still gaping open.

Her breathing became rapid and uneven, and came harder than the last as she struggled to keep herself from losing control.

She had never experienced this kind of reaction in the real world. Even when she had been seriously wounded during her battles against Zerathul and Nyssara, she had never felt this tense.

She had endured pain while remaining calm enough to analyze the battlefield and determine her next move.

She had faced overwhelming enemies without allowing panic to take hold of her mind.

But now, while looking at three illusions that she knew were not real, Aesa found herself struggling just to breathe.

She clenched her fists and forced herself to stand. A cold aura began spreading through her body.

Aesa slowly drew upon her Magic and allowed the power of ice to flow through her veins. Instead of releasing it out as an attack, she guided it inward and used it to calm her racing heart.

The cold spread through her chest and along her limbs, gradually dulling the intensity of the emotions that had overwhelmed her.

Her breathing slowly became steadier as she focused on the sensation of the Magic moving through her body.

She had spent years training her mind to remain calm under pressure, and that discipline had not completely disappeared even now. The Trial could amplify her emotions, but it could not completely erase the control she had built through years of suffering and experience.

Aesa still struggled to think clearly, yet she could separate reality from illusion, identify the Trial’s purpose, and recognize that surrendering to her emotions would only make things worse.

She closed her eyes and continued regulating her breathing while the cold settled around her heart. She did not try to erase what she was feeling anymore. Instead, she simply forced herself to remain conscious of it without allowing it to control her actions.

After several moments, Aesa opened her eyes again.

The frozen landscape remained silent. The bodies of Erend, Eccar, and Sylven were gone.

There was not even a trace of blood left on the ice. The wounds, the bodies, and everything else that had surrounded their deaths had vanished as though they had never existed.

Aesa immediately became alert.

She knew the Trial would show her another illusion. Her eyes moved across the ice. She prepared herself for whatever would appear next.

She expected Erend, Eccar, and Sylven to return again, maybe in another death designed to provoke her emotions.

But the figures that appeared in the distance were not the three Dragonborn.

Aesa was stunned. A familiar figure stood beneath the pale sky. Her husband.

He looked exactly as she remembered him. His expression was gentle and warm as he looked toward her, and a soft smile rested on his face.

Aesa’s expression changed, not to anger or frustration. Her lips slowly curved into a small smile as she looked at him.

She missed him. She had missed him for so long that seeing his face again brought a tremendous warmth to her chest.

For a moment Aesa forgot that she was inside a Trial. She forgot the frozen landscape and the illusions that had tormented her. She just stood there and looked at the person she had once loved more than anyone else.

Then her smile disappeared.

Aesa remembered what would happen next.

She knew that this illusion was not showing him to her because the Trial wanted to give her something she had longed for. It was showing him to her because it knew exactly how much his loss had hurt her.

Aesa’s expression hardened.

Her fingers slowly curled into fists as she stared at the man standing before her.

The smile on his face remained unchanged, almost painfully gentle.

Aesa could already feel the emotions she had buried for years beginning to rise again, and this time they were far stronger than anything she had experienced when watching Erend, Eccar, and Sylven die.

She knew what the Trial was going to show her. Aesa was genuinely afraid of what she would see next.

—

Sylven was still at the edge of the clearing and continued watching the battle as it finally reached its end.

The two enormous beasts had exhausted almost everything they possessed. Their movements were slower and less coordinated, but neither had been willing to retreat.

The ground around them was reduced to a wreckage of trees, earth, and deep claw marks. Blood stained the soil beneath their feet, their heavy breathing echoed through the forest.

The massive quadrupedal beast was the first to fall. Its enormous body staggered after another exchange of blows before its legs finally gave out beneath it.

The creature crashed heavily onto the ground and sent loose dirt and fragments of bark into the air. It tried to move again but its body no longer responded. Its head dropped against the earth and remained still.

The black-scaled creature was still alive, barely. Its enormous body stretched across the clearing while blood continued flowing from its many wounds.

One of its limbs twitched weakly as it struggled to lift its head. Its breathing came in slow and ragged bursts, each one weaker than the last.

It had clearly reached the end as well, yet it had not completely died.

Sylven stared at the two creatures.

He had expected the battle to end eventually, but watching them finally collapse did not give him the answer he had been searching for. He still had no idea what the Trial actually wanted from him.

The black-scaled creature takes another weak breath. He had spent so much time observing the fight that he had almost forgotten the more unsettling question that had been bothering him from the beginning.

Why had the forest wanted them to keep fighting?

But then, the trees start moving.

—