His consciousness returned as he felt the sensation of falling. He could not move, speak, or even see, as his mind fell into the depths of the unknown.

He fell, as his murky mind tried to interpret the context of this situation.

‘Am I dreaming?’

The man thought of the only logical answer he could come up with, and decided not to give much thought about it anymore. He did remember going to bed after all.

At least, it was like that until he felt his head getting pierced by something, along with the horrifying pain that followed a second later. Pain was a familiar feeling to him, but this was much more than ordinary pain. Much worse than when he was captured by an underground organization who tortured him for information. This was the definition of pain itself: the kind that seemed to drill into his soul itself and hack away from the inside.

The paroxysm happened so abruptly that it did not give the man time to react in any way. He couldn’t even scream, and the only thing he was able to do was grit his teeth and protest silently in despair as the inexplicable pain tormented his soul.

While falling into the vortex of an abysmal plane.

The foreign feeling twisted and wrenched him from the inside, only amplifying the pain even more.

At last, when he thought he couldn’t hold up anymore, he slowly started to become numb until he perceived his consciousness slipping away.

***

His eyes snapped open and, with a gasp, shot up from the ground while instinctively touching his body to check for any abnormalities. He didn’t remember what happened, but his mind screamed to him that something was definitely wrong.

He stood up groaning, and immediately perceived that the surroundings weren’t familiar to him.

‘Why am I outside?’

Having a good look around while having such thoughts, he noticed that he was standing in a grassy clearing surrounded by the woods with trees almost thrice the size of the trees commonly seen on Earth. The contrast between the moonlit clearing and the dark woods only accentuated the mysterious atmosphere of the place.

‘Wait a minute, I’m standing?’

The man tried moving his feet, and along with his surprise, it followed his commands. He felt his toes squirming inside the boots, felt the weight of his body pushing down on the sole of his foot, and felt the hard ground pushing back onto his two limbs.

“Heh.”

The man found himself letting out a small laugh as he once more felt what he thought will be forgotten forever. Devoid of any senses in his legs for six years, standing on two feet again made him ecstatic.

He turned his head towards the heavens and gazed at the beautiful night sky adorned with the celestial lights of the stars. The two giant moons in the sky gazed back at him with a gentle glow, as if it was trying to congratulate his brief moment of joy.

Of course, he did take into account of the fact that there were two moons, much bigger compared to the one on earth.

They even had different colors too.

He didn’t mind too much though, as his mind already perceived this as a pleasant dream.

Or at least, it would have been so much simpler just to write this off as a dream, which was exactly what the man did, but after a full minute, he began to wonder.

It was too realistic to be a dream.

The next thing the man thought of was that he was somehow kidnapped, probably thanks to his...distinguished past catching up to him. That didn’t explain the two moons in the sky though.

Still, his senses didn’t lie.

The wind blowing on his face, the smell of grass traveling up through his nose, and the biting chill of the night all felt ‘real’ as anything else.

The bloodthirst coming from the glowing pairs of yellow eyes amongst the shadows of the woods also certainly felt real as well.

The man observed as four Dire wolves, each of them being larger than a normal wolf, slowly crept out of the clearing. They growled ferociously as they surrounded their prey, and tensed their whole body as if to prepare to pounce on him anytime.

For what seemed like forever, neither the man nor the wolves moved. However, the tension in the air seemed like it would burst any moment.

The man was an experienced fighter, but not against four giant hungry frigging wolves.

In other words, he knew he was fucked.

“Well shit.”

As if his words were a cue, the wolves simultaneously jumped at him, baring their fangs. The man crouched down with his arms covering himself as the two wolves behind him sunk their teeth on each of his legs and the one in front bit into his left arm. He waited for the horrible pain of getting his skin pierced to arrive, as he saw the last wolf coming straight at him—

—But he felt nothing.

He didn’t feel any pain, only some mild, tingling sensation. He tried lifting his left arm upwards, and much to his surprise, the wolf dangled pathetically in mid-air as it hung onto the arm with its jaws. Upon closer inspection, the man noticed that the teeth didn’t even penetrate his skin.

The wolves on his limbs struggled to bite harder as they realized that they didn’t taste the blood of their victim that they expected. The last wolf that charged at him came to a brief halt as he noticed in bewilderment that his prey still standing, despite his comrades’ efforts. Its job was to tear off the throat of a downed opponent, but it couldn’t do that when the opponent was still standing.

Regardless of its initial surprise though, the wolf pounced at him again, this time aiming its fangs at a spot between his two legs, where no man would want to be attacked.

The man, noticing the trajectory of the wolf, shot out his free hand sideways in his desperate attempt to redirect the wolf’s jaw. Even though he wasn’t feeling pain from the other bites, he didn’t want that jagged mess of a mouth anywhere near his crotch.

The moment his slap met the side of the wolf’s muzzle, however, something completely unexpected happened. With a deafening noise of the impact, the wolf was shot away spinning with such velocity that when it reached the tree that was a good distance away, all that was left was a crimson paste on a splintered tree.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Then the man, as if guided by some unknown instinct that was awakened by violence, forcefully tore off the wolf from his arm, and chucked it in the direction where its fellow kin perished. The shockwave that was generated from the throw suggested just how fast the wolf was launched. The wolf broke through three giant trees before sharing a same bloody fate as the previous wolf.

The remaining beasts, whether by fury or starvation, kept latching onto his legs. He grabbed onto their muzzle, tore them off his legs, and drove their bodies into each other with enough force to pulverize their insides. The wolves didn’t even have a chance to whimper as they collided in front of the man. He then threw them away carelessly, not even checking whether they were dead or not.

All that was done in a split second.

The man drew in a deep breath and looked down onto his hands.

He felt an unknown power circulating through his whole body like never before.

Then it happened.

He felt something deep inside him stir up his very soul. Something foreign.

From it, streams of memories pierced his head, startling him and giving him a head-splitting headache briefly before fading away. Despite the ringing in his head, the man focused on the information that was flowing through his head. They weren’t his memories. Instead, they were the memories of someone he knew so well.

Someone he had created himself, in fact.

The memories of Dracovus Aregon, the Primordial Void Dragon.

An entire lifetime of events was forcefully planted in his head as if he had experienced it himself. The experiences of countless battles against supernatural entities, the mysteries of mana, and the secrets of the realms all branded themselves to the mind of a man.

A man who has been reborn.

A man that could no longer be called a ‘man’.

Two separate entities became whole as if it was meant to be like this in the first place.

After the initial shock died down, it was soon replaced by curiosity.

‘This...is simply astonishing. It’s as if I’ve done all these things firsthand.’

The man let out a small laugh as he looked at his palms. Although he didn’t know why, he now knew for sure that he wasn’t dreaming. All this new information contained in his head felt too real to be false.

*Ggrrrrr*

Dracovus suddenly broke out of his stupor as he heard the sound of growling from all directions. He looked up slowly, as he saw a literal pack of dire wolves surrounding him. The ones beforehand were just scouts, and the pack has come rushing after it smelt blood.

The blood of their own kin.

The thirty or so wolves cautiously encircled him in a similar fashion as the ones here did before. Upon seeing them, Dracovus didn’t panic like last time. Last time, he didn’t realize who he was.

He did now.

He disregarded their existence entirely and muttered a single word, hoping that his assumptions were correct.

“Myst.”

From his shadow formed under the moonlit night, a dark shade with a form vaguely resembling a human slowly materialized and rose up. It was pitch black in all areas of its body, and the ominous dark aura around it fluttered as if it was dancing along the wind.

“Milord.”

The entity spoke with a deep, ghostly voice while bent forward like it was kneeling, and proceeded to wait.

His assumptions were indeed correct.

Dracovus nonchalantly turned his gaze towards the shadow and felt an unknown familiarity towards the lurker. After all, although not in person, he has seen this being countless times through a monitor screen before, as it was one of his most trusty companions in the game, Beyond. The true identity of this strange being was an Ancient Shadow King, a monster who he tamed in the Abyss realm.

Dracovus looked around once again at the mutts daring to attack him and spoke in a cold tone.

“Clear the way.”

“I exist to obey.”

A chilling voice filled with respect replied back to him. The shade bowed to his command and in a split second, melted back into a shadow. Dracovus watched as the shape of a shadow extended towards the unaware beasts like a predator stalking its prey.

Then, darkness descended upon the wolves.

The shadows underneath their feet that have been getting abnormally bigger suddenly lashed out from the ground, slicing them apart piece by piece. This happened one by one as the black mist covered the corpses left behind like a cocoon and yanked them into the shadows.

The sound of flesh being ripped apart suggested that as sure as the night, only death awaited them. Not even a trace of blood was left behind where the entity of darkness feasted.

After the last wolf was devoured into the shadows, the shady creature slowly glided towards its master and merged into his shadow once again, silently awaiting its next summon.

Silence proliferated in the dark woods once again, as if nothing happened.

“Well, what do I do now?”

Staring aimlessly into the darkness, Dracovus muttered to himself as he trotted into the woods. Of course, he wanted to see his creations back in the Void realm now that he knew this wasn’t a dream, except in-person instead of through the computer monitor. However, he was also curious about the world he was in now. It certainly wasn’t earth, as proven by the two moons in the sky.

He scanned the vicinities using his senses of a Dragon, and found the signs of several life forces only a several kilometers from where he was.

The senses also told him that they were humans too, which was perfect since he was polymorphed into a human at this moment.

High Human to be precise, but it didn’t matter because although High human was technically an evolved version of a human, there was no difference in appearance whatsoever.

Without a single thought of hesitation, Dracovus leaped towards the direction where he felt humans and vanished along with a gust of wind.

***

Stella was a normal, ten year old girl who was living in a small village of Hurbam.

At least, that’s what she thought of herself. She was also exceptionally clever for someone her age too, although she had no way of knowing that about herself.

Perhaps that was one of the reasons why she always felt like she was out of place throughout her whole life.

She lived with her mama and papa, typical farmers you can see anywhere across the countryside, and who she thought was too kind for their own good. She had a normal house, ate normal food, wore normal clothes, and squeaked in happiness whenever her mum decided to bake a sweet roll whenever the merchants brought over some sugar from the big cities. She also liked her bedtime stories and her fluffy doll she had since she was a baby.

But in reality, she was an orphan. When she was younger, the children were the first to let her know that her parents weren’t her real parents. Although it was questionable where they even got the information from, the important part was that they didn’t let her join in any of the games because of that.

Children in general always tend to pick on the smallest stuff.

However, there was no way a little girl would know that.

That day she went home crying. Her parents, being too soft-hearted, were forced to tell her the truth.

Many years ago, she was found by the village patrol as a baby in a wrecked carriage. Her current parents, who were unable to bear a child for over fifteen years, took her in thinking she was a gift from the gods.

Looking at her clear blue eyes that shone brightly like the stars, they named her Stella.

Stella always instinctively felt that she didn’t belong here. The story only confirmed, at least to her, why she felt like this. Of course, she still loved her parents to death and had no intention of leaving them.

And so the time past, living her life as a normal village girl, until one fateful night when Stella was tucked under her blanket as usual—

Bam!

The door to her room slammed open, causing Stella to wake up. She rubbed her eyes and saw the silhouette of her mom who was coming closer to her in a hurry.

“Mama?”

Upon closer inspection of her mom’s expression, Stella knew right away that something has happened. While panic still evident on her face, she dragged Stella out of her bed and brought her to the living room, holding her hand tightly.

Through the cracks of the wooden shutters, she saw a flicker of orange flames and heard panicked shouts as the ground rumbled. Even a little girl was able to determine that something was wrong. The village was never this loud in the night.

“Mama? What’s going on?”

Without replying, her mom dragged her all the way to a cupboard that was away from plain sight, and then crouched down to her eye level.

“Sweetie, listen to me okay? No, don’t look outside. You’ll be fine. Look at me. Just look at me.”

Her mom cupped Stella’s face with her two hands and made her look into her eyes. She then opened up the small cupboard, still staring into her daughter’s eyes as if to brand an image of her beloved child into her head. She then lifted her up and put her in the deepest corner of the cupboard.

“Sweetie, listen to mama. You have to stay inside here, okay? No matter what, you have to stay quiet. There are bad things outside, so promise me that you wouldn’t come out. Mama will come get you later when it’s all over.”

“Where are you going mama?”

“Mama...has to go where your daddy is. So be a good girl and stay here until I come back alright? I love you baby.”

After kissing Stella’s forehead, the woman stood up and left, shutting the cupboard door tight.

Leaving her in the darkness,

Alone.