Devouring Dragon Heir

Klaus had just entered the gate when the system's voice sounded in his mind.

[Host, I think this is not an SSS-ranked gate. This is something entirely different from a gate, it is a portal.

"Well, you are late, my dear System," Klaus noted with a smile, a flicker of dark amusement in his eyes.

He had a profound, unshakable confidence in his own ability to adapt to any situation. "I have already entered inside, and any variable won't stop me now."

He had already seen too many variables trying to control his life, so he did not care what came next, as he would pass through everything."

Klaus stepped through the portal. The feeling of reality glitching was jarring to his eyes.

His head spun a bit from the dimensional tear, and a brief moment of disorientation was experienced before reality snapped back into focus.

He appeared on a hard, rocky, but flat platform. The ground beneath his feet seemed cold from the cloudy, sunless environment.

The air was different here; it was crisp and cool and carried a faint, metallic scent of steel, blood, and moss.

He stood at the highest point of what appeared to be an ancient fortress, a massive defensive structure built from dark, unpolished rock covered in scars of previous battles.

Looking around, he saw a setting straight out of historical fiction.

Below him, in the courtyard of the fortress, he saw horses galloping, their hooves making a deep, thudding sound on the hard ground.

Soldiers in heavy, medieval-style armor ran here and there as if they were in the midst of a war.

The walls of the fortress were scarred with what looked like impacts from powerful attacks. Smoke from distant fires curled into the sky. This was clearly a world full of wars and without any technology.

Klaus's position was at the highest floor of this massive structure, a command deck. A few armored guards, their forms bulky and imposing, stood outside, while in front of him kneeled a singular man with a commander-like aura.

The man had a huge, muscular build, evident even beneath his armor, and a heavy, double-edged sword was strapped to his back.

"I welcome you, Majesty, the Messenger," the man said in a deep, respectful voice.

"Please help us in these times of crisis, and please take away our destiny of suffering." His voice, though respectful and carried hints desperation and despair.

Klaus's enhanced senses, his omniscient tracking, and his mana perception immediately went to work. He gauged the power of the beings around him.

He could clearly sense that the man kneeling in front of him was a powerful SS-ranked being. The guards on the side were all at S-rank.

Compared to his own world, they were much stronger compared to the same-ranked hunters of his world.

This was a world where strength was a necessity, a world filled with battles.

Klaus's mind, always processing information, quickly pieced things together. In this world the law of strength was much more prominent compared to the blue planet, where nepotism was really rampant.

"They are pleading with me to help them, which means they think I am powerful," he thought. "And they seem to know who I am, since they call me 'Messenger.' But I am in the same body and have not transmigrated.

It seems strangely similar to a story-driven RPG-type game."

[The host is right to some extent. The portal has led you to another world, a separate realm anchored to the SSS-rank gate's core. Your grandpa is not with you, so that means he is transported somewhere else.] The system's voice confirmed his analysis.

"Well, I can ask them," Klaus decided. He looked at the heavy-armored knight with a cold, piercing gaze and said "Stand."

The knight immediately stood up.

His imposing form was a testament to decades of rigorous training and battles he had gone through.

He immediately stood straight. His build was a few inches taller than Klaus.

His head, however, was still in a bowed position, trying to portray a sign of deep respect.

"What is a Messenger?" Klaus asked directly, getting straight to the point. His voice was flat, containing no emotion.

The man replied respectfully.

"My lord, the Messenger is an apostle of God, sent to protect the kingdom from the evil forces. You are the prophesied savior who will end this war. Our scriptures speak of your coming, of a person who will save us from the forces of the Demon King."

"Tsk, cliché trope" Klaus muttered under his breath, a faint, annoyed smile on his face.

He had read this type of story hundreds of times, a hero's journey in a medieval-style fantasy world. He was not amused by the predictability of the narrative.

"What is this realm called?" he asked further, trying to gather more specific information about his current location.

"This planet is called the Star land, my lord," the knight replied, his voice still filled with profound respect.

"It is one of the many realms in our realm of Etheria, all of which are under attack from the Demon King's forces."

"Tell me about the war," Klaus commanded; his posture was relaxed, but his tone was serious, indicating that he had accepted the request. He still needed to understand the scale of the threat.

"The forces of the 35th Demon King attacked our Riverdale Kingdom a week ago, my lord.

We have been in war with them since then, but our situation is grim. Our armies are being decimated.

The demon kings' generals are very strong, and we are not able to resist them. Our king, in his last moments, opened a portal to your world before dying to get help from the prophesied Messenger.

It was a spell of immense power and sacrifice, one that could only be used by a king with the strongest of wills."

"And how do you know that I am the Messenger?" Klaus asked a crucial question. "How did you differentiate me from other people?"

"Because only the Messenger will be able to pass through the portal, my lord," the commander explained.

"The rest will just enter a monster gate placed there as a decoy. The portal was set as a one-way trip, and after you entered, the portal was cut off, but the monster gate will still be there. Once your majesty kills the 35th demon king, he will be able to return to his home planet."

"Whoever thought of this was really clever," Klaus thought, a flicker of genuine respect for the tactical genius of the deceased king.

"My way back home is now linked with the life of the demon king."

The trap was so well hidden that even his system was not able to detect it until he was already inside.

He could not do anything right now since the king was already dead, and he did not want to hold others accountable for this forceful condition; also, this condition seemed more like an opportunity for growth rather than a trap to him.

"What is the rank of the demon king?" Klaus asked, his curiosity growing.

"My lord, the demon king is of transcendent rank. And his four generals are at Pseudo-Transcendent rank," the knight replied, his voice filled with fear and respect.

[Host, the Transcendent rank is the first rank of the Above-Mortal realm and is part of the Ascended Realm.

The Pseudo-Transcendent rank means they are equal to EX-ranked individuals. It's just that on the blue planet, they don't know that there is something like the Transcendent or the Ascension Realm, so they named it themselves as EX-rank.]

[So the fact of the matter is that Ex rank is just a between transcended realm and the SSS rank]

"Well, no matter what, I don't feel fear hearing about the demon king's level. Rather, I feel excited" Klaus thought, a wide, confident smile spreading across his face.