Devouring Dragon Heir

Klaus stood at Ria's table, watching her deftly complete some paperwork. He had heeded her advice and withdrawn from the S-rank evaluation, knowing he needed more preparation. As she finished, she smoothly slipped a sleek green card across the polished tabletop in front of him.

"This is your hunter's identification card," she explained, her voice professional but with a hint of warmth. "While shopping, going on a raid, joining a guild, or any other activity related to awakened individuals, this card will help with everything. It's now basically your official identification proof."

Klaus's gaze drifted to a nearby display board featuring an infographic. It clearly depicted the different color-coded cards for each hunter rank:

F-rank: Yellow

E-rank: Red

D-rank: Green

C-rank: Bronze

B-rank: Silver

A-rank: Gold

S-rank: Violet with Gold Design

SS-rank: White with Gold Design

SSS-rank: Black with Gold Design

He then looked back at Ria, the green card feeling solid and new in his hand.

"can you get me a Gate permit right now?" he asked, his tone casual.

At first, Ria wanted to advise against it. He had just come out of a mentally exhausting evaluation, and jumping into a real dungeon seemed ill-advised.

But as she looked into Klaus's eyes, she saw a flicker of determination, an unyielding resolve that stirred something in her.

She simply smiled and nodded her head, then opened a digital catalog on her tablet. It consisted of all the public gates currently accessible for each rank.

Generally, public gates were established to help hunters who didn't affiliate themselves with any guilds or major associations, providing opportunities for independent work and growth. The maximum rank a public gate was allowed to operate at was B-rank.

Gates above that level were considered too great a threat, reserved exclusively for highly organized guilds or the Hunter Association itself, ensuring they could be cleared as quickly and efficiently as possible.

There were also other reasons, like maintaining a monopoly on high-value monster drops and ease of monitoring high-level threats(including hunters).

Klaus looked at the catalog, which was full of several gates at different locations throughout the sprawling city.

He specifically opened the page displaying the D-rank gates. There, he saw a suitable gate located conveniently near his inn. Klaus decided to choose this gate, and after paying a minimal fee, he secured a permit for a week.

A gate, in general, consisted of monsters of various ranks, but the highest rank was always attributed to the boss monster, and the rank of this boss monster ultimately decided the official rank of the entire gate.

Usually, it was common sense that a person would enter a gate only after forming a party, especially for D-rank and above.

Ria also assumed this, looking at Klaus's mature and composed demeanor. Who would tell her that this was not the case, that Klaus intended to go solo? Klaus knew he couldn't risk revealing his Origin Absorption ability in front of others, so he had no choice but to go alone.

He offered Ria a genuine smile and completed all the necessary formalities for the last time before leaving the association building. He then hailed a taxi and left for the inn, the green D-rank card now tucked securely in his wallet.

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After reaching his room at the inn, the first thing Klaus did was take a long, refreshing bath to relax. The hot water soothed his still-aching muscles and cleared his mind.

He now possessed an official D-rank hunter identity card, which meant he could legally buy an apartment and start a new life.

Even if he failed to reach S-rank and gain direct entry to the Guardian Academy, he always had the option to take the regular entrance test later.

His mood was remarkably light right now, a stark contrast to his usual stoicism. He felt like he was truly having a new start, filled with an invigorating sense of optimism about his future.

He had lived very frugally and worked like an animal to survive until now, his self-esteem almost non-existent. He had nearly forgotten how to feel strong emotions like genuine anger or pure happiness.

When he had first transmigrated to this world, he was full of expectations and hope for himself, dreaming of cheat skills and grand adventures.

But after living at the very bottom of society for so many years, simply struggling to exist, his personality had drastically changed.

Not to mention, he had been lonely all this time no friends, no family, and certainly no love life. What was ambition? What was hope? He had almost turned into a metaphorical "roach," always trying simply to survive, always playing it safe, always settling for mediocrity.

Thinking about all this, Klaus sighed, the steam from the shower swirling around him. He continued to shower, softly humming a song he often listened to from his past life, a melody that brought a flicker of nostalgia.

He didn't know that in just a few short hours, everything about him was truly going to change, perhaps in ways he could not yet comprehend.

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A FEW BILLIONS OF YEARS AGO... SOMEWHERE IN THE MULTIVERSE...

In the vast, silent expanse of space, filled with profound darkness yet dotted with shimmering stars and distant planets, a sudden, cataclysmic explosion ripped through the void. A colossal planet, far larger than any known to mortals, was utterly annihilated, its fragments scattering like shattered glass.

Two massive figures materialized out of the oblivion, their forms so immense they dwarfed celestial bodies. Cracks appeared in the very fabric of space, the void shattering and reforming with each of their movements, as one of them began to speak, his voice a resonant thunder that echoed across light-years.

"I should have never allowed you to grow, Behemothos," one of the entities boomed, his voice imbued with a melancholic tone that hinted at serious betrayals. "Now look at what you have done."

"It was never a choice for me, brother," the other, the one addressed as Behemothos, countered, his voice a low, guttural rumble that vibrated through the cosmos. "I never complained in any way. But you are just too much, always meddling in my affairs. Now I have no choice but to take back what you took from me."

"Take back?" the first entity scoffed, a ripple of cosmic energy emanating from him. "Don't misrepresent, brother Behemothos. This power was never yours. This is the Dragon God's Inheritance!

It has the potential to destroy universes, to unravel the very tapestry of creation. And you want me to hand it to you? The All-Father himself entrusted this to me years ago, to safekeep, even though I am not qualified to use it. But you, you think you can?"

Listening to the words of the entity, Behemothos, with a surge of dark energy, summoned a shadow-clad spear into his massive hands. The weapon pulsed with malevolent power, crackling with dark lightning.

"The World-Ending Spear?" the first entity whispered, a note of horror entering his voice. "Brother, have you truly fallen so low? Colluding with those demons? Where is your pride as a dragon?"

"I am sorry, brother, but I have no choice," Behemothos declared, his voice devoid of true remorse, only a cold resolve. "Behemoth vows in the name of the Dragon God that once I get his inheritance, I will stop this destruction and rule with peace." His words were twisted, a hollow promise.

But before the other entity even had the chance to speak a single syllable, a blinding beam of dark energy shot out from the World-Ending Spear and pierced directly through the other entity's abdomen. Behemothos had given him no chance, no time for argument or defense.

A look of profound shock never escaped his face as the entity, who identified himself as the Black Dragon, felt his immense, ancient life fading rapidly.

In his last, desperate moments, with his colossal body dissolving, he managed to quickly get a hold of and draw a mysterious, intricate rune on a small, white, shining orb clutched tightly in his hand. The orb pulsed with a faint, inner light.

Behemothos noticed this, his eyes widening in alarm. He quickly approached, immense strides propelling him across the void, intent on snatching the orb before his brother's final act.

But before he could even take another step, a wave of mysterious energy, imbued with the raw power of an ancient dragon's roar, was violently released from the dying Black Dragon.

This wave pushed back Behemothos with incredible force, sending him tumbling through space, and completely disintegrated the Black Dragon's dying form, leaving nothing behind but the lingering echo of his power.

The white orb, now free, spun incredibly fast, accelerating to impossible speeds. Then, a shimmering portal, a gateway woven from pure cosmic energy, opened directly in front of the orb. With a final flash of light, the orb disappeared into oblivion, traveling across time and space to God knows where and when.

Raw, unbridled anger rose in Behemothos's heart. His years of patient scheming, his meticulous planning to acquire the Dragon God's Inheritance, had gone to shit in a few chaotic seconds.

BOOM!

What followed was a wave of pure destruction that rippled outwards, engulfing galaxies. Behemothos, in his fury, unleashed his power, shattering nebulae and igniting stars. No one knows when it stopped, or how many universes felt the echoes of his cosmic wrath.

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IN THE PRESENT ...

SOMEWHERE ON EARTH (THE PLANET WHERE KLAUS CURRENTLY IS, ALSO CALLED EARTH BY THE NATIVES)...

In an ancient ruin ...

"I should have never trusted you, Karl! Emily was right, you were suspicious from the start!" One of the men, his face grim, looked at the lifeless corpse of a dead woman lying nearby, tears subtly welling in his eyes. He clutched a dusty, glowing orb tightly in his hands.

The other man, Karl, replied with a sinister, cold expression, his eyes gleaming with ambition.

"I don't have time to waste on you, John. I have a mission to complete. Hand over the orb and get a swift death. You know you can't beat me." He moved with an unsettling grace.

"Karl, you will pay for this very dearly! Karma doesn't forgive!" the man with the dusty orb, John, bit his lip, his voice filled with impotent rage.

"Enough of this bullshit," Karl snarled, his patience clearly at an end. He moved like a gust of wind, a mere blur. Even before John could react, his head was violently separated from his body, falling to the ground with a sickening thud, followed by a dark spray of blood that splattered across the stones.

"Worms," a single word of contempt escaped Karl's lips as he gazed at the two corpses before him, before turning his attention to the glowing orb, now lying abandoned on the bloody ground.