I Received System to Become Dragonborn

The adventurers stared at the malformed creature, each of them frozen for different reasons. Fear gripped Annette's hands so tightly that her knuckles turned pale. Esther's eyes narrowed with cold calculation, weighing danger and possibility in equal measure.

Hund looked on with simple disgust, while Selene's expression was tense but still focused.

Mark looked at it as a warrior would look at any threat, an obstacle to be removed. Kaela, on the other hand, wore the expression of someone who saw a puzzle and intended to crack it.

Only Jan's face held a quiet pained resolve.

Despite its grotesque form the creature bore enough of a man's shape that Jan hesitated.

The black ichor dripping from its half-melted limbs, the twitch of a muscle in a jaw it no longer fully possessed… something about it still echoed with a flicker of humanity.

"Can you talk?" Jan asked quietly. His voice didn't shake, but it sounded softer than usual, like he didn't want to provoke it.

The others glanced at him like he'd gone mad. Kaela blinked once slowly. Hund gave a short grunt of disbelief but held his sword steady. No one interrupted.

The creature's head twitched. A wheeze escaped its lipless mouth, followed by a choking sound.

"I… aakhhh…"

It was not really a word. It was more like a memory of speech that filtered through a broken throat. The sound twisted painfully in the air.

Jan narrowed his eyes, shifting his stance, but didn't lower his bow. "Don't come any closer or I will shoot."

To everyone's surprise, the creature stopped mid-step. The ichor pooling beneath its feet bubbled but it did not move.

"It understands," Jan said. "That means we still have a chance."

"I don't think it can actually talk, Jan," Mark murmured with eyes locked on the thing.

"We still need to try. If there's a shred of the original person left… we need to know."

Mark didn't reply, but he didn't argue either.

The others stood firm, forming a half-ring around Jan.

"Tell me," Jan said. "What happened here? What are they doing to those people?"

The creature twitched again. Black ichor wept from its arms like sweat. It trembled with the effort of speech.

"F…lood…"

The word was faint, twisted, and barely audible. They had to strain their ear to hear it.

"What?" Jan took half a step forward. "What flood?"

"Grey…" the creature rasped. "Flood…"

"Grey flood? What the fuck is that supposed to mean?" Kaela muttered.

"What else?" Jan asked, more urgently.

"I… Dragon… dead…"

The chamber seemed to tilt with those words.

"A dead Dragon?" Selene echoed, her voice sharp. "What kind of nonsense-"

But she didn't get to finish. The creature suddenly convulsed. The faint control it had was gone.

"AAAAAAAAKKHH!"

It shrieked in a deep and tearing howl. Then it lunged at them.

Jan released his arrow instantly.

SWIIISHHH!

The shot buried into the side of the creature's skull, staggering it with a wet crack but it didn't fall.

"Attack now," Jan said coldly, already drawing his next arrow.

Esther throw a focused fireball that exploded on impact and bathing the thing in flames.

BWOOOSHHH!

Its body roared with fire, but it didn't scream anymore. It kept coming while flailing with limbs that hissed and steamed from the heat.

"It will not die because of that," Esther warned. "Keep hitting it!"

Selene raised her hand. A lance of lightning crashed down from her hand, spearing the creature and sending it flying backward into the door at the far end. The impact smeared black ichor across the stone.

"How do we kill that thing?" Hund asked with frustration.

"We might not be able to," Mark said grimly as if recalling a memory. "It's like a corrupted soul in a rotting vessel. You can't kill what's already dead, but you can seal it."

"Seal it, then," Jan said quickly. His eyes flicked to Esther and Annette. "You two, get to work. Seal it down. The rest of us will hold it."

Esther gave one firm nod and darted to the far corner of the chamber. Annette hesitated for only a heartbeat before following.

They knelt side by side, one drawing runes with embers of fire, the other praying under her breath as white light shimmered between her fingers. They had been working together with the same party for so long that they already knew what needed to be done.

A golden sigil began to form on the ground between them, intersecting with Esther's red arcane lines.

Behind them, the creature began to rise again, its wounds closing. More teeth formed in that grotesque grin.

Jan took a step forward with his bow ready, as the others flanked him.

"We just have to hold the line and give them the time they need," he said.

And then the creature came for them again.

The creature lunged like a beast but fought like a man.

Its limbs that half-melted and twitching unstably before hardened mid-charge, shaping into thick sinewy arms coated in a black armor-like sheen.

Its claws that dripping with ichor sliced through the air with precision. It was too precise for something mindless.

It ducked under Hund's first swing, twisted unnaturally, and slammed a clawed fist into the warrior's gut, sending him staggering.

"Shit, it suddenly knows how to fight!" Mark barked, stepping in with his blade raised. He intercepted the next blow directed at Hund.

CLANG!

Steel clashing against flesh that rang like iron. The creature countered, sweeping low with one arm and high with the other, forcing Mark back with sheer brute force and calculated fury.

Thorne who was always silent and focused moved into the opening, his blade catching the creature's side. But instead of reeling, it pivoted and using Thorne's momentum against him and nearly knocking the sword from his hand.

"Back off!" Selene cried.

A crackling beam of energy lanced out from her gloves, striking the creature in the ribs and staggering it.

For a moment it smoked, stuttering mid-motion, until it roared and drove forward again.

Its skin was hardening even more, the ichor drying into a shell-like exoskeleton, making it harder to wound with each passing second.

Kaela darted in from the flank in silent and speed. Her twin daggers flashed, one slicing behind the creature's knee, the other gouging a narrow trench across its shoulder.

She moved fast, like shadows while avoiding the creature's vicious swings by inches.

Still, one claw grazed her arm. She hissed and rolled away, black blood sizzling where it touched her skin.

Jan remained at the back, calm in the storm, and shoot his arrows.

Thwip! thwip! thwip!

Arrow after arrow thudded into behind the shoulder and beneath the jaw but the thing kept coming. Each strike slowed it only a fraction, and still it fought with the cold efficiency of a killer who remembered being human.

Hund recovered and swung his broadsword in a wide arc, catching the monster's midsection.

The blade sank in halfway before the creature grabbed the weapon and hurled him sideways like a ragdoll.

Hund crashed against the stone wall with a grunt but climbed back up, teeth bared.

"We can't let it get to the girls!" Jan shouted.

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