Screams continued to rise behind me, I heard others begging for the guards to help the people inside the building. The crowd surged forward slightly, pushing me back toward the fire as voices rose around me.
Cries for a riot began to ring out from the crowd. I couldn’t tell where they started, but the yells brought a heavy weight down upon my shoulders.
I knew exactly how that would end.
Images of burning buildings, bodies turned to ash, and bones burned stark white laying across the cobbles flashed across my vision. I stumbled, catching myself on a man’s jacket.
He glanced down at me with anger, his fist smacking into my cheek. Pain emanated from the split skin his hit left behind, and he kicked me away with a large, booted foot.
I yelled out as I hit the ground, people backing up around me as others pushed against them.
An elderly woman, her face wrinkled and pale, offered me a hand and I took it, pushing myself to my feet again. Despite her huddled demeanor, the woman stood strong and stable as I leaned on her strength to right myself. She flashed me a soft smile before turning back to the smoke billowing into the sky above the building.
Above, a roar filled the air. People’s faces lifted to the skies, the inferno that engulfed the building momentarily forgotten. I followed their gazes to see a massive amber colored dragon descending through the smoke, coming from the palace’s direction.
I didn’t recognize the dragon, but I instinctively ducked my head lower and checked to make sure my [Shroud] was working, as if they might somehow recognize me. I knew the fear that pounded through me was ridiculous, as even my closest allies had not recognized me that first night outside the palace gates.
Another roar echoed from above and this time the surrounding people began to panic, the sound of the dragon’s wings flapping grew loud, the wuft wuft of air pushing down as it slowed its approach washed over us, sending my hair flying up all around my head in disarray.
A second glance over my shoulder revealed the flames whipping down and outward, some almost licking at the buildings that surrounded the inferno. I held my breath for a moment, hoping it wouldn’t catch.
I felt something dark touch at the edge of my consciousness, drawing my focus away from the flames. It started as a caressing tendril that soon grew to an almost overwhelming weight as the desire to run flooded through me and I had to actively force myself not to lose control of my feet and break into a sprint.
Around me, the other citizens were not so lucky.
Chaos broke out through the crowded street as men, women, and children all began to turn and break away from the scene. A child tripped on the cobbles off to my right and I watched as a large group stampeded over him, his cries lost to the din of noise.
Bodies slammed into me, pushing me forward. I let them carry me, careful not to let myself trip or fall, as I picked up my own pace, trying not to look too suspicious without breaking into a panicked run.
I glanced back over my shoulder, just in time to see the dragon land atop a building, the steeple of the roof collapsing in on itself as the massive beast’s weight settled onto the structure.
I focused my attention on the dragon and examined it using [Insight]. The message started to appear, but I swiped it to the side, leaving my vision clear so I didn’t get knocked over and trampled.
The dragon’s massive head swiveled from side to side, looking out over the crowd, and then it loosed another roar. The sense of fear that reverberated through the air with the sound was like a wave of frigid water bursting through a dam.
It crashed over us. The weight of it washed all my other senses away as my thoughts filled with one resounding word.
Run.
I fought back against the feeling as the rest of the crowd began to panic even more, people pushing against each other as they rushed for any exit. Any path that would take them as far away from the beast as possible.
I followed the rush of the crowd for several blocks before finally pushing to the side of the street and into a narrow alleyway. Leaning back against the wall, I took a few moments to quell the beating drum that had replaced my heart. Now that I was a good distance away, the grip of fear that the dragon had placed over me began to loosen.
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Rational thoughts finally flowed more freely, my wits returning in a rush of their own.
“Godsdammit,” I muttered under my breath and shook myself. I had never felt such overwhelming fear in all my life. No dragon had ever been capable of instilling fear like that. If they had, humanity’s uprising attempts never would have stood a chance. That could only mean one thing.
I pulled up the Systems message, golden words filling the air before me.
=User Information=
Name: Cordrak | Title: The Unbound Terror | Class: Dragon Mage | Subclass: Nightmare Weaver
I rubbed the bridge of my nose and read through the words again.
A dragon with System access? I’d thought that perhaps I was the only one of my kind chosen by the System. I should have known that I wouldn’t be so lucky. Especially after I’d discovered the others in my world with their own access.
I didn’t recognize the dragon’s name, either, though that wasn’t wholly unexpected. There were hundreds of thousands of my kind wandering the planet, with more fledglings born every year. We didn’t have the same numbers the humans did, but we had spent centuries regrowing the dragon population after the loss of our previous world.
I focused on the subclass, something that I hadn’t yet tried when inspecting others information. In the past, I’d been able to focus on words or phrases the System had provided, and it would give me more information. I hoped that the same would be true here.
It took several moments, as if the System were debating whether it should comply, before the words shifted, replaced by a description.
Nightmare Weaver - A magical-based draconic subclass focused on the use of fear-based abilities. Users of the Nightmare Weaver subclass can cast spells that instill fear upon their targets, causing them to panic and attempt to flee. Fleeing targets become weaker to the caster’s attacks, allowing for easy control of large crowds. Fear-based magic is less effective on draconic races.
I grimaced while reading the description. The fear magic that it had used was certainly effective—it had almost even overwhelmed me.
Plus, I still wasn’t wholly confident in how the [Attributes] that the System allocated could affect different things, though. Perhaps the fear was something I could withstand in time, with another ability or training. Clearly being a dragon had helped in some way.
Were there stats I could improve to further quell it? I knew my [Intelligence] and [Wisdom] were both fairly high, 10 and 7 respectfully. Both of those seemed to affect my mind or spirit in some way—with [Intelligence] directly affecting my mana reserves. So maybe leveling them could help somehow.
But if my imposter learned how to effectively wield dragons with these kinds of abilities, and she sent them against those without System access…
I didn’t finish the thought. I couldn’t.
Dismissing the message, I straightened and looked out toward the street. The rush of the crowd had slowed, though I still noted several walking by at a brisk pace. I hadn’t heard any more roars, though, which was promising.
I crossed the short distance to the corner and peered around, looking toward the billowing smoke that still rose above the city’s buildings, creating dark clouds that stood out against the bright blue sky.
Content that the dragon didn’t appear to be doing anything other than dispersing the crowd, I turned toward the inn’s general direction and began walking, slipping between groups of people that hurried up and down the street, going about their business like a piece of the city wasn’t burning down several blocks over.
The thought that the false empress might have System access was a troubling one. One I didn’t want to focus on too much, especially since I was at a bit of a standstill myself.
Despite trying to badger the System for quests and even running into some situations that seemed to have triggered them in the past, the System had remained completely silent to my plea for ways to earn experience.
Of course, I hadn’t needed a quest to push me toward Brin’s destruction. But I had let them lead me forward in other areas like helping Will with the Shipmaster and even letting it push me toward infiltrating the palace in the first place. A decision that had ultimately cost me allies like Felix and Aurelion.
Perhaps that was the lesson here. What if I had come to rely on the System’s direction too much for my goals? I clearly hadn’t needed those directions to know how to survive or even to make deals with people. But, I had to admit… I had felt some deflation at the fact the System hadn’t even acknowledged my pleas in any way.
I’d already been frustrated with the lack of progress I’d been making the past few weeks. Though, I had resigned myself to simply waiting on the System to offer me something—some kind of push or even a single direction.
But this dragon’s existence changed everything.
I hadn’t been under the illusion I was the only System user for a while now. I had even given access to the System to Ophelia, though it hadn’t done her much good in the end. And one of my most dangerous enemies in the city—Aurelion—was a System user from another world.
However, I had assumed my imposter did not have access to it. Perhaps it had been naive to think so—or even just too hopeful—but today’s discovery had removed most of the possibility that I could rely on it as a clear advantage in the coming war for my empire’s future.
It also beckoned more questions about the System’s overall existence. At first, I had believed that the System had sent me back to give me another chance, so I could save my world and my people from a future underneath a “god” that would eventually get them destroyed.
Even the way it had worded those initial quests, the ones still filling my quest list now, had made it appear so.
More and more, though, it was starting to feel like the System had a mind of its own. Like it was a living, breathing thing instead of a simple magical construct that unlocked new possibilities. And it was playing a game. One I didn’t quite understand.
As if in response to my decision, golden letters shimmered into existence directly in front of me, bringing me to a stop in the middle of the bustling street.