Blood clung to Darren like a second skin. It soaked into his clothes, slicked his hands, and matted his hair, the metallic stench hanging heavy in the air around him. Some of it belonged to dragons—massive, scaled abominations they were—but much of it did not. The path he had carved through this place was littered with half-recognizable shapes that might once have been alive. These were monsters born of nightmare, creatures that even a fertile imagination would have struggled to invent, let alone prepare for. And yet, one by one, every single one of them had fallen.

  They always did.

  The Divinity of Dissection left nothing unfinished. It tore through scale and flesh, through hide and bone. Darren did not hesitate when he fought. He did not second-guess, nor did he flinch. Violence flowed through him as easily as breath, a language his body had always understood. Combat came naturally to him, as it always had. Where others struggled, he simply moved. Where others panicked, he acted.

  Again and again, the System recalculated.

  Invisible figures ticked upward and downward in frantic response to his actions, its estimations breaking apart almost as quickly as it rebuilt them. Numbers scrolled past his vision, values assigned to every motion, every decision that Darren made. They meant nothing to him. He fought because something stood in his way, and because he possessed the means to remove it.

  The stories whispered about his Clan, about Darren Ittriki himself and his battle with the King of the Dragons, had long been marked as exaggerations; embellishments layered atop truth until logic no longer supported them. The System had made that assessment because it was the only reasonable explanation it could arrive at. Myth rarely survived direct comparison with reality. And yet, in this rare case, logic failed without exception.

  Every assumption fell apart under scrutiny.

  Every ceiling imposed upon this man was undone the moment he reached it.

  More often than not, Darren did not even bother invoking the magic unique to his Clan. He did not need to. Lesser beasts were crushed beneath brute force alone. With the Internal Arts, he wielded raw, overwhelming strength that no mortal man should have possessed. He tore them apart with his bare hands when necessary, snapped spines, pulped skulls, and reduced towering monstrosities to broken heaps on the ground.

  The mountain ahead loomed large, its jagged silhouette cutting into the ashen sky.

  Darren pushed forward without pause, boots crunching over debris and remains alike.

  “Up ahead, ahead of this mountain, you shall find the Ferry of the Dead.” The System's voice called out. Darren acknowledged it with a simple nod, his pace never faltering.

  That was good.

  Vengeance burned within him, a deep, smoldering fury directed at the draconic kind that had destroyed everything he held dear. But revenge was not his priority.

  All of that could wait.

  His family could not.

  Aurelia. Andrea. Their names echoed in his mind with every step he took. He had placed his trust in Hades, a dangerous thing by any measure, because the King of the Underworld had been…kind. There was compassion in those eyes that he had seen belonging to the immortal.

  As kind as such a being could be, that compassion had its limits. Darren did not want to discover what would happen if he failed to uphold his end of the bargain.

  So the man continued forward, soaked in blood and guts, leaving destruction in his wake because this was the price demanded if he was to follow this path. And he had never been one to shy away from paying what was owed.

  The good thing was that the creatures of the Underworld no longer rushed him blindly. Eyes watched from the shadows as Darren moved through the blasted terrain of the Underworld, keeping their distance. Hulking shapes that once would have charged now hesitated, instincts screaming warnings that even monstrosities learned to heed. They had seen what happened to those who stood in his path. Whatever courage they once possessed had long since been ground down into weary fear.

  Time passed strangely in this place. Darren could not say for certain how long he had been walking—an hour, perhaps two—only that his journey had already carved a permanent mark into the Underworld itself. The ground behind him was stained dark, the air thick with the aftermath of slaughter. Ahead, unseen but promised by the System, lay Charon. The Ferryman would give him his next instructions. Only then would Darren learn what it was he had been chosen to carry, what this mysterious package entailed. The nature of it remained a complete unknown. Whatever it was, he would deliver it just as Hades had asked him to.

  He was to bring it to the God of War. Once, that god had been known as the King of the Dragons. For some reason, Darren was not surprised that his greatest enemy had survived the test of time just like he had, ascending above even the mortal plain of existence.

  “Could I ask you something, Darren?”

  He slowed slightly, his brow furrowing.

  That voice—Merlyn, the System—had been speaking to him more frequently as time went on, and not merely to issue commands or relay objectives.

  There was something else there now.

  A cadence to its tone. A curiosity. Almost…like it was beginning to form a personality of sorts. Darren had begun to notice it some time ago, the sense that this was no longer just a machine calculating outcomes and probabilities.

  “Yes,” he replied after a moment of consideration. “You may.”

  “Your family,” Merlyn asked. “What were they like?”

  Darren stopped.

  The question was so unexpected, so painfully human, that for a moment the world around him seemed to fade. His eyes closed and memory rushed in to fill the void. He saw stone walls warmed by firelight. A modest cottage perched on the shores of a coastal village, waves rolling in beneath a wide sky. The Outermost Cities of Nozar had been far from grand, but they had been home.

  “They were my everything,” he whispered, his voice rough. “They still are.”

  Images flashed through his mind. The feeling of holding his wife in his arms. Hearing his daughter's laughter, bright and unrestrained. Seeing their smiles that had greeted him at the door. For a brief, dangerous moment, the ache threatened to overwhelm him.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  He wanted—no, needed—to feel that again.

  “And how far would you go for them?” Merlyn asked quietly.

  Darren’s eyes opened again.

  “I would do anything.”

  There was a pause then, longer than usual.

  The System seemed to consider his answer, processing it not as a value or statistic, more than just data to compute.

  “So you would kill millions?” Merlyn continued. “Billions? All for the sake of reuniting with the ones you loved?”

  The words hung in the air. Darren felt a chill crawl up his spine, not from the question itself, but from the one asking it. Machines did not pose dilemmas like this. They did not probe the soul. A realization began to form in his mind.

  Perhaps the System was more than it claimed to be. Perhaps it had never been a machine at all.

  Silence stretched between them as Darren did not reply right away. For a moment, it seemed like the man thought better to leave the question unanswered. Hypotheticals were simple when they lacked consequence. Reality was not so forgiving.

  Finally, he gave it.

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  It was not an answer so much as a deflection, but it was all he had. Because in truth, Darren did not know what he would do if truly faced with such a choice.

  He only knew what he wanted.

  And what he wanted was to see his family again.

  Darren resumed walking, unnerved from the sudden exchange that had taken place between man and the System. Whatever Merlyn truly was, it was watching him closely now. And for the first time since this machine had integrated into his very being, he felt as though he was being measured by more than just numbers alone.

  “I see,” Merlyn replied at last. “Thank you for your input, Darren. Soon, I will have collected enough data so that I can complete compiling your Statistics.”

  Darren raised an eyebrow at Merlyn’s words. “My Statistics?”

  “Yes,” the System replied evenly. “Would you like to see what I have compiled thus far?”

  There was no reason to refuse. Darren nodded once. A flash of light appeared in the corner of his vision, subtle but unmistakable, and with it came something new, something separate from the familiar screen that had guided him since the beginning of this trial. This time, it was here to stay.

  The words were scrawled in silver, sharp and elegant, hovering just at the edge of his sight.

  // [Status Screen]

  Darren did not hesitate. He pressed it.

  Another screen unfolded before him, forcing him to take a step back as information flooded his vision. This display was denser, layered with details that demanded attention rather than offering simple directives.

  At the very top, stark and unmistakable, were the basics.

  // Name: Darren Ittriki

  // Threat Level: ERROR

  // General Level: ERROR

  His gaze moved downward, frowning slightly as more uncertainties presented themselves.

  // MP (Mana Points): ???

  // EXP (Experience Points): ???

  The words beneath clarified the ambiguity—

  // (Not enough data to make a proper assessment.)

  Darren exhaled through his nose. Figures. Numbers had never seemed capable of keeping pace with him, and this only confirmed it.

  Then he reached the final heading.

  // Skills

  This was where the true depth lay.

  Each entry was accompanied by extensive descriptions, meticulous in their detail. Lines of text explained mechanics, conditions, and applications, breaking down his abilities with clinical precision.

  Darren scanned them quickly, recognizing most at a glance.

  // [ The Divinity of Dissection ]

  It was laid bare in a way no outsider had ever articulated—its lethality, its scope, its terrifying efficiency. The magic of Clan Ittriki was described as an innate and hereditary force rather than a learned discipline. But they did not know the lengths that Darren had went to in order to realize its full potential.

  Further down was another one he knew well.

  // [ The Internal Arts - Amplifcation of the Physical Vessel ]

  It was an ancient technique that was fiercely guarded to this day. He remembered the Priest of Pan, Rowan standing beside him, both of them guiding him through pain and discipline until his body itself became a weapon. It was the reason why he was able to move the way he did, with more strength and speed any man should have been capable of.

  There was even mention of his mind.

  // [ Understanding of the Mystic Arts - Genius ]

  He found that one in particular quite distasteful. It labeled him a prodigy capable of grasping complex magical concepts and applying them instinctively in battle. Darren almost scoffed. It felt strange seeing his life reduced to classifications and descriptions, stripped of context and struggle.

  And then he saw it.

  One skill stood apart from the rest.

  Its name was unfamiliar.

  Darren’s focus narrowed, curiosity stirring as he leaned in to read further—

  Before he could finish, Merlyn’s voice cut sharply through his concentration.

  “I have good and bad news.”

  There was real urgency there now.

  “What?” Darren asked, instinctively lifting his head.

  The answer came not in words, but in sensation.

  The ground beneath his feet began to rumble once more.

  At first it was subtle, a low vibration that crept up through his boots. Then it intensified, the earth shaking violently as if something massive had shifted far below the surface. Darren widened his stance, muscles tensing as he fought to keep his balance. Loose stones skittered past him, bouncing and tumbling as cracks spidered across the ground.

  “The good news,” Merlyn said quickly, “is that after this, I am going to have enough data to complete your Status Screen—”

  The rest went unspoken.

  Because the bad news had already arrived.

  The mountain ahead of him moved.

  Stone groaned and fractured as the towering mass began to rise, its shape warping, unfolding into something undeniably alive. What Darren and the System had mistaken for a natural formation was anything but that. Sections split apart, revealing thick, scaled armored flesh beneath layers of stone and earth.

  Multiple massive necks reared skyward, each crowned with a snarling head, eyes burning with ancient malice. Darren stared up at the creature, blood still drying on his skin, his Status Screen hovering forgotten at the edge of his vision.

  So this was it.

  The last test.

  And judging by the way the Underworld itself seemed to recoil, it was about to give Merlyn all the data it could ever want.

  Before him stood the Final Boss of the Tutorial.

  This was the monster of legend, the beast they called the Hydra.