After I died, my personal maid rebelled.

The air I breathed in was cold, the moonlight was dim, and all I could see was a patchy blackness.

He could only hear his own chaotic footsteps as he groped his way forward.

It's such a cold night. Why did I even go out? Is home just behind me...?

The wind was icy cold; was it carrying snow?

It's so dark, where am I going? Why does this scene look so familiar?

Oh right, I remember this alley. I remember I was going to buy medicine for my father. His leg ailment had flared up again, and he had drunk too much alcohol. He was feeling terrible.

He seemed to have become that naive child again, afraid of deep alleys, afraid of the dark, running forward tremblingly.

Reaching a corner, he remembered there was a high embankment nearby, but when did this place come to be...?

Is that the shadow of a tree?

He didn't know why he had stopped, just like when he was young, he seemed to sense the presence of some kind of creature in that shadow.

Perhaps out of curiosity and fear of the unknown, he once again hunched his shoulders and asked the same question he had asked years ago.

"Who are you? What are you?"

"Belder!"

The roar ripped through the illusion, like rolling thunder dispelling the darkness before his eyes. The boy suddenly fell from the dissipating ground, plunging into the endless abyss.

(God, like a fallen prodigal son, I have been punished; please grant him the reality to continue his journey.)

The obscure language from ancient creatures soared like the echoing tolling of church bells.

The boy's body changed again, and this time, he became a young man.

It's raining.

Pitter-patter, pitter-patter, the rain is falling heavily.

The young man walked along a lush green forest path. Even though it was raining heavily, he felt unusually hot. The rainwater mixed with sweat made him feel sticky.

I'm so tired. How long have I been walking? Why are my muscles so sore?

The road beneath his feet became increasingly rugged, and he didn't know why he was going anywhere, but he didn't seem to intend to stop.

The rain stung his skin, and he began to breathe heavily.

Should we take a break? The road ahead seems to have been washed away by a flash flood.

Despite the muddy and collapsed road, he didn't stop for a moment and climbed up using both his hands and feet.

Strange, where am I going? Is something waiting for me ahead?

Why are my hands trembling?

By the way, where did my companion go? I remember we came together. Why did we... end up here?

It seems like I've forgotten something important. I must be too tired; my head is spinning.

Whew, it's so hot.

The more he walked, the more anxious he felt, as if the road had no end.

He had never been caught in such strange rain before. The rainwater was incredibly thick, with some sticky clumps mixed in, making it slippery and greasy.

Where did my companion go? I can't even remember what she looked like...

As his vision blurred, he finally staggered and fell to the ground, panting as he rolled over. He licked his dry lips and opened his mouth to the sky.

There was a shadow very close to him in the sky, seemingly swaying. The moment the sticky rain entered his throat, the familiar taste awakened that person's name.

This flavor comes from his wife.

"Alistair".

The mountains and forests vanished, like a dream or clouds.

He stood up in alarm, only to find himself transformed into an old man with gray hair, and the ground beneath his feet had become a smooth street.

Who am I? Where am I? What happened?

He looked up blankly, and before him was an unfamiliar city, currently engulfed in flames.

Oh no, there's a fire! I have to hurry and put it out.

He heard the distant tolling of bells and the cries of children, but he saw no one.

He rushed anxiously into a house, where he could clearly hear an old man calling for help, but the cries stopped abruptly the moment he entered. In the blink of an eye, the house had become a burning ruin.

What's going on? Is it a dream?

Unable to figure out what had happened, he had no choice but to return to the street and walk forward step by step.

(Don't forget who you are.)

Who, who is speaking?

He stood there, stunned, and quickly looked around, but the streets were deserted, and all that remained in front of him were collapsed houses.

The howling from the flames made him think it was another hallucination.

(You know what to do: face your reality.)

Reality……

The voice from the depths of his soul finally made him realize that he had entered a strange situation.

All of this is so clear, yet it's not a dream.

What should I do? I don't even know who I am.

I……

The wind whipped up dust, and a burning stick rolled down in front of him. As if possessed, he picked up the stick and stared intently at the flickering flame.

Ding!

The scene before him changed again, and he found himself once more in a cold, dark alley, but this time, he had a light source in his hand.

The boy stepped forward, and by the light of the fire, he could see that the dark shadows on the embankment were indeed just a few trees, with no special creatures.

But below the high embankment, there lay a stiff, fallen corpse.

Ah, he remembered, this was his father.

That night, it was freezing cold. My father's injured leg became even more painful in such conditions, and in order to relieve the pain, he could only numb himself with alcohol.

But being so young, he wanted to make his father feel better, so he took it upon himself to run out and buy him medicine. As a result, he was so afraid of the dark and the deep alley that he gradually lost his way.

His father, worried that he hadn't returned for a long time, dragged his ailing leg out to look for him. He accidentally fell down a high embankment and, under the influence of alcohol, fell into a coma, freezing to death in the snowy night.

"My...reality..."

So, the shadowy figure standing here has always been the father?

The boy jumped down the high embankment, silently approached his father's body, gently took the demon sword from his father's waist, and placed the torch he was holding into his father's frozen hands.

"That way, I'll be able to see you clearly from now on, Father."

The boy turned and walked forward, his feet sinking into the mud once more. He was beginning to remember who he was.

Actually, it didn't rain at all that day.

When the two set off to find the dragon, the weather was clear and sunny, but the forest was hot and stuffy.

"Belder, before I became a great magician, the villagers called me the rain-praying witch. If you are really suffering from the heat, I can take pity on you and pray for rain."

Her laughter was always so refreshing and cheerful.

Until the dragon's claws crushed her body, a mass of blood and grime fell heavily on his head.

I've been awakened by countless nightmares and experienced countless midnight flashbacks.

He drew the sword he had inherited from his father and severed the dragon's forepaw with a single strike.

Just as he had imagined, this time, he finally embraced her.

"Don't cry for me anymore, Baird, you have to keep going."

The girl in his arms closed her eyes, and in the last moment of her life, she raised her arm.

On her wrist she wore a jewel symbolizing the rain-praying witch, a design she created in imitation of the Philosopher's Stone, crafted with painstaking effort so that the villagers could continue to pray for rain.

His wife's body vanished with the wind, clutching the string of jewels tightly. Baird knelt in the street, his cloudy eyes filled with tears.

The pearl lit up, and tears and rain fell together, pouring onto the fire with a splash, raising a cloud of black ash.

"Belder!"

His soul was finally awakened, and in the instant he regained control of his body, the dragon's broken soul suddenly broke free of its restraints and roared, mobilizing all the magic power within its body.

"Death Cage! Deploy!"

The city's survivors found a new lease on life. Suddenly, the walking corpse knelt down, and a torrential downpour began from the dark sky.

In the blink of an eye, rotten chains reeking of stench burst forth from the ground, slamming down on Baird's corpse. The chains pierced through the corpse's hands, feet, and body, clamping tightly to the gaps in the bones, pinning him firmly to the street.

In the pouring rain, the eerie scene terrified everyone.

But if we don't run away now, when will we?

When Baird opened his eyes again, he found himself in the ruins of a city, the ground littered with dismembered corpses, and blood gradually staining the earth red under the rain.

Not far away, flames soared into the sky. On the collapsed city wall, residents were helping each other as they fled hastily, occasionally glancing back at him with eyes full of horror and fear.

"What... what happened?"

Baird tried to move his body, but was surprised to find himself feeling light as a feather, and then bumped into something soft.

"Behave yourself now that you're awake."

The dragon's voice rang out, and Baird sensed its weakness, quickly recalling his conversation with the dragon before his death.

"Is this the end of everything you've been talking about?"

"Yes, this is probably my final destination."

Baird looked in the direction of the sound and found himself in the belly of a dragon. Both of them were radiating light, but further away, most of the dragon's body was pulled into shadow, filled with ominous black mist.

The dragon bowed its head, looking extremely tired and in pain.

Baird sensed something was wrong. "What's going on?"

"What else could it be? Your body has been possessed by the bone dragon's immortality magic. In order to save your soul, I took the erosion in your place."

"Congratulations to us, we've become the new calamity."

……

After some time, Baird finally figured out what had happened.

Currently, both his and the dragon's souls are trapped in the magic of immortality, and the calamity that has been transformed from his own corpse has already destroyed a town.

Because their souls are protected, the dragon can still maintain some control over their bodies, but as time goes by, both of them will lose control of their bodies.

"I still don't understand why you saved me."

"Ha, you humans are still so arrogant. Do you think we dragons are just a bunch of emotionless savages?"

This time, it was the dragon that was too lazy to bother with Baird.

"We are beings from the same era as the goddess. If all we know is destruction, why doesn't the goddess wipe us all out?"

"This..." Baird thought about it and it seemed to make sense.

The dragon was angry, so naturally it wanted to drag him into a proper discussion of history.

"When you humans were born, you were only the population of a village. A giant python could wipe you out with a single turn, and a dragon could wipe you out with a single breath."

Baird gave a wry smile. "Well... there's no need to put it so harshly."

"Your earliest habitat was given to you by the goddess at her request, and yet, in just a few years, you have driven us off the continent."

"To say something you dragon slayer might not like to hear, there are hundreds of dragons on my island alone. If a racial war were to break out between the dragons and the four races created by the goddess, how many of you humans do you think would survive?"

Baird remained silent. He truly had no idea that there were so many dragons in the world. What if the dragon race were to invade human territory together...?

At that time, it will be impossible for the four races to put aside their internal strife and unite against a common enemy.

"Hatred cannot be accumulated. I caused the killing, and my death is my own fault. If I commit wrongdoings without being punished, the dragon race will become aggressive, and humans will become even more hostile towards them. Do you understand what the consequences will be?"

"Thanks to you humans, dragons have now learned to live in groups, and their population is growing rapidly. Sooner or later, we will face each other directly because we need more habitat. What choice will we make then?"