PROLOGUE

  THE STORY OF FAFNIR

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  SVARTALFHEIM, The sunset fields

  This is the realm of Svartalfheim, a cold underground and mountainous environment sometimes called the Nioavellir, whose name comes from the runic language. It is also known as the home of the dark elves and dwarves.

  They also were affected by the brutal war, and in particular a dwarfs kingdom was on the verge of collapse.

  It started when the neighboring tribe of draugr was recluted by a powerful faction of Hellheim, which helped greatly boost their power.

  They took us by surprise when we were attacked, but because of the Myrkheimr kingdom superior military equipment and technology, were able to push them back.

  However, because we were at peace for so long, we suffered heavy casualties and devastating damage.

  Unfortunately, this was only the first of our problems.

  Because of the battle with the undead, we were unable to send people to protect miners in the caves, and underground beasts like stone lizards, ore eaters, and even lesser drakes ended up taking control of the mines.

  We ended up losing our main source of precious minerals and resources, but we couldn't get it back because other armies attacked us first.

  The most dangerous were the tribe of mountain trolls, who, inspired by the fierce giants, began to attack various settlements and possessed enormous individual power.

  Or the stubborn dark elves, who refused to cooperate due to past hostilities.

  Times were harsh, but thanks to king Hreidmar, the kingdom was able to resist.

  But calamity soon follows.

  Hreidmar's first son, Othir, was someone with the double rune "animal" and "transformation", that's why he had the ability to transform into an animal.

  One day, while he was transformed, he was killed by the gods Thor and Loki, who are known as the sons of the Great Odin.

  The king was furious and demanded that Odin take responsibility for his son's death.

  Odin decided to give a small portion of his treasures to compensate Hreidmar.

  Hreidmar anxiously checked the piles of gold and shiny jewels in the hope to find a treasure to help his endangered people, but it found something much worse.

  It found two ancient rings, the first one named Advar, a golden ring with an irresistible aura to it.

  And the second one, a black ring named Autr, with the form of an authoritative dragon.

  After he put on the gold ring, his personality has changed exponentially.

  The once gentle king becomes a tyrant who thinks only of gold and other treasures; in fact, he shamelessly forced all his subjects to hand over the gold and relics they possess.

  The king's closest subordinates did not know what to do and were becoming desperate; even the third son, Regin, despite being considered the most talented of the three because of his talent for blacksmithing, thought only of hiding like a coward.

  However, Fafnir, the second-born, did not give up, and he convinced his brother Regin to stop their father, and for this reason they started a rebellion.

  MYRKHEIMR CAPITAL CITY

  “Fafnir, are you sure this is the only way?,” Regin, my brother, asked me while looking around anxiously, which was understandable considering the situation.

  “I'm afraid so, Regin. I've read and searched for a long time for a better solution, but I fear that Father is now lost,” I said regrettably. When Dad suddenly changed, I immediately tried to investigate to find out the reason.

  I was soon able to find the cause, the cursed ring he wore on his finger. I did some research in the royal library, and although I found that it causes the owner to have infinite greed for various riches due to the cursed gold it is made of, I could not find a way to break the curse.

  “This is the only way, and to succeed I need cooperation from all of you.” I look around to see the most important people of the kingdom, whose help is essential in my plan.

  Most of them, while willing to help, they don't approve of my plan and the fact I was the one who created it.

  “Can I ask you something first?” asked an old man with white hair, a bristly beard, and one white eye, clearly blind but who, despite his advanced age, has a powerful build that seemed to indicate otherwise.

  “What it is, Captain Roland?,” I responded politely.

  That's because the man in front of me is the captain of the king's guard and is considered to be his majesty's right-hand man, which makes him a figure of enormous prestige.

  “If the king dies, who will be his successor?”

  After it spoke, many gazes turned on me without even trying to hide it.

  Normally, the next king should be first one in the line of succession, which should be me, but it's not so simple.

  “What are you saying? How can someone born without runes become king of the runesmith kingdom?” Someone said with a tone of disdain, which easily found approval from several people.

  They unfortunately speak the truth.

  The dwarves of this kingdom are born with a rune that corresponds to their talent and runic ability.

  Most of them have only one; some like my deceased brother, were lucky enough to have two

  Anyways, the problem is that I was born without a rune, and they find me unfit to inherit the throne.

  In comparison, Regin, while the third prince, has the same rune of smithing as father, and he is an extremely talented blacksmith, so they preferred him as the king.

  Now, what should I do?

  While I don't particularly want to be the king, Regin doesn't possess the courage and other qualities a king should have.

  “This is troublesome,” I mutter as I try to think of a way to solve things.

  “Enough,” I hear my brother yelling, which got me and the other slightly surprised.

  “That's not the time to worry about things like that. We have to stop my father first before it's too late,”

  I'm shocked that my little brother, who until a few days ago was only thinking about hiding, would say things like that.

  What made him change his attitude?

  ”You are right, let's rather talk about our next course of action.”

  After we came to an agreement, we started to discuss the plan to defeat him, which was not easy since the king was a tier 8 expert and the most powerful warrior in the kingdom; furthermore, the ring empowered him.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  The next day.

  THE KING CASTLE, THRONE ROOM

  I find myself looking around at the castle wall while running,

  In the past, I saw this ancient corridor as a prince and found it a source of pride, but now that I see it as an invader, these old walls only give me a shiver of unease.

  In the end, the plan was very simple. It have two teams: team 1 was led by Roland and the main forces, their mission was to intercept the king's minions at his orders.

  I am the captain of team 2, a small élite team designed to kill Hreidmar.

  The reason why I'm in the second team, not to mention the captain, despite my strength being below the tier 5 that the others possess at least, is because only I have a way to reduce the gap in power needed to defeat my dad.

  “Let's go,” I told them in preparation for the hard battle ahead.

  “Yes”

  “Lets end this madness"

  “For the kingdom”

  My teammates all responded without hesitation as we finally opened the doors who led to him.

  He was waiting for us.

  I look up and immediately become frustrated by what I saw. I find a middle-age man with a messy beard and short grayish hair, wearing refined golden armor while having noble clothes and he sitting on a pile of gold coins while looking at us with a smiley but annoyed expression.

  “Did you really think I wouldn't notice, Fafnir?” the man, which is clearly my father or what it become of it, said to us in a cold tone

  “I am sorry, but you must be stopped,” I mutter in a low voice that could barely be heard.

  “Stopped? AHAHAH. Do you think a bunch of traitors and a weakling can do that?” the king laughed at them while picking up a hammer from the pile of treasure and releasing a terrific aura.

  “We will stop your majesty, so forgive us,” the elite forces told their former leader while they engaged in battle.

  While all of this happened, I hurriedly started searching for the key to win this battle.

  I look around in the treasury in the search of the black ring Autr, which I discovered in a book of relics. Its identity is the evil dragon ring, which seems to give immense power to the owner, but I'm not sure how, other than the fact it is irreversible.

  I carefully look around while hearing the sound of the scream of my comrades who are buying me time.

  After I start losing hope, an explosion turns around a pile of coins, which reveal a black and golden glow.

  The moment I see it, I rush over to take it, but I simultaneously hear a grueling scream of pain, which ends up pausing me for a second.

  I instinctively look back, only to immediately regret it. All my men are dead apart from a few barely clinging to life.

  “That's mine, give it back,” the bastard yell with his greedy eyes fixed on the ring, it was as the men fighting him never existed at all.

  I said nothing, I simply wear the ring with my eyes filled with determination while looking at him.

  The pain suddenly came as energy began filling me, changing my very own being.

  My skin was replaced with black metallic scales, horns grew out of my forehead, and my body expanded at an unthinkable speed.

  “Wh-What the hell is happening? Explain yourself,” he angrily asked while taking a few steps back in fear.

  I tore open my golden eyes as i stare at my new body, a colossal black dragon stretched fifty meters from snout to tail.

  Its scales are dark obsidian, smooth and jagged, absorbing light rather than reflecting it, giving the creature a terrifying presence. Each scale is as thick as iron plating, layered to form a natural armor that shifts and crumbles with a low, menacing sound as the dragon moves.

  Its wings are enormous and ragged at the edges, with pitch-black membranes and veins that glow faintly like embers beneath the skin.

  The dragon's head is crowned by broad, backward-curving horns, and its eyes glow with a golden light that seems to pierce the soul.

  My very movement radiates overwhelming power, as if the air itself bends in fear around this ancient embodiment of doom and terror.

  “It’s time to end this,” I say in a cold, beastly voice as I throw myself with my claws to strike him.

  “Shit,” He curses as he rushes to parry the attack, only to be pushed back a few dozen meters while spitting blood.

  “What??” he froze, unable to analyze what just happened.

  I immediately act to restrain him while distracted with my claw, and then i instinctively open my mouth, only to spit out black flame.

  “Aaaaaah!” I hear him screaming through the flames, but at a certain point he stops, and at that point I stop breathing fire and end up seeing a smoking, charred corpse.

  Complex emotion fills my eyes as I lie there out of breath. The battle seems easy, but the transformation is not yet fully complete, and the fight has completely drained my energy.

  Sigh, to think I became a dragon.

  It was a possibility I took in consideration, but to really end up happening.

  While I’m lost in my thoughts, I hear footsteps approaching rapidly. I turn my head around to see a handsome human boy with shining armor and a dazzling, gold-adorned sword with a dragon-shaped pattern on the blade.

  I recognize him as Regin's adopted son, who had a human mother before she died and was adopted.

  His name is Sigfrid, if I'm not mistaken.

  "The knights were defeated, I presume?" I ask the boy, but he seems distracted by something.

  Just as I was about to ask again, he suddenly stabbed me in the heart with his sword.

  “Aaaaargh!” I start screaming as I began spitting blood out of my mouth, as I felt immense pain from my chest where a fragment of the sword pierced in my heart remain stuck.

  “Why?” I ask in total confusion of the current situation.

  “Why you said?, That's because you killed my mother, you monster,” the boy yell with his eyes filled with anger.

  Ah?, What is it talking about? I never did anything remotely similar to that.

  “You are talking nonsense,” I said while trying to get up on my feet.

  “Don't lie to me!” ,he clearly doesn't want to hear what is say, so I decided to hit him with my tail, sending him to pass out against the wall.

  “Huff…huff…,” As I began trying to resist the pain, I suddenly fall to the ground because I can no longer feel any strength left in me.

  What the hell happened to my body?

  “Hahaha, Dont bother trying the sword Gram. Its a weapon i reforged, he was especially created to deal with dragons. Look at you now, a lizard acting like a dog,” I hear someone laughing, but when I turn to see it, it's my brother Regin smiling all proudly.

  “Brother?” I mutter in pain as my brain tries to process all of this.

  “Im sorry, big brother, but this is something inevitable,” he said with a smile.

  “Why did your son attack me? What did you tell?" I tried interrogating him to buy me some time to recover. I also need to know what is happening as I have a very bad feeling about it.

  “Oh, that, I just lied to him and told his mother was killed by you, that way he could play the hero role” he said casually, as if he didn't do anything special.

  “Hero..Gram..I now understand." I finally remember, Gram was the name of a sword created by a past ancestor, but it was sealed to the roots of Yggdrasil, legend said that only a true hero had the right to extract it.

  “So you lied to your son only to kill me? I asked with a mix of disdain and shock.

  “yes, but it's a lot more complicated than that.”

  “EXPLAIN YOURSELF!”

  “It's simple, you just have to die so I can inherit the throne. Our father was originally supposed to wear both rings, but I think “The divine father" will be pleased with this outcome anyway.”

  “What are y…” I tried to speak, but my blood suddenly ran cold as the space before us crack open, revealing an eye of divine light. It possessed a yellow pupil that seem to conceal infinite truths within it, but I didn't froze in fear for its overwhelming presence. I did because I recognized its owner.

  Odin, the all-father and supreme god of the pantheon of Valhalla.

  “Hail Odin, the all-father,” I hear Regin mutter these words as he suddenly kneels down.

  “Fafnir, second son of the king Hreidmar, for the sin of going against the gods will, you will face divine punishment."

  The moment I heard Odin talk, I felt like something inside me snapped.

  Odin not only caused thousands of deaths of innocent people because of war, ended up killing my brother Othir and my father Hreidmar because of your schemes, but now you dare to tell me to pay for my sin, which is going against the selfish gods will.

  WHAT KIND OF HIPOCRISY IS THIS?!

  Regin, You who chose to kneel before such a god, even though you are a member of the honorable Myrkheimr royal family, you are a much bigger coward than I thought.

  As to show my rage, black gold like mist began pouring out of my body, which seem to help regain my power to some extent.

  I immediately charged forward, pushing myself forward solely out of hatred, only to collide with the astonished Reign, who ended up losing his right arm in the collision, as my claws seem about to slash the giant divine eye. It quickly create a giant beam of light who pierce right through my body.

  “foolish,” I hear Odin speaking in a loud indifferent tone as I end up crashing to the floor, barely clinging to life. I can only watch helplessly as I began to lose consciousness without being able to avenge my people.

  Just as my soul is about to be dragged into the underworld, a golden light suddenly shines from the depths of my soul, which quickly takes the form of a mysterious golden rune, who, is connected to multiple lines of normal runes.

  At the same time, in the black ring on my finger, the same golden rune appears almost immediately after, but with slightly different rune lines.

  As if they were just waiting for this, they begin to connect the lines of runes along the dragon's body towards the other one.

  They eventually end up meeting in Fafnir dragon pitch-black heart and then begin to glow for a few seconds, only to disappear shortly after.

  MIDGARD, Continent of Aelyndor

  Forest of Valrest In the middle of the forest of Valrest, hidden in the base of a tall tree, there is a small lizard nest, and inside there is a bunch of eggs, while the rest of them are either rotten, broken, or both. One of them is slowly moving a little more each time and today will be the day it broke free.

  As the egg starts shaking violently, it slowly cracks open, and in the end a small black colored lizard with golden eyes comes out of it.

  “W-Where am i?” While I try removing the strange liquid from my body, as my mind start to wake up, a strange vision began filling my vision.