Chapter 90: Dragon Slayer.
[CONGRATULATIONS. YOU HAVE AWAKENED YOUR MYTH.]
The notification burned brighter than all the others, demanding attention like it was the only thing in the universe that mattered.
So, naturally, I decided to check it out first.
I knew what myths were... or at least, I thought I did.
Back then, I had always assumed it was just Noah’s fancy branding. His way of dressing up plain old "achievements" to make them sound grander than they actually were.
After all, the world already had the concept of achievements. Do something big—kill a monster no one else could or shatter some impossible wall—and you get a title for it.
And those titles were called Myths.
Getting one wasn’t just "hard." It was practically impossible. The kind of impossible where people spent lifetimes chasing the idea, only to die forgotten.
Only a handful of beings in the entire world had ever managed to claim such achievements.
Simple, right? A fancy badge for the impossible.
But turns out... maybe it was never that simple.
Maybe Myths weren’t just titles.
Maybe they were tied to ascension itself.
And maybe that’s why they were called myths because they marked the step between mortal and something more.
Or the Heavenly Principles just slapped the name on at random.
Who cares?
What actually mattered was that from the looks of it, I hadn’t just awakened one.
I had awakened at least two.
A system window flickered into existence before me and on it, listed neatly in shining letters were four achievements.
Each one blazed golden against the cold blue of the system window as if they were trying to blind me with their brilliance.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
<<The Myths >>
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ Dragon Slayer
Rank: Legendary
◈ The One Who Tricked Death.
Rank: Divine
◈ The One Who Scammed Hel.
Rank: Divine
◈ Holder of the Card Of Arcana
Rank: Eternal
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
My eyes widened as I read the names... and the ranks.
Holy shit.
Holy fucking shit.
That was all my brain could manage.
The Myths weren’t just random trophies.
They were divided into ranks.
Legendary rank ones were "common," if you could even call them that. Rare, yes, but still achievable by mortals.
Epic Rank ones were rarer. The kind you read about in epics and war songs, scattered through history as the shining deeds of heroes.
Divine Rank ones were different. Those were etched into legends themselves. Only a handful of beings across the vastness of the expanse had ever held them.
And then... Eternal.
Not just rare but sometimes one of a kind.
Only one holder at a time could exist of such achievement.
Their names were carved into the Heavenly Principles themselves, unable to be erased and their deeds never forgotten.
Across all of history, the number of Eternal Myths could be counted in thousands... maybe less.
At least that’s what was written in Noah’s novel and that’s how I adapted it in my game.
And now... I was staring at my name next to one.
For a second, I almost let myself bask in it. Almost.
But no. I forced the excitement down.
Because as glorious as Myths were—how much prestige they carried, how much advantage they gave their holders—they weren’t exactly free gifts.
Every Myth came with a price and some of those prices were steep.
So, I decided to start small with the first and lowest-ranked Myth on my list.
Dragon Slayer.
Now, this one sat on the "common" end of the scale.
People actually knew about it and ways to get it.
And sure, at first glance the name sounds straightforward enough.
Slay a dragon and get a Myth. Easy, right?
Yeah. No.
The world isn’t that generous.
This Myth didn’t hand itself out just because you stabbed some sickly wyrmling or beat down a half-blooded drake.
Nope. To earn it, you had to kill a dragon at least two or three ranks higher than you without direct help.
A creature so far out of your league it made the attempt suicidal by definition.
And the shocking part was that people in the past actually did it.
Back when there was no alliance.
Hell, there was even one famous family in the empire known for it.
They raised their children from birth with one goal drilled into their skulls, slay a dragon and earn the Myth.
And somehow... they pulled it off generations after generations.
It was so absurd, so utterly ridiculous, that the Myth itself ended up etched into their very bloodline like a curse or a blessing, depending on how you looked at it.
The result? Every one of them was born ridiculously strong against dragons.
Walking, breathing dragon-killers, stamped by history itself.
I couldn’t even begin to imagine how.
Naturally, when the Alliance with dragons was finally formed, that family was the first to burn.
The dragons demanded a price for the lives taken and the family paid it in full.
And the Human Empire made sure to ruin the family too, stripped them of name, land and glory. On paper, they were all massacred.
But of course... they left a single heir alive.
A "backup."
Because, of course, when the day came that dragons turned on them again, who better to call than the very dragon slayers they had destroyed?
And why did I know so much about some random dragon-slayer family?
Not because they were drilled into every noble academy’s history curriculum. No...
...but because the descendant of that "last surviving heir" was in Noxvalen.
Arthur Drakenhart.
And he was the one who killed Sylvie when she went berserk in the novel.
Fate really does have a sick sense of humor. It always knows how to converge, how to twist the knife right where it hurts.
The one who carried the legacy of hatred between two races... was the one who ended the life born from love between those very same races.
A smile curled on my face just thinking about it before... I remembered what I was doing.
Fuck. I went into overthinking mode again.
With those thoughts I focused on my first title as the details appeared before me.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ Dragon Slayer
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ Rank: Legendary
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ Description: To slay a dragon above your rank is to gain its strength, its fear... but to strike down one revered as a King among them is to bear their eternal hatred. Power tastes sweet yet every scale remembers.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ Effects:
✦ Slight increase in power against Dragons.
✦ Immunity to Dragon Fear.
✦ Dragons of equal or lower rank may feel unease in your presence.
✦ All Dragons will more easily harbor hatred or annoying toward you.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
The panel was clear, concise, and neatly arranged... like it had been put together by someone with a severe case of OCD.
And honestly, I liked it better this way.
The description was grand and poetic as it should be.
After all, killing a dragon wasn’t some weekend hobby. These were beings that could casually crush humans of the same rank without breaking a sweat.
So yeah, earning a Myth off their corpse deserved a little flair in the wording.
But then... something in that wording pulled my attention.
Fuck.
That bastard wasn’t just any dragon. He was a Dragon King.
Unlike normal dragons, only one King of each kind could exist at a time.
They were the pinnacle of their element, the crown of their lineage.
And judging by the flames he wielded... yeah.
He was probably the Dragon King of Fire Kind.
I remembered there was supposed to be a DragonKing who had mysteriously vanished centuries ago.
Now I knew where he went.
That damn Trickster had kidnapped him.
Still, I wasn’t cursing because of the hatred part.
I mean, come on. It didn’t matter if you killed a normal dragon or a Dragon King, hatred was part of the package deal.
Buy one corpse, get eternal enmity free.
No, I was cursing because I had just wasted a goddamn resource vault.
If only I had known that the bastard was a Dragon King, I would’ve taken a few seconds more of my time and killed him in his full Draconic form and farmed him for every legendary item he had tucked away.
The scales alone would’ve been priceless.
Perfect for forging armor. One for me and maybe one for Bearlo.
And with my fire affinity, it would’ve fit like destiny itself.
Sure, normal dragon scales were everywhere. You could buy thousands of suits made from them, since dragons traded them in the market in exchange for resources.
But Dragon King scales...
Yeah. Even asking to trade for those was considered blasphemy.
Fuck you, Fate.
Why did I have to suffer such a colossal loss?
Why couldn’t you just give me a hint, one tiny clue, so I could’ve prepared?
I would’ve died before wasting such resources...
...Okay, fine. Maybe that dying part was overkill.
With a regretful sigh, I dragged my eyes down to the effects.
The effects were... well, default as I had expected.
A bit of immunity, some power enhancement and the occasional hateful glare from dragons.
Nothing dramatic. Nothing world-shaking.
In fact, dragons wouldn’t even know I was a Dragon Slayer at all, unless, of course, we were talking about the big shots like the Dragon Kings.
Those bastards could sniff me out with sheer instinct alone.
So, as long as I steered clear of them, the "eternal hatred" part wasn’t much more than a mild annoyance.
With disappointment at my loss, I moved on to check my next title...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ The One Who Tricked Death
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
◈ Rank: Divine
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
As the details began to surface, I leaned in a little closer.
Alright, fate. Don’t let me down.
I was really hoping this one would come with some properly broken effect.
—
Author’s Note:
Now, if you’re wondering why Rael got the Myth even though Hel’s authority was involved. It’s because he claimed the authority by himself in the first place.