I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1199: Chaotic Mind

They moved forward again, side by side now, cutting deeper into the dunes as this level responded with relentless hostility. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

More monsters rose from the sand. Mummies, warped beasts stitched from curse and heat, and shapes that barely held form. They lunged forward at them.

The three of them met them with the same ferocity but more controlled mind. Fire, earth, and ice tearing the desert in overlapping waves.

Aesa fought with discipline now. She kept her breathing steady. She restrained her output. She forced her Magic into clean and controlled strikes.

But every kill still punished her.

Each time a monster died and its essence poured into her body, pain followed close behind. It was not just physical pain. But the weight of memory pressed into her chest.

The streets came back again. It was not faint or distant, but clear.

She saw the frozen stone beneath her feet, cracked by her own power. She heard screams. She felt the moment her ice pierced through bodies that still begged her to stop.

Her grip tightened around her Magic and mind.

"Focus. Breathe. Don’t let it in."

She shattered another monster, but the essence surged stronger than before, and the memory followed immediately.

She saw faces blurred together. Familiar voices screamed her name.

The pain spiked, and for a fraction of a second her frost flared brighter than she intended.

Erend noticed the way her aura stuttered, then corrected itself. He heaved a sigh of relief. He hated that Aesa had to endure this kind of torment.

His jaw tightened as he unleashed lightning through another cluster of enemies.

He also started to feel something tug at the edges of his focus, faint but insistent. A pressure behind his thoughts like something probing.

"So it really does attack the mind," he thought grimly. "If it can do this to Aesa then it can do this to me and Eccar as well."

Beside him, Eccar crushed a monster into the sand with a downward slam of earth. The impact should have ended it instantly. Instead, as the essence flooded into him, something cold slid through his chest.

Not cold like ice. But something cold like emptiness.

His hands stopped for a fraction of a second.

He frowned, annoyed at himself, and moved again. Stone spears erupting from the ground, impaling a line of advancing enemies. Another wave of essence surged into him.

And the pressure returned. This time it was stronger.

He gasped.

For the first time since entering this level, fear crept into him. It was not of the monsters or death, but of something he had buried so deeply that even Erend had never heard of it.

"No," he thought sharply. "Not that."

The desert around him blurred.

The heat faded, replaced by something familiar, and unbearable.

He stood in a world that still felt like home.

The sky was blue there. The air was warm and gentle. Stone houses lined the streets, and laughter echoed between them. He smelled cooked bread and fresh earth.

His child ran toward him. Their small arms flailing. They laughed as they called his name.

His wife stood behind them, smiling softly. Her eyes warm with trust.

Eccar’s chest tightened. He knew now that it was all just memories. Just like what happened to Aesa.

Then the sky darkened.

Thick and heavy black mist rolled in without warning, swallowing light. The laughter cut off. Sharp, panicked, and desperate screams followed.

The mist moved like something alive.

Shapes formed inside it. Eccar remembered the hundred limbs and eyes that watched without blinking.

People collapsed where they stood, bodies withering as the blackness passed through them. Buildings rotted in seconds. The ground cracked and bled shadow.

Eccar ran.

He ran through the mist, earth erupting around him as he tried to shield them, trying to fight that thing.

He reached his home too late.

His wife lay still, eyes empty, black veins crawling across her skin. His child... He couldn’t see them anymore.

The mist swallowed everything.

And then the world broke.

Eccar gasped and slammed his foot into the sand, earth exploding outward as he snapped back to the battlefield.

His breathing was uneven, fists clenched so hard stone cracked around them.

Another monster lunged at him.

He killed it instantly.

The essence hit him and the memory sharpened.

His jaw trembled.

"That wasn’t Zerathul," he realized with sick certainty. "That was a Chaos God."

The black mist. The formless hunger. The way the world had unraveled into desire and despair.

He remembered what he had done afterward.

He remembered tearing a path into the Chaos Realm itself. The place where the darkest desires of living beings shaped entire worlds. Where corruption was not an invasion, but the natural state of existence.

He had gone there because there was nowhere else to go.

Because everything he loved was already gone.

Eccar staggered as another wave of monsters approached, forcing himself to move on instinct.

Earth surged violently from beneath him, obliterating them, but his focus wavered.

Erend felt it then.

He turned sharply, eyes locking onto Eccar.

Eccar didn’t look back. His expression was tight, distant, and haunted.

Erend understood clearly now that this place wasn’t just amplifying power.

It was digging and dragging their worst moments to the surface and forcing them to fight while drowning in them.

Erend clenched his teeth and forced his attention inward. The next one could be him. He understood that clearly now. This place did not choose its victims by weakness of strength, but by the cracks hidden in the mind.

If he faltered even for a moment, everything would collapse. He had to worry about himself before worrying about them.

He trusted Aesa and Eccar. They were suffering, but they were enduring. He believed they would manage to control themselves.

What unsettled him was the realization that he did not think he carried wounds like theirs.

He had struggles, yes. Responsibility that never loosened its grip. But he had never watched everyone he loved die in front of him. He had always arrived in time. He had always made sure to protect them.

As they advanced, Erend fought with absolute stability. His lightning and fire struck clean and precise. He became an anchor without realizing it, the constant presence holding their formation together.

Aesa fought like an ice storm, frost flaring and receding as she forced control through pain.

Eccar’s earth power rose violently, crushing enemies with raw instinct before settling again under discipline.

They fought chaotically, but they fought on.

Step by step, monster by monster, they carved their way forward through the dunes. Despite the torment clawing at their minds they did not fall.

They pushed onward until the waves of the level finally began to thin, signaling that the end was close.

—