I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1205: City

Level 57 of the Dungeon.

Darkness peeled away from their senses and heat returned first. Erend felt sand beneath his feet again, warmer and finer than before, packed hard by time and wind.

When his vision cleared, he realized they were no longer standing on the outskirts of the ruins. They stood inside them.

Level 57 opened into the heart of a ruined city that they saw from level 56.

They saw broken streets with stone bodies cracked and hollowed stretched between leaning structures, yet unmistakably shaped by deliberate hands. Towers had collapsed inward, leaving jagged ribs of masonry exposed to the sky. Archways stood half-buried in sand with curves that were worn smooth by centuries of erosion.

The desert had not swallowed this place entirely. It had merely claimed it slowly.

"This isn’t just rubble." Aesa said.

Eccar turned in a slow circle, his eyes scanning rooftops, windows, shadows. His body stayed tense and ready to react. He said. "Yeah. This looks like... a city."

Erend nodded. His eyes drew down a wide avenue where stone tiles still formed a recognizable road beneath drifting sand.

"This is a lost civilization," he said.

Aesa walked closer to a cracked wall, brushing sand aside with her boot. Symbols etched into the stone emerged faintly.

"You think it actually existed?" she asked. "Not something the Dungeon stitched together?"

"I think it’s possible," Erend replied. "These details are too consistent. Too... lived in."

They waited.

Seconds passed. Then a full minute.

No chanting and curses rose from the ruins. No shadows detached themselves from walls. No tremor signaled a monster’s arrival. The silence felt heavier than battle.

Eccar frowned. "I don’t like this."

"Neither do I," Aesa said. Her Magic stirred just beneath her skin and ready.

"Stay alert," Erend said. "But if something was going to rush us immediately, it would’ve done so already. What happened now?"

They advanced carefully, footsteps muted by sand.

Erend chose a partially intact building near the main street. Its outer walls leaned, and its doorway remained mostly clear.

Inside, the air felt a little bit cooler.

Broken furniture lay scattered across the floor, reduced to brittle fragments. Shelves lined one wall. In the corner, half-buried beneath debris, Erend spotted something that made him stop.

He crouched and brushed sand away. It was a carefully shaped ceramic shard.

"People lived here," Erend muttered.

Aesa knelt beside him and picked up a thin metal band, tarnished but intact.

"These are personal items belonging to people," she murmured.

They searched deeper.

In another building they found remnants of bedding, long since rotted away but still recognizable by its frame.

In another they found a mural carved into stone, depicting figures gathered around a central symbol now worn beyond recognition.

Everywhere they went, signs repeated themselves. They saw a civilization that had been erased.

Eccar leaned against a cracked pillar and shook his head.

"So what," he said, "this level wants us to... study it?"

"That’s what doesn’t fit," Erend said with a troubled face.

Aesa looked at him. "Dungeon Worlds don’t do this, do they?"

"No," Erend agreed. "We’ve only ever entered them in an area. Fight monsters and grow stronger. Nothing more."

Eccar crossed his arms, eyes narrowing. "But this run feels different, right? I can’t explain it, but it doesn’t feel like before."

Erend did not answer immediately.

Zerathul’s shadow lingered at the back of his thoughts, but that explanation alone felt incomplete.

The deeper they went, the more intentional everything seemed. As if the Dungeon World was not merely testing their strength anymore.

Maybe it was watching what they noticed.

Maybe it wanted him to understand something.

He looked out across the ruined city, at streets that once carried voices and lives now erased. A thought settled in his mind, heavy and unsettling.

Perhaps at higher levels, killing was no longer the only measure.

Perhaps there was something here he was meant to find.

"We keep searching," Erend said at last. "Anything that might be useful. But stay wary of monsters."

Eccar nodded. "Got it."

"I think we should split up, but stay within reach," Aesa said.

They all agreed and separated, moving between structures with caution.

Erend moved alone through the narrow streets. He passed collapsed homes, storage rooms filled with shattered jars, and courtyards where worn stone benches.

He checked every shadow, expecting movement, or anything. But nothing answered him. No monsters or traps activated.

The city remained silent.

He entered another structure that looked larger than the rest. Its ceiling had partially caved in, letting pale light spill across the floor.

The air inside felt different. Along the inner walls, stone panels stretched from floor to ceiling.

Erend slowed.

He brushed sand away with his hand.

Images emerged.

They were Elves, or something close to them, kneeling in rows. Their hands were raised and their heads bowed. At the center of the carving loomed a massive shape that dominated the entire mural. A colossal being with wings spread wide, scales layered like armor, and a long serpentine neck that curved toward the worshippers below.

It was a Dragon.

Not a symbol or a stylized beast. This one was detailed with reverence and fear, every scale etched with precision. Its eyes were carved deeper than the rest, giving them an unsettling sense of awareness.

Erend’s brow furrowed.

He moved along the mural and saw more scenes. Offerings placed at stone altars and priests standing beneath the Dragon’s shadow.

Cities thriving beneath its wings. Then, further along, the tone changed.

Flames carved into the stone and the figures fleeing. Buildings were collapsing.

The Dragon remained above it all, unchanged, neither cruel nor merciful.

"What the hell is this?" Erend muttered under his breath.

He felt an uneasy pull in his chest, something between recognition and warning.

"A Dragon worshipped as a ruler here?" he thought.

It looks like this city has not simply fallen. It had been abandoned, erased, or judged by the Dragon they worshipped.

Erend stepped back from the mural, his eyes lingering on the Dragon’s gaze. Whatever this place had been, it had revolved around that being.

The silence pressed closer to him, heavier than before, as if the city waited to see whether he understood.

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