I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1207: Gathered

They searched without rushing too much despite every step carrying pressure because they need to go to level 60 as soon as possible.

The ruined city stretched around them like a preserved wound. Its silence pressed harder the longer they remained inside it as if they could still feel the souls that were living in this place a long time ago.

Wind moved through broken arches and hollow streets, but nothing else responded. No creatures watched them. No traps sprang.

Erend now moved through open plazas and collapsed courtyards where the ground dipped unevenly, as if the earth itself had sagged under unbearable weight.

He brushed sand from stone reliefs carved directly into the flooring.

Once again he saw Dragons appearing again and again, not depicted in fury, but in certain posture like standing, watching, or anchoring.

The figures of worshippers were carved beneath them, arranged in disciplined lines rather than chaotic battle.

"Was this a worship ceremony?" he thought, fingers tracing a worn symbol that repeated across three different sites. "No, this looks like a structure of command or something. I still don’t know."

Near a fractured dais, he uncovered a series of etched circles layered atop one another, each ring marked with variations of the same insignia.

The carvings grew shallower toward the center, as if whoever made them had weakened over time. He stared at it longer than necessary.

"Why record this here... why leave it where anyone could see? Is the person recording this making all of this after the disaster, to be found by us?"

In the other place, Aesa explored enclosed spaces where ceilings had collapsed inward, leaving jagged openings that let pale light spill across the stone.

She followed long corridors where walls were lined with names. There were hundreds of them.

Some were carved carefully. Others were rushed, crooked, and uneven.

Her steps slowed as she noticed where the names ended.

The stone beyond those points have no inscriptions, only deep fractures and clawed grooves torn through the wall itself.

She pressed her palm against one gouge, feeling how the stone had warped.

"These weren’t erased," she thought. "They stopped."

In one chamber, she found shattered crystal tablets scattered across the floor.

Whatever Magic once lingered inside them had long since dissipated, but the fragments still hummed faintly beneath her touch.

She gathered several pieces together, aligning broken symbols that repeated elsewhere in the city.

"Records again," she realized. "Everything here was recorded. Even what they knew they might lose. What was going on here?"

Meanwhile, Eccar climbed higher, drawn toward what remained of towers that once overlooked the entire city.

He moved carefully through warped staircases and fractured platforms, his weight testing stone that had not been disturbed in ages.

Embedded into the walls were armor plates, partially melted, fused directly into the structure as if blasted there by immense heat.

He paused at one. And brushing his fingers on the scorched metal.

"No scavenger would leave this," he thought. "This wasn’t the aftermath of maybe a war. This was abandonment. They just left this place after making the murals and records."

Higher still, he discovered weapons lodged into stone. Spears snapped in half, blades bent beyond repair. None were arranged. They looked discarded, dropped where their wielders had fallen or fled.

At the highest intact platform, a relief stretched across a broken wall.

A fully formed Dragon dominated the carving, wings partially folded, its body angled away from the city below.

The figures beneath it did not kneel. They stood, looking upward, as if... uncertain.

Eccar felt a knot tighten in his chest.

"Turning away... or leaving?"

They regrouped only briefly, sharing fragments without lingering. Each piece added weight but not clarity.

Eccar felt like he grabbed some meaning like protection appeared beside control, or tyranny. Order beside fear. Care beside the distance they put between them and the Dragon.

The city had not been ruled by chaos, nor crushed by sudden annihilation. It had strained and endured problems. Then it had failed.

As they continued searching, the feeling grew stronger. They didn’t feel any danger, but the feeling like there was hidden meaning beneath all this.

"But we’re not here to finish this, right?" Erend thought as he moved on with helpless feeling. "We just need to understand enough to move forward."

They carried the symbols, impressions, and unanswered questions and gathered again. But the truth remained incomplete.

They gathered again at the center of what had once been a wide intersection. When they looked at one another, none of them needed to speak to know the same realization had settled in.

Whatever this place had been, they were only seeing fragments of it. The full picture remained out of reach.

They shared what they had found, laying the pieces together through gestures and explanations.

From Erend’s search came the repeated imagery of Dragons positioned not as destroyers, but as anchors of authority. The carvings suggested hierarchy, discipline, and intent.

The etched circles near the fractured dais hinted at systems of order that weakened over time, as if the people recording them had struggled to finish their work. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

Everything pointed toward records made after a great collapse, deliberately left behind rather than hidden.

Aesa’s findings filled in another layer. The corridors of names showed care, remembrance, and loss. The abrupt ending of the inscriptions, followed by violence carved directly into stone, suggested lives cut short or abruptly removed from history.

The shattered crystal tablets reinforced the idea that knowledge here had been preserved as long as possible, even when those preserving it knew they would not endure.

Eccar’s discoveries added weight and more unease. The fused armor and discarded weapons told a story of withdrawal rather than defeat. There was no sign of looting or reclamation.

The final relief of the Dragon turning away from the city carried an ambiguity none of them could ignore.

It was neither triumphant nor wrathful. It was distant.

As they stood there, thoughts began to align.

Maybe, the city had not fallen in chaos. It had been governed, structured, and watched over by the Dragon.

Yet that same structure might have become a burden. Protection and control seemed inseparable here, and it was impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.

The Dragons had not been worshipped blindly, but neither had they been equals. There had been reliance, and with it, fear of what would happen if that reliance failed.

The absence of battle scars on a grand scale suggested the end did not come suddenly.

This place had endured strain, perhaps conflict of belief or purpose, before finally being abandoned.

The people had chosen to leave records instead of resistance, memory instead of survival.

And still, gaps remained everywhere.

Why the Dragons turned away. Why the Dragonborn stood beside them rather than above or below.

Why this world, of all places, had been replicated inside a Dungeon. And why this knowledge was being revealed now, at this level.

They came to a conclusion then. This was not a lesson meant to be completed in one visit. It was like a warning.

Then the black double door appeared not far from them. As if saying that they had understood enough for now.

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