I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1247: Realization

King Gulben saw his chance and he did not intend to let it slip away. He surged forward without hesitation, moving like a living embodiment of his crown, like the true king that he is.

Dense and radiant golden light erupted from his body, wrapping him in the full authority of his Magic.

His sword blazed the same golden color, its edge burning with condensed power as if the weapon itself recognized the moment.

He tore through the fractured sky, forcing his way past drifting debris and collapsing shockwaves. Broken fragments of space slid aside under his advance, and warped air screamed as he cut through it.

Behind him, the others followed.

Arty accelerated hard, her Magic flaring as she pushed herself to keep pace. Adrien and Billy flew beside her, battered but unyielding, their eyes locked forward.

Adrius and Lysander advanced together, their power steady and deliberate. Aerchon followed close behind, his gaze fixed on his father’s back, pride filling his chest as he watched King Gulben lead the charge without fear.

Saeldir moved with them, eyes narrowed in focus, respect was clear in his expression as he followed the golden figure carving a path through chaos.

There was no army. Only them. But they were following their king with the same intention and purpose of an army.

Above, Eccar saw the fighters closing in.

He reacted instantly. The crushing pressure of his Earth Dragon power eased and the force pulled back just enough to avoid catching the advancing allies.

Aesa also saw it and did the same thing as him at the same moment, her ice torrent thinning and redirecting without a word exchanged.

They did not need to speak because they already knew what to do.

However, Khepra Ankh did not slow.

His white light continued to surge forward with its severance power precise and absolute. It did not touch the approaching fighters, flowing around them instead, focused solely on Zerathul.

Necrotic radiance peeled away under its advance, erased rather than broken.

Zerathul reeled.

Inside him, Krono’s awakened soul lashed violently, tearing at his control every time he tried to reassert dominance.

His time power stuttered, refusing to answer cleanly. Necrotic light flared and collapsed in uneven pulses.

Then the attacks came.

Golden arcs of Magic burst from King Gulben’s sword, slamming into Zerathul’s body with devastating force.

Arty followed, her elemental power striking like a spear of condensed fury. Adrien unleashed his Magic in a focused blast, while Billy poured everything he had into raw destructive output with teeth clenched as he forced it forward.

Adrius and Lysander attacked together, their Magic interlocking as it struck.

Saeldir released precise cutting bursts, threading them into the gaps Zerathul could no longer seal.

Zerathul tried to respond. But he failed.

His focus remained trapped inside himself, locked in a brutal internal struggle against Krono’s resisting soul.

Every attempt to block the incoming Magic fractured under interference. Time power refused to bend properly and the necrotic barriers formed too late or shattered instantly.

Attack after attack slammed into him.

His body convulsed under the combined assault, necrotic light tearing loose in violent flares as his scream ripped free once more, raw and uncontrolled.

He was no longer dictating the battle. Zerathul felt his power slipping away.

Not draining all at once, not torn from him in a single violent rupture, but leaking out through countless fractures he could no longer seal.

Every pulse of necrotic light came weaker than the last, every attempt to assert dominance answered with resistance, disruption, and pain.

Fear took root in his heart. Not anger, or fury. But true fear.

It crept into him, as he saw a realization too large to deny, spreading through his consciousness until it drowned out everything else.

This was the first time since he began acting after obtaining the Void Herald’s system power eons ago that he truly felt it.

Back then, the system had made him untouchable.

It let him grow endlessly. Adapt endlessly. Consume endlessly. Every battle fed him, every enemy sharpened him.

He rose from conflict after conflict in various worlds until nothing could threaten him anymore. Or so he believed.

That belief hardened into arrogance.

He had achieved so much that the idea that anyone could defeat him became absurd. No one could challenge him. No one could even reach him. Gods died, worlds broke, and still he advanced.

He convinced himself that invincibility was not a goal anymore, but a fact.

And now that lie was shattered.

Because there was one enemy who wielded system power as well.

Not a derivative or a stolen fragment.

The True System power.

And it opposed him.

The realization struck him hard.

Inside him, Krono’s soul continued to resist, its presence resonating against the stolen time authority, disrupting every attempt Zerathul made to regain control.

And beyond that, beyond the internal rebellion, there was the one he should have erased long ago.

The Dragonborn with the system.

"I should have killed him the first time I saw him..."

The thought cut through him.

He remembered that moment clearly. The weakness, potential, and the unfamiliar resonance of True System power.

He could have ended it then. A single decisive act that became a clean erasure.

But he chose not to.

He wanted to toy with him.

He wanted to break him slowly, to use his own power to destroy everything around him while he still lived.

To let him watch the collapse of hope, the deaths of his allies, and the unraveling of his purpose.

Only after that man drowned in suffering would Zerathul take the True System power for himself.

That was the plan.

That would have been the greatest achievement of his existence.

Once he claimed it, he would no longer be merely an evolving being. He would ascend beyond limitation entirely.

He would become a true god.

And yet, what was happening now?

Why had the battlefield turned against him so completely? Why did the system he trusted, the power that never failed him before, now stutter and fracture under pressure?

Why did time power that he thought he had mastered resist him? Why did his dominion collapse when challenged?

Zerathul’s necrotic light flared again, unstable and erratic, as another wave of attacks slammed into him.

Pain ripped through his body, this was real and undeniable pain.

For the first time in eons, he understood the truth he had ignored.

He had mistaken endless growth for absolute supremacy.

And now, surrounded by enemies, betrayed by his stolen power, hunted by a True System he failed to erase, Zerathul faced a reality he never prepared for.

He was not invincible.

The fear that realization brought was far worse than pain.

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