I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1300: Enter The Tunnels

The last fragments of shattered sigils faded from the sky, and the violent storm of Magic finally began to collapse.

The thunder of explosions slowly died away, leaving behind drifting dust and broken stone scattered across the domain.

What had once been the old man’s carefully controlled battlefield now looked like a land that had survived a natural disaster. Deep fractures ran across the ground. Jagged pillars of earth still stood like broken spears rising from the terrain.

The old man did not move. He simply stared.

For the first time since this confrontation began, awe crept into his expression. Not only that, but he also felt fear.

His eyes remained fixed on Eccar while opened wide and no longer sharp with the same cold hostility as before. The hostility had not disappeared, but caution had forced its way beside it now.

He had expected resistance and mysterious power. But he had never expected something like this.

Eccar had destroyed his sigils. Not sealed them, or countered them with opposing Magic. Not redirected them like what he had seen his opponents did.

He destroyed them.

The old man had fought countless battles during his long life. He had faced Mages who specialized in breaking spells, priests who purified curses, and warriors who could endure storms of Magic long enough to reach him.

His sigils had been neutralized before in many different ways. But they had never been broken like this, punctured and shattered by something so simple. The attack of earth spears.

Brutal. Direct. Effective.

The simplicity of it unsettled him more than anything else.

His gaze shifted slightly as Eccar continued walking toward him.

He saw the traveler from another world move through the ruined battlefield with the same relaxed posture as before. His shoulders remained loose. His expression stayed calm, almost casual, as if the destruction around them meant very little to him.

That calmness made the old man even more uneasy.

He had already realized something earlier, but now the certainty became unavoidable.

This man’s strength far surpassed anything he had witnessed before.

The golden glow in Eccar’s eyes still burned faintly. Those vertical pupils watched him without urgency, yet the pressure they carried made the old man feel as if an ancient predator had quietly entered his territory.

Eccar eventually stopped several steps away from him.

"Still want to fight?" he asked.

The question sounded almost casual.

But the old man did not answer immediately.

His thoughts moved rapidly behind his widened eyes. The destruction around him spoke louder than any calculation he could make. The shattered sigils, the broken terrain, the effortless way Eccar had advanced through his domain, all of it pointed toward the same conclusion.

Continuing this battle would not protect the domain and instead would destroy it . More importantly, it might destroy him as well.

The old man sighed. The tension in his shoulders loosened slightly as the decision formed clearly in his mind.

Attacking this being any further would be foolish.

His gaze steadied again, even though his caution remained far stronger than before.

"What exactly do you want?" he finally asked.

"I just want to look at the Sky Anchor," Eccar said.

Hearing those words, the old man’s expression changed instantly. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶

He was shocked at first. Then anger comes next.

His eyes widened sharply as he stared at Eccar, the calm face of the traveler suddenly becoming far more unsettling than before.

"You..." the old man said slowly. His voice carried disbelief. "A being from another world... already knows about it?"

The tension in the air thickened again, though the old man no longer raised his hands to attack. Instead, his gaze sharpened with a mixture of confusion and suspicion.

"You even called it by its name." His jaw tightened slightly. "The Sky Anchor."

For thousands of years, that object had remained inside this building under strict protection. It had fallen from the sky long before the current civilizations of this world were even formed. The ancient records described a burning star descending from the sky and crashing into the earth with a power that reshaped the land.

That falling object had changed everything. From it, their ancestors discovered the existence of Magic.

Entire schools of Magic had been created because of the strange energy surrounding the Sky Anchor. Their civilization had slowly built its understanding of internal cultivation, sigils, and spirit binding from studying the fragments of knowledge left behind by that mysterious relic.

And yet, despite thousands of years of research... No one truly understood what it was. Not even the ancient founders of their Magical traditions.

Those ancestors had witnessed the moment it fell from the sky with their own eyes but even they had never managed to discover its true nature. They only knew that it was not something that belonged to their world.

It had come from somewhere else.

The old man himself had always remained curious about it.

That curiosity was one of the reasons he had accepted the duty of guarding this place. While others treated the Sky Anchor as a sacred relic or a dangerous artifact, he had always hoped that one day someone might uncover the truth behind it.

Now a being from another world stood before him... and spoke its name so casually.

The old man could not stop the thought forming in his mind. Maybe this being knew something. Maybe he knew where it truly came from.

Eccar watched the old man’s changing expression carefully. He saw surprise had appeared first, then anger, and now something else had begun to surface behind the old man’s eyes, like a strange longing.

Eccar did not understand it.

The old man looked at him again, and this time the hostility in his gaze weakened slightly. Instead, desperation replaced it.

"Do you know...?" the old man asked slowly. His voice carried a strange weight now. "Do you know the origin of the Sky Anchor?"

Eccar sighed quietly. He already expected that question.

"I might," he answered.

The old man leaned forward slightly, his eyes burning with a sudden intensity.

"Then tell me."

Eccar shook his head. "I can’t."

The words fell simply, but they struck the old man like a heavy blow.

"Why not?" the old man asked quickly. There was clear desperation in his voice now. "If you know something about it, why can’t you say it?"

"It’s not my authority to reveal that." Eccar sighed softly.

Inside his mind, a different thought moved quietly.

He did not know what consequences might unfold if he revealed the truth. The Sky Anchor might be one of the missing Creations of the Void Architect. If that was correct, its existence could affect far more than just this world.

Revealing that kind of knowledge recklessly could cause unpredictable reactions.

Entire civilizations might begin searching for something they were never meant to find.

Eccar preferred to avoid that problem. He looked at the old man again.

"So," he said calmly, "can I see it or not?"

The old man stared at him silently.

A helpless expression slowly appeared on his face as the situation settled clearly in his mind.

"What if I refuse to permit it?" he asked.

Eccar tilted his head slightly. "Then I’ll just need to be a little more... persuasive."

The meaning behind those words was perfectly clear.

The old man understood it immediately.

More persuasive meant continuing the fight.

It meant Eccar beating him until he no longer had the strength to resist.

The old man closed his eyes for a moment. Then he sighed helplessly. His eyes closed as if he tried to push away the weight of the decision he had just made.

He opened his eyes then lifted one hand slowly. The air around them trembled and the vast battlefield created by his domain began to collapse.

Within moments, the ruined landscape vanished completely. The two of them stood once again inside the underground chamber.

The old man turned his back without another word.

"Follow me," he said.

Eccar stepped forward.

The old man walked toward a narrow passage carved into the stone wall at the far end of the chamber. The tunnel stretched into darkness, its ceiling low and its walls rough from ancient construction. The faint glow of lanterns placed far apart provided just enough light to guide their path.

Eccar followed behind him at an unhurried pace.

They walked for several minutes before the old man finally stopped in front of a solid stone wall that looked no different from the rest of the tunnel. Without hesitation, he raised his hand and pressed his palm against the surface.

A faint wave of Magic spread outward from his hand.

Low grinding sounds echoed through the tunnel as hidden mechanisms awakened inside the stone. The wall opened. Another tunnel revealed itself beyond it, darker and even narrower than the first.

The old man stepped through without hesitation. Eccar followed.

They continued walking again, the path stretching deeper into the underground structure.

After several minutes, Eccar glanced ahead at the seemingly endless corridor.

"This way is pretty long," he said casually.

The old man did not slow his steps. "It’s necessary."

"Necessary for what?" Eccar asked.

The old man answered without turning around. "Protection."

"For the Sky Anchor?"

The old man shook his head slightly.

"More for the world outside."

His voice carried a quiet seriousness.

"The Sky Anchor releases energy continuously. Most people cannot sense it clearly, but the land and living things can. If it were placed close to the surface, its influence would slowly spread and distort the surrounding environment."

Eccar listened silently as they walked.

The old man continued.

"These tunnels and barriers were built long ago to contain that influence. It helps reduce the effect."

Eccar nodded faintly.

"So it really is spreading corruption," he thought.

That only strengthened the possibility forming in his mind.

If the Sky Anchor truly was one of the lost Creations of the Void Architect, then the energy leaking from it was not simply Magic that benefitted the land.

—