I Received System to Become Dragonborn
Chapter 896 - 896: Memories

The eldest cultist stumbled back, barely keeping his footing as Erend crashed into him. Fire from his body exploding outward in a wave of abnormal heat.

The ground hissed beneath Erend's feet. The cultist roared and stabbed his staff into the earth with gritted teeth.

The soil cracked open immediately.

Barbed roots that thick as arms and writhing like serpents burst forth. They coiled around Erend, trying to drag him down—but the Dragonborn's fire only flared brighter.

His crimson flames turned black at the edges, burning hotter than ever as he tore through the vines with a sweeping arc of his arm. They writhed and shrieked as they withered to ash.

But the cultist wasn't done.

With a guttural chant, he slammed his palm onto the earth. From the gash in the ground, something clawed its way out, something unnatural that Erend had seen and killed a while ago was appearing again.

A pale, six-limbed beast with skin like barkless wood and jaws filled with needle-like teeth appear. Its eyes were hollow pits, and its body pulsed with a grey aura, like and animal's soul that had been twisted into this creature.

It leapt at Erend with terrifying speed.

Erend didn't flinch. He ducked low, letting the beast soar overhead, then turned sharply and unleashed a torrent of black-crimson fire at it.

The flames caught the creature mid-air, engulfing it in a cyclone of heat. It let out a high, broken sound of scream before crashing to the ground in a smoldering heap.

More beasts followed the first one to appear. First was only two, and now four, then six appear.

The cultist bellowed as he raised his staff to the sky. Vines exploded around him, creating a dome of forest Magic bristling with spikes, thorns, and glowing fungal growths.

The summoned monsters circled Erend like wolves.

But Erend was done playing.

He slammed both fists into the earth. Crimson fire raced out in jagged lines, splitting the ground open in molten cracks.

Flames erupted in pillars and devouring the beasts one by one until nothing was left but charred husks. He done it in matter of seconds.

The cultist screamed in rage and launched forward. Then he send his vines lashing like whips but Erend charged straight through them.

They struck his scales and ignited on contact and then just gone into sparks. A moment later he was already in front of him. His fist, wreathed in fire, met the cultist's staff.

BOOM!

The explosion lit up the field like a second sun.

The explosion ripped through the world like a scream from the gods themselves.

Erend's fist, wrapped in black-crimson fire, met the green-glowing staff in a single devastating strike and the moment they collided, everything vanished in light and force.

A shockwave erupted outward, flattening trees like paper, tearing vines from the ground, and disintegrating the area of the forest.

The air cracked with corrupted Magic. The earth split apart wide. A thunderous roar shattered through the sky.

The once dense and alive forest was now leveled in a smoking ruin. A massive crater carved itself into the ground where Erend and the cultist once stood, like a yawning abyss lined with broken roots and charred stone.

Erend was thrown back. His body slammed against a jagged outcrop with terrifying force. He fell to one knee with his chest heaving. Fire still licking across his shoulders and his eyes wide with more than just pain.

He felt it.

Not just the force of the explosion but something deeper. Something that clawed at his soul.

He feels like his Dragonfire had struck something ancient. Something that carried not just powe but memory. But this was not his own memories.

For a moment, Erend felt a flash of something that couldn't be his memories. A dense, eternal forest under a blood-red sky. A roar that wasn't his voice, but came from his own throat.

A great beast of bark and bone screaming in rage as it was burned alive by a Dragonborn's fire. This was not this battle. Not this forest. This was in another time and another life.

The name whispered through his mind like smoke through branches.

"Tar'Zhul-vekar…"

Was this the name of forest god truly one of the old foes the Dragonborn once faced? Had his soul carried this hatred across lifetimes and then arrived at him at this moment when he fought that woshippers?

Erend's heart pounded as the echoes faded. The storm of power still churned through the broken forest, wind whipping ash and embers in every direction.

But there was no sign of the cultist.

Only the smoldering crater remained, and the sound of the forest trembling in the aftermath.

---

Meanwhile, deep inside the heart of the temple chamber Annette, Selene, and Esther stood shoulder to shoulder before the sealed gate.

Their faces pale, breaths ragged. The barrier of luminous runes they had held for what felt like an eternity now flickered and dimmed like a dying flame.

The monstrous force pressing against it was relentless.

Thick tendrils of black and green energy writhing with unnatural hunger smashed again and again into the barrier.

They were like the very Will of a sleeping god stretching out from its nightmare.

Selene raised her hand and sent a blast of a flame at one of the tendrils. Her lips parted in a desperate cry. But the flame sputtered weak, barely a spark compared to her usual fire.

The tendril recoiled for a breath, then surged forward again stronger than before.

"We're out…" Esther said, her voice hoarse, one hand clutching her staff like a crutch. "I can't draw anymore Magic energy. I can't…"

Annette's hands trembled as she poured what remained of her own power into the weakening barrier. Her eyes were burning with tears.

"It's not enough," she said. "We're not enough."

A thunderous crack split the chamber.

The barrier's surface fractured like glass.

"No!" Selene screamed, but her voice was drowned by the howl of surging energy.

The tendrils struck once more and the barrier shattered in a rain of glowing shards. The chamber was filled with a thunderous wail, as if the world beyond the gate was breathing in for the first time.

The shockwave hurled the three of them backward.

Annette slammed against a broken pillar, the wind knocked from her lungs. Selene crashed onto the stone floor, clutching her ribs. Esther landed hard and rolled, groaning as she came to a stop beside a shattered altar.

Darkness poured from the gate now. The tendrils whipped across the room like serpents and behind them came the slow rise of a vast shape. The thing behind the circle wasn't fully here but its influence already was.

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