Legend & The Master

Time passed in the creepy silence as Arthur, who was now drenched in his sweat, had already covered quite a lot of distance.

Frustrated, Arthur was waving his hand with all of his strength in hopes of getting his hand on the letter. However, instead of the letter, his hand struck something else.

"Bam." With a throbbing pain and a dull sound, Arthur clenched his jaws to stop his scream that would have already echoed around the temple.

As he rolled on the floor like a pig in pain while holding his hand that was partially fractured, light entered his eyes.

"What?" Arthur shouted in fear while the light was spreading around the temple like a domino effect.

Arthur moved circularly after getting up as he could finally make sense of the temple and the hall he was in.

The walls appeared in his sight and the light was rising from inside the walls.

The walls formed the boundary of the temple while the inside was just one big hall, which didn't make sense now the hall was dimly lit.

"It isn't ending," Arthur said to himself as his eyes were staring ahead which went on forever.

Arthur pulled his gaze back and looked around him. Finally, his eyes went to the thing that had almost left him one-handed for life.

"What the phu-" Arthur fell on his back and had his mouth quivering in fear.

In the end, he was just a thirteen-year-old who was adventuring inside an abandoned temple in search of a letter.

In front of him was a gravestone and continuing it was a light black patch that didn't match the rest of the hall.

"Who the hell buried someone in the middle of the temple?" Arthur questioned as he barely got up from the ground.

He stared at the back side of the gravestone, which meant that there was a chance of seeing words on the other side of the stone.

"Gulp." With nervous steps, Arthur walked around and finally reached the front.

His eyes were stuck on the stone all this time and as a writing appeared in his sight, he was shocked.

(( Losmo Draegon, The Unyielding One ))

(( Emperor of Agrazeel Continent ))

The gravestone had eight sharp lines, reading the first two, Arthur fell on his knees by the sheer awe of the aura that the words possessed.

Arthur couldn't help but lower his head before he calmed his nerves.

"Draegon was considered to be a man from the greatest myths of the continent. But, this grave...how could it be?" Arthur trembled as though he had stepped on a secret that he didn't deserve to know.

Finding the letter had already been pushed to one of the ends of his mind.

He was at the grave of the Draegon. The man who conquered all the orders.

The man who united thousands of Kingdoms and became the first emperor of the Continent.

But, it was all a myth that was only spread around the continent to encourage and motivate the people of the continent to become great magicians and knights without setting a boundary for themselves.

Such a myth was not only rejected and hated by the seven orders but even the numerous empires which were now spread around the continent, refused it as a blatant lie.

But, neither the empires nor the seven orders could bend the people to their will as the myth of Draegon was spread throughout the continent as if it was air.

Especially when it came to the founding King of the Losmo Kingdom.

To honor Draegon and his myth, the first King of the Kingdom named it the 'Losmo' Kingdom.

And, now Arthur was on his knees next to the grave of a person who was part of the continent's mythical past.

Breathing deeply, Arthur hurriedly read the third line on the stone.

(( Losmo Draegon was a name that I came up with after arriving to this world ))

(( As an Earthling, I know, for sure that I am unrivaled when it comes to naming myself ))

"Draegon wasn't from this world? No wonder he was able to conquer the seven orders." Arthur wondered as he couldn't curb his curiosity.

A chapter unknown to any man was in front of him, thus his eyes kept going down.

(( Though as strong as I was, I couldn't return to Earth because of my Greed ))

"Earth!?" Arthur mumbled the name of the world that felt powerful on the tongue. 

(( But, as a man, I have done my duty by raising the population of this Continent ))

"Since he united the continent, he must be talking about the lives that he saved from dying," Arthur said but he didn't know that the mature him was still too young to understand the words of the unyielding emperor.

(( My only wish is that whoever is reading this, can break the stone and safely deliver my legacy to my descendants ))

Arthur gave a kowtow after reading the line and got up before lightly punching his chest.

"Don't worry Emperor, I will surely deliver your legacy to your descendants." Arthur didn't have greed in his eyes or his heart.

This was the grave of the emperor who till now only lived in myths. Anyone would have been eager to take the legacy of the strongest man in the history of the Agrazeel Continent for themselves. But not Arthur, as the ending of the gravestone moved his soul.

(( The Abandoned Noble Cyrus ))

Seeing the word abandoned, and finally knowing the identity of Emperor Draegon, Arthur felt an unknown pride in his heart.

"An abandoned one, from another World, but even then, he rose as the only one to ever unite the whole continent. He is the only one to whom even the orders bowed. His life is full of legends, to the point where everyone in the continent believes that Emperor Draegon is a myth. But here it is, his grave, and a stone engraved with his last words." Arthur talked subtly while wishing that the luck of the abandoned noble buried in front of him would rub on him.

"I am the only one who knows the truth. This knowledge regarding the Emperor Losmo Draegon, the resting place of his and his legacy, is greater than what any Kingdom could offer me." Arthur gained confidence in himself over this fateful encounter with possibly the last and the only eight lines by the unyielding emperor.

From the time of his birth till now, Arthur had hardly ever smiled sincerely but at the moment, unbeknownst to himself, Arthur was smiling.

It was because he felt connected to the life of Draegon who was abandoned even though Draegon was a noble back in his world.

Seeing as how the noble Cyrus ended up traveling across space and time, that being just the beginning of his legendary tale, Arthur was hopeful.

"Fate must have brought me here. I should learn from Emperor Draegon and be unyielding too." Arthur told himself and then his eyes went onto one of the lines left by Draegon.

It was the last wish of Draegon.

Draegon wanted someone to break his gravestone and safely deliver the legacy contained in it to his descendant.

Arthur who wanted to show his respect to a fellow abandoned one, nodded and clenched his fist.

Instantly his fist could be seen traveling at a speed that looked fast but was actually very slow as it made its way to land on the gravestone. But, Arthur had forgotten about a serious issue.

The stone was the same stone that had almost left him with a broken hand. Immersed in the life of Draegon, Arthur couldn't even feel the pain in his hand anymore.

"Boo~ Crack-"

"Agh-"

"Ahhh"

Arthur made a different sound after his fist landed on the gravestone.

While the stone was unfazed, Arthur could feel a crunchy sound rising from his fist.

"Damn it, Emperor." Arthur cried out with both of his hands in pain. His left had fallen to the rock before now it was his right hand that was throbbing like a naughty boy because of the same stone.

Though the pain couldn't rival his disappointment in his strength.

"Sorry, Ancestor. If only I wasn't trash, I would have done my best to fulfill your wish." Arthur hurriedly bowed while looking dejected with his head hanging down.

As his excitement vanished with a crushing defeat from a stone no less, Arthur remembered why he had entered the temple.

"The letter!?" Arthur walked past the grave and gazed around to look for the letter.

Each of his steps took him deeper into the endless abyss of the temple hall.

Thirty minutes later.

Arthur stopped in his tracks.

What looked endless wasn't as endless as he thought.

"The letter," Arthur said with an excited look. Finally, the letter was in his sight. But, he wasn't sure if he was ready to get it back.

The moment his eyes landed on the letter that seemed to be floating 20 meter above the ground, a structure slowly formed around the letter.

A giant stone statue came into Arthurs sight and everything happened so fast that Arthur was confused if the statue was already there. The statue alone was at least forty meters tall, that too when it was sitting on a throne.

Seeing the giant statue clearly, Arthur was spooked.

"Such a big statue should have been visible from the grave, but why did it appear suddenly?" Arthur didn't know when his mind started registering the existence of the statue but that was what made this moment so increasingly mysterious for him.

The throne was also made of stone but there were cracks in it.

Arthur couldn't give a damn about the throne. It was the statue that he had a problem with.

The statue had its face down completely, so Arthur couldn't see much of its face. As, for its hands, each of the statues' hands was holding a staff. Both of the staff had the same base, that is, a long rod.

One had a round end. The other one had a rectangular end. But, both staffs were covered with dirt so Arthur could only make out the shapes of the two staffs.

"Everything's fine...but why is the letter on the edge of its lap?" Arthur mumbled as he stepped towards the giant stone statue.

Arthur who was looking at the letter that was visible from afar and almost at a twenty-meter height, didn't know what was going on around him.

The space was enclosed, the gate through which he had entered the temple was already a a few tens of meters behind him. Next to the gate was the grave of the emperor Draegon.

If only Arthur had turned around he would have fainted since it took him thirty minutes to reach here from the grave, it would be stunning to see the same grave behind him.

Soon, Arthur unknowing of the shrinking of the space, reached the foot of the throne and the statue.

His head tilted up, his eyes slowly reaching the statues face and finally the moment came. The moment his eyes fell on the face of the statue, his heart skipped a beat.

The face was chiseled as if it was the face of a warrior but the features were horrifying. Beneath the widely opened dark eyes, there was an evil grin that almost pulled Arthur's soul.

The grin, the round open eyes that were deeper than a darkest depth of an ocean, everything combined to make a peculiarly strange yet horrific moment for Arthur.

And, then suddenly the hardened lips that were forming a grin, opened up.

"So, This Master Was Awakened By A Trash." The statue spoke through its evil grin.

The words were sharp enough to awaken Arthur who was shockstruck.

His face reddened as he took a step back.

"I'm the trash, but how did the statue know that?" Arthur mumbled while feeling an unexplainable embarrassment.