17 Chapter 16: A glimmer of hope.

Rigel gasped as he sat up, and he noticed he was in the cathedral. He realized Lysara'elmaris was sitting on a giant boulder, crossing her legs with her chin resting on her palm. They both were staring at each other without saying a single word.

"That was entertaining, but the ending was quite disappointing," Lysara'elmaris said as her body turned into black smoke the black smoke moved to the floor and she appeared from it. "Was that on purpose? Or perhaps you miscalculated the outcome?" she asked with curiosity.

"You're expecting me to be able to fight that thing with my current strength? That's impossible even if I tried my best," Rigel answered. "I did miscalculate it, but now I know what to do," he added.

Lysara'elmaris tilted her head and took a moment to look at Rigel's face.

"Close your eyes..." Lysara'elmaris approached Rigel.

Rigel closed his eyes, and something pierced through his chest like last time. He wanted to see what Lysara'elmaris was doing to his body, but he didn't want to take the risk.

"If you did something stupid like that, I'm warning you that I might not need you anymore and won't bring you back to life," Lysara'elmaris looked down at Rigel. "Do you understand?" She asked coldly.

"I understand, and I'm not going to make the same mistake again," Rigel nodded and he could feel the sharp gaze pointing at him.

Rigel suddenly felt dizzy like he was floating and spinning slowly in an empty space. When he opened his eyes, he heard gunshots and explosions around him. He realized he had come back to life, and when he looked at his body, his body was fine without any bruises or wounds. He looked at his swords lying on the ground and immediately grabbed them.

The gigantic orc had gone, and there were barely any monsters around him. Berlin had been completely destroyed, the truth was that Rigel didn't know he had been gone for an hour after he died.

Rigel started hunting the orcs and ogres that stayed near the portal and killed them without breaking a sweat. He felt the power within him grew even stronger because he died as Lysara'elmaris said. He was overwhelmed by the growth and gave him dopamine whenever he killed those monsters like it was nothing.

The portal opened during nighttime at 8, and now the sun had risen which meant Rigel had fought those monsters for almost 10 hours. He didn't feel tired, he felt even stronger after killing hundreds of them. No matter how big the monsters were, he could kill them, and the best part was the swords were still in their prime, unscathed, and didn't brittle.

When Rigel looked for more monsters, he found a drake on its own standing on top of a collapsed building. He remembered that it needed high-caliber bullets to pierce through its skin. He wondered if he was strong enough to fight it on his own with the swords that Anselm made for him.

Rigel stealthily ran toward the drake by moving on its blindspot, and when he was right below the drake, he held his sword with both hands. He jumped and landed on the drake's tail and swiftly moved to its back before the drake could get rid of him.

He pointed his sword down and struck it down with all his strength. To his surprise, the sword was sharp and sturdy enough to pierce through its thick scale. He couldn't believe it and he was fortunate to meet Anselm and make him those swords.

Knowing he could pierce the scale, Rigel pushed the sword to the side and pulled it out. The drake roared in pain as it whipped its tail to hit Rigel, but it couldn't reach him. Rigel climbed up to the drake's head and jumped as he held his sword with both hands and aimed it at the drake's neck.

Rigel slashed the drake's neck as fast and hard as he could. The sword cut the scales and cut its neck, but since the sword was too short, only half of its neck got cut off. The drake was bleeding and the blood was gushing out because it moved its neck rapidly from the pain.

Seeing the drake acting like that, Rigel jumped as soon as he landed on the ground and cut its neck off from the other side. He beheaded the drake within 2 attacks, but he noticed the sword got a small brittle because of that.

"I should avoid the drakes for now. There are still so many monsters to kill, and I need my swords to kill that orc," Rigel said as he looked at his sword.

Rigel took the scales of the drake because he remembered in his past life that Anselm made his masterpiece using those scales. He met someone in his past life with a long sword that glowed red when it reflected sunlight. It was made from drake scales that were turned into powders, that method was called sintering.

After he took enough scales and put them in a bag, he left to hunt more monsters. But, when he was looking around, a deafening roar could be heard. The roar shattered all the glass around him, and he had to cover his ears. He turned around and realized it came from the portal.

"It came..." Rigel walked to the middle of the street as he looked at the sky.

A black dragon covered the sky so majestically and yet petrifying, flying around up high in the sky. He remembered in his past life that a black dragon turned Czechia into ashes in a single night. Nuclear bombs were dropped to kill that dragon, but it did nothing. That dragon was the reason why Europe met its doom.

"Wait for me..." Rigel said with a determination to kill that dragon.

2 hours had passed, and Rigel started to see dead bodies of soldiers everywhere. Some died such a gruesome death that it was impossible to identify them. The sound of gunshots and explosions became clearer which meant the battle was close to him.

"Hold the line! Hold the fucking line!" An officer with a major badge on his uniform shouted at the soldiers and the artillery. "The reinforcements are coming, so hold the line as long as we can!" He added and tried to give some hope to his soldiers because he knew everyone was standing at the death door, waiting for their turn to die.

The officer walked back as he looked at his watch because reinforcements were coming in 4 minutes. He saw fighter jets flying by and dropped bombs at the hordes of monsters beyond the frontline. He didn't know if they could hold for that long, but they had no choice because there were still a lot of civilians that hadn't been evacuated.

"Sir! We are running out of high-caliber bullets! More drakes are coming as well!" A soldier reported.

"Goddamn it!" The officer slammed his hand against the wall. "Save those bullets for drakes only. Take the supply from other units if needed. We need to hold this for 4 minutes, so do what you can to survive until then," he said.

The soldier nodded with understanding and then ran to ask for supplies from the other units.

The wyverns were flying trying to get rid of the artilleries, but the anti-air guns prevented them from going down. The air support was unable to help them because of those wyverns. The worst part was the other sides were in a similar situation and if one of them got destroyed, it would be over for them.

"Sir! A massive dragon just came out of the portal and it's on its way here!" A soldier reported as he caught his breath.

"What?! How big?" The officer asked.

"Five times bigger than the dragons that we saw..." The soldier answered and he was anxious and scared.

The dragons that they saw were at least 10 meters tall, and their scales were sturdier than the drakes. They could breathe fire and because of them, the army had lost the majority of its force. If it wasn't for the fighter jets that lured the dragons away, they would have been annihilated a long time ago.

"My God..." The officer lost hope because there would be nothing that could stop that dragon.

"Sir! Rigel is here! And he got rid of the monsters in the East!" A soldier came.

"What a perfect timing," The officer sighed in relief. "Request the units in the East to come and assist us. It doesn't matter how many, but we need them," he ordered.

The words about Rigel's arrival gave them a bit of peace of mind and hope. But when they thought they saw a glimmer of hope, the gigantic orc appeared with hundreds of orcs following from behind, and that was when their hope crumbled.

"God, please have mercy..." The officer said as he looked at the gigantic orc that destroyed a building with a single swing of his massive axe.