But the messages did not end there. The air itself stirred. A pressure built overhead. The air, once sulfur and ash, now carried ozone. Heat bled into the wind, dry and sharp, as clouds gathered where there had been none. The volcanic plain hissed as sudden rain struck molten veins, raising steam in choking bursts.

And then he felt it. A gaze. Not hungry, not mocking, not cruel but vast. Judgmental. Like the weight of the sky itself had leaned down to peer at him. From the far reaches of the Dragon Peaks, across storms that had raged for millennia, a great serpent uncoiled. Its scales shimmered with lightning, its body crowned in thunderclouds. 

It had seen him. 

The storm deepened, rolling thunder splitting the heavens. A single bolt of lightning struck the Hatchery Fields, searing a scar into the volcanic glass only a few paces from where Artorius knelt. Steam hissed upward, wreathing him in smoke and stormlight.

And the System whispered again, uncaring and forthright: [Your valiant duel with the Dragon Lancer has been recognized by the Weather Ryu ???]

Artorius sat frozen, lungs heaving, his heart hammering as if it wanted to claw its way from his chest. He felt small, less than small — a flicker of light at the edge of a sky too wide to comprehend.

And yet… something inside him answered. Not pride. Not arrogance. A fire. The fire of his blood that refused to bow, even to storms. He clenched his trembling fists. If the heavens themselves had marked him, then he would not shame the recognition.

Though this was not the first time he got noticed by something… much greater. He recalled that Void Worm, which had been happy he slew the luck dragon now this Weather Ryu. He wondered what it all meant. There were so many questions left unanswered, but his main priority really was to survive in this hellhole. 

After defeating his foe, Artorius pocketed its strange needle-like lance, its weight alien in his hand. This thing had been a very troublesome tool. He used inspect skill on it, reading the prompt; Extendable Lance(Uncommon) - A magical lance that can stretch and bend, able to pierce someone at unexpected angles. 

And he took the helm it wore, the metal smelled of ash and old fire and it seemed to suit him. He also noticed one more thing shining amongst the ruined corpse of the creature, pushing his hand into the cavity of its body he drew out a very familiar token. 

Lancer Class Token(Tier 0) - A wielder of the spear. It’s the path of precision, discipline, and defiance. Theirs is a dance of reach and recoil, each thrust a vow. 

Artorius was sure what to do with since he already selected his own path, but he still stored it away. Nonetheless he was left with lots of questions, was the reason this creature was powerful because it had a class like him?

The other draconic creatures he saw so far were all purely beastial. Most likely they only had their race to back them up.

Healing up on the dragon egg yolks, he tried to get a lay of the land. 

Spotting one tall rock outcropping which was almost as tall as a skyscraper, he guessed it would make do for a good vantage point so he climbed. He had to be careful as there were some draconic creatures there. His body screamed with every motion, torn muscle dragging bone up the jagged pillar. The Nest spread beneath him in waves of fire and shadow. When he reached the summit, the breath left his lungs. 

It went on forever. The Hatchery Fields stretched beyond sight, endless plains of broken shells gleamed like cracked moons across the volcanic place, steaming rivers of yolk winding between them. Hatchlings clashed in endless swarms like rivers of scaled bodies tearing, shrieking, and devouring. Some were wolf-sized, fast and furious. Others rose already titanic, their duels splitting boulders, boiling over streams, and shaking the air with their roars.

There had to be millions. For one fragile moment, the weight of it nearly crushed him. He was a speck in an ocean of claws and teeth flung into this land of apocalypse. A trespasser in the graveyard of gods.

With little to no options, he descended back down and started heading in a random direction hoping it could lead somewhere. 

At first, the Hatchery Fields changed little. More shells. More yolk. More shrieking wars of hatchlings that never ceased. He kept to the edges, scavenging the malformed and the dying, stripping what scraps of strength and nourishment he could from them. Days bled into nights, though here no sun or moon marked their passage, only the ceaseless crimson haze of the Nest’s false sky. His body grew numb. His wounds scabbed, split, and scabbed again, until even the ache became part of him.

But the farther he walked, the stranger the world became. The seas of eggshells gave way to forests of bone. Petrified ribs as tall as towers stretched overhead, looming like the ribs of dead titans, their surfaces pitted with claw marks from battles long ended. The marrow within them had hardened into veins of glittering crystal, sharp and cold as glass.

The ground grew brittle, black glass cracking beneath his feet. Nests lay like grave mounds, piled high with broken corpses—half-formed wings, cracked jaws, hollow eyes staring forever skyward. Bone dust drifted on the wind, fine as snow, catching in his lungs until every breath rasped.

Rivers of molten lava and glass ran side by side, glowing with sickly light, their fumes searing his lungs raw as they blistered the air with poisonous shimmer. He crossed on bridges of calcified scale, careful not to slip.

Ash storms rose without warning, stripping skin raw. He wrapped himself in scraps of cloth and scale, crawling into husks of dead hatchlings to wait them out. At night, roars filled the air, the cries of young dragons fighting relentlessly. 

One night, as he rested inside a ribcage, he saw an enormous silhouette pass above the canopy. It was no hatchling. No wyrm. Not even a dragon. Something older, half-fossilized, its spine broken and re-fused with stone, its wings rotted into pillars of petrified membrane. And yet it walked across the forest like a mountain given legs. 

He dared not move, breathe, or even look its way as it passed directly above him its footfall crushed whole groves of ribs flat, bone exploding in clouds of dust. He only came out of his hiding place until it was gone, looking at the destruction that it left in its aftermath.

Sometimes he caught sight of something moving beneath the marrow. Long serpents burrowed through crystal veins, scales scraping, bodies groaning against stone. When they emerged it was sudden, a skull splitting open, marrow spilling as the system told him what they were [Bone-Wurm] burst free. They were pale and half-formed, their bones visible beneath translucent flesh, their jaws filled with too many teeth. They hunted like ambushers, striking and vanishing back into the ribs.

Another time, he walked into something horrifying. Stepping on a pale carpet of bony grass that muffled every step. At first he thought it was another grave-mound, until the earth itself began to gnash. The ground split, and pale enamel rose like flowers, long molars and jagged fangs sprouting from the soil in clusters. They clicked and chattered, grinding softly against one another in a rhythm of hunger. 

Whole fields of them spread before him, white blossoms swaying without wind, their roots sunk deep in marrow-rich earth. Some were small, like infant incisors. Others were massive, as tall as his chest, serrated like butcher’s knives. All gnashing, faintly, as if dreaming of flesh.

He realized then that the gardens were not plants. They were the mouths of something beneath, something sleeping, waiting for the careless to stumble into its maw. He circled wide, each step deliberate, praying that whatever lay beneath did not notice him. 

At night, skulls rose from the dust, floating lanterns with different colored flames in their sockets. The system read: [Skull Lantern] They whispered as they drifted between ribs, their murmurs forming hymns too soft to understand, but he did notice the lament in their tone. When they drifted together, they formed glowing processions, weaving between the ribs like funeral marches. They went deeper, always deeper, until he realized they were not lights but lures, drawing prey into traps.

He had been walking for what seemed like days through the hushed silence of the Bone Forests, every sound echoing wrongly, some too sharp or too long. The ribcages arched above him like cathedrals, marrow crystal catching the dim crimson haze in eerie glimmers. He stopped when the bone-dust began to shift.

Then the silence changed. The air grew colder. From beneath a grave of fused vertebrae, something stirred. A crack split the fossil mound and a shape unfurled, impossibly long, impossibly thin. 

It rose like a nightmare, a serpent of fossil and sinew, its hide a patchwork of calcified plates and raw bone. Its forelimbs were wrong, not claws, but elongated scythe-blades of sharpened femur, curved and ridged with teeth. Each swing shrieked like steel across stone. Its skull was faceless, its sockets hollow, glowing faintly with ghost-light.

The System burned a single line across his sight: [Reaper Bone Wurm — Level 7]

Image: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/1266706140357980/

He tried to suck underneath a ribcage, but it was too late as it had noticed him. The beast moved in silence until the last instant. Then it struck. One blade carved through the trees, shearing a rib-column clean in two. The shockwave threw him back, bone-dust exploding like ash.

Artorius rolled, barely avoiding the second strike. The scythe tore a furrow where his chest had been, slicing deep into the glassy ground. He staggered up, spear at the ready in his hands.

The wurm coiled, circling him, scythes scraping the ground. Sparks screamed from the bones. Its body was too long, too fast. Each swing forced him back. His arms went numb from the shock of parries, the weapon splintering under the weight.

Then came the tail, barbed and ridged like a saw. It swept low. He leapt but too slow. The barbs raked his thigh, ripping flesh to the bone. He crashed hard, choking on blood and dust. It lunged, jaws gaping wide enough to swallow him whole. In desperation, he shoved his Command through his throat, voice raw, bloody: “STOP!”

For a heartbeat, the wurm froze. The forest itself seemed to hold its breath. Its hollow sockets slowly inch by inch turned toward him, and with a terrible shudder, it broke free. His order broke leaving him coughing red into the dust.

The wurm surged. He scrambled backward, mind racing. He could not match it blow for blow. Not strength. Not speed. Not even command it. But the forest itself… The Bone Garden.

Author Note: Sorry for being gone had to deal with a whole bunch of nonsense from the website moderators.

Support me if you can & get advance chapters!

Patreon
https://www.patreon.com/Abdirah

Discord

https://discord.gg/UmRZ5vFj