Draconic Awakening

The behemoth continued to draw closer to Ragnar with it's mighty jagged axe ready to severe his head away from the reaches of his neck as soon as it found him.

It was a disheartening sight to be seen but Ragnar kept his calm watching the mighty beast enter into his range.

Just now the hand of the Hunter had landed a foot from Ragnar's body, and this gave him a glance at the large body of it completely open and unprotected.

Ragnar gritted his teeth mustering all the strength in him and launched his attack rising to his feet quickly and with the entire strength of his two hands grasping his sword's hard hilt he lodged the end of his blade into the throat of the hunter as far as it could go...

However it did not go that far. Hitting the vertebral of the massive man, the blade had stopped with a loud cracking noise.

One that stunned both Ragnar and Hagi.

The Hunter's eyes seemed to have grown wide and his expression somber, maybe, he had no idea his usual tough expression had immediately been torn apart or the confusion left him clueless, still he gave Ragnar a look of pure resentment.

But Ragnar could not help but savor the look on the hunters face.

To further instigate matters the young Lord stepped closer to Hagi until their face were closely facing each other with each breath from the hunter grazing upon his face, "I see this world does not teach you much about free food from strangers."

With that Ragnar raised his leg up and used it to shove away the large man to the ground.

However, things did not go as planned.

The hunter despite being stabbed in the throat and already losing a fatal amount of blood had retaliated against his inevitable end.

This was something Ragnar should have predicted but did not.

As to every predator with a certain death, would more than love to bring it's killer straight to the depths of hell down with it.

That was Ragnar's mistake, and probably his last.

His leg had been caught before it could even shove the hunter down to the ground by the ankle, and what came next was madness.

The large battle-axe of the dying hunter was raised high overhead as a last resort to deliver a killing blow in just one stroke at Ragnar who was held in place.

"Shit! Shit! Let me go you bastard!" He yelled out trying his best to break free from the hold of the monster of a man gripping it in place. But nothing worked, whether he wanted it or not, he was about to be hit by the entire force of an inhuman beast.

The axe finally came down with a speed Ragnar could barely comprehend, threatening to saw off his body or cut it up like a soft piece of meat in one gruesome stroke.

It was fast and dangerous, however quiet predictable.

Ragnar quickly dislodged his blade from Hagi's throat despite that the mighty hunter did not even bulge or hesitate for a moment. However that wasn't Ragnar's goal.

He placed the blade of his sword to his side not too close but firmly grasped right where the axe would hit... Though he knew it would not be enough to block the full blow of an experienced hunter who had absorbed Arcane from Realm beast for a very long time in this cursed land.

CRACKK!

The blow struck alas and a resounding frightening crack echoed the cave, with sparks of flickering lights as Ragnar's body was thrown into the air and crashing into the side of the wall with such a strong force that made the entire cave shudder.

Shortly after the impact of Ragnar's body, the once monstrous figure of the hunter soon collapsed to the ground afterwards limp— he was dead.

And his prey...

"Arrrghhhh!" Ragnar groaned rolling over to his side from the ache. The attack had been successfully blocked, enough to keep him alive, nonetheless there was a gash in his forearm spilling his blood endlessly, his entire body ached from the blow from the hunter.

Apart from that nothing more.

"I hope you die twice in hell being flailed to death."he cursed at the hunters corpse in pain as he struggled to find solace in his current body condition.

***

Time went by and Ragnar continued to struggle with the pain for quite sometime and until the darkness of night dissipated slowly to reveal morning he wasn't able to quite grasp his sanity.

He was unable to sleep also thanks for the pain and bleeding that kept reminding him how fragile his life truly was.

Finally it was morning again, the cold revengeful winds had returned and the cave became unbearably cold compared to night time, his wounds exposed to this atmosphere surely drove him much maddened.

He even began to curse at the realm, pulling at his hair and hitting at his clothing to keep himself from screaming.

A few hours more went by and finally Ragnar's sanity had finally returned. His body too had healed just enough for the bleeding to stop and the cut to be a bit less visible.

Still the pain lingered more than ever.

'Shit, I feel like I'm a carved up chicken,' Ragnar thought glaring grimly at the strands of hair he had managed to pull from his scalp earlier on thanks to the injuries from the ice wendigo and the hunter.

While in this state he decided to check on the system to distract himself from his pain.

{Congratulations}

{You have successfully slayed a normal human}

{Arcane core: 5/500}

{You have received an ember mark}

{You have received an Arcana}

Ragnar's mind was blown, he was for one excited of the numbers of information displayed, seeing the battle to kill the bastard hunter was fittingly worth the injuries and scars gotten.

For one, killing the powerful Hunter had given him two more Arcane to his core.

For some reason while thinking about this his gaze went right to the writer who was silent, still Ragnar could feel his gaze showering him with disappointment.

'Common, do you expect me to fight him straightforward, he literally shattered me and almost killed me in one strike,' Ragnar mused then he raised his sword up to his gaze where only half of the blade remained with it's hilt, "would you look at that, he's even strong enough to pulverize steel with raw strength."

The writer seemed to still shake it's head in disagreement and then for the first time it changed it's position, sitting back towards Ragnar this time.

It's dark book shining with a shadowy corruption that leaked onto the writers seat and then developing him like an egg hiding it's entire being.

How infuriating the Writer was.

The young Lord's gaze then turned to the prisoner who seemed to be throwing a thumbs up towards him in glee.

'There's a saying, only scums congratulate scums... Figures,' he thought then turned back to the Information displayed.

The next wonder was the words, "ember mark." Ragnar had received an ember mark.

An ember mark just like the strange axe of the hunter, this were objects that could be summoned for the use of their masters, an ember mark varied in rank. Instead of relying on storage rings that stored not that much needed tools and food, an ember mark could hold as many things as possibly wanted, and one could even gain more than one ember mark, nonetheless each ember mark had a special amount and number of things it was capable of, so there was also a cap there.

He wondered what the ember mark was.

However the last Information displayed made the Young Lord's skin crawl.

{You have received an Arcana}

An Arcana? A second Arcana?

Ragnar felt his heart tremble, 'An Arcana is the ability one possess in this world, but it's impossible for someone to get two Arcana, so why is this happening to me.'

Unlike the average person who would be leaping in joy at this discovery, Ragnar was different, he knew nothing given by the deities or by the system of any world came for free.

What was blessing if it could not be turned to being a curse?

Why was he recieving another Arcana as just a reward for a kill, if it wasn't meant to tie him to something quite disturbing.

Maybe he was just being paranoid, he thought.

However a feeling deep within him told him, this was nothing but bad... Utterly bad.