The Lord of the Seas - An Isekai Progression Fantasy [ Currently on Volume 2 ]

Rysenth's eyes snapped open to darkness and dust.

For a moment, the Dragon Lord of the Flames could not breathe. His chest heaved against the crushing weight of stone, lungs rasping as rubble pressed in from every angle. Pain screamed through his body like fire licking the inside of his bones, and when he tried to move, Rysenth realized with a rush of terror that he could not feel his right arm. The memory of that moment—Lukas Drakos' blow striking true, the sound of shattering bone—seared through him with brutal clarity.

So this was how it would end.

Rysenth Ishtar, once nothing more than a boy that hailed from one of the Minor Houses, would die here, broken and bloody, as the Dragon Lord of the Flames and Head of House Ishtar.

A sob tore unbidden from his throat.

Rysenth hardly recognized the sound of his own crying, sharp and hollow in the cavern of his chest.

Just moments ago, Rysenth had watched as the arena collapsed into itself, earth and magic consuming all that remained. The screams of his people, the Flameborn who had placed their trust in him, echoing through the chaos. Their minds had been bent beneath Valkari's Crown, their wills stolen from them. Now they were gone, every last one of them, sent to the Underworld without a shred of dignity to their name.

And Rysenth could do nothing but watch as they died.

It had all happened so quickly.

One moment, Lukas had spoken words that cut deeper than any blade, words that forced Rysenth to confront a fear he had carried all his life, a fear he had refused to name. The next, that same Dragon Lord of the Seas lay broken on the stone floor, his blood pooling dark and warm, soaking into the earth. That image haunted Rysenth's mind as if branded into his soul.

All of it—every loss, every death—had come from the hand of one person.

It had come from Valkari Ishtar, his own sister.

The thought of her name brought bile to his throat.

Rysenth remembered the last time he had seen her clearly: not as the ruthless monster she had become, but as the fierce young dragonborn who had refused every command and broken every boundary. Even when she was but a child, Valkari had defied him, defied their House, and called herself a prisoner in her own home. Though it had torn him apart, Rysenth had not forced her to remain within Mount Ashendir. So Valkari had left him and the rest of the Flameborn behind, her heart set on the wider world of Hiraeth, the lands beyond Linemall's borders.

Rysenth had told himself then that it was just freedom she sought, that one day Valkari might return wiser, softer, and still very much his sister that he had always known and loved.

But Valkari never did return.

Then when she finally appeared once more, she had taken everything from him. Malrik, his most trusted advisor, had been like a brother to him. Every single one of the Flameborn that had traveled to the Ancestral Lands with him were some of the most loyal Rysenth had ever met. And she had taken them all away from him.

Blood had bound them once, but no longer. Whatever had become of her in the years apart, whatever fire had consumed her, the girl he had once called sister was gone.

In her place stood a Monster who he could not even recognize.

Rysenth's breath hitched, the weight of rubble pressing down, and he felt rage ignite inside him where despair had been.

No.

This was not how it would end for him.

He could not die here. Not while Valkari still lived. Not while her voice still carried the threat of war upon Linemall.

Rage was all Rysenth had left. Rage to stave off the dark, rage to fuel him when every muscle begged to collapse. He had already lost the men who were closest to him, the ones who had given everything in loyalty, their bodies scattered beneath the ruins of the arena. But there were others still—warriors and innocents who had sworn allegiance to him within Mount Ashendir, all of them waiting for their Lord's return. Rysenth owed it to them to survive, to live through this and make it back to his people.

With a guttural growl, Rysenth forced his body to move. Every shift sent lightning through his ribs, every breath was a knife, but he pushed through. He braced, twisted, and with one final, agonized burst of strength, he tore his good arm free from the rubble.

Dust billowed around him. His vision swam with unimaginable pain. But his heart thundered with one truth.

The Dragon Lord of the Flames would not die here. He would not allow it.

The world was swallowed in shadow, the air thick with dust and the stench of stone that had been torn apart. His head pounded as if the earth itself had driven nails into his skull. Rysenth could not see a damn thing. It was times like this when Rysenth cursed the gods for never allowing him to inherit the Divinity of the Flames—magic that had been passed down House Ishtar for many generations. If only the flames could answer him now, Rysenth would have conjured light, warmth and his salvation.

Instead, Rysenth was left blind, buried, and broken.

His hand fumbled through dirt and debris, fingers sifting until they brushed something cool and solid. It was metal. Rysenth froze, heart hammering, and groped again until his palm closed around it.

A grin split across his bloodied face. Fortune had not yet abandoned him. Perhaps he should not have cursed the gods so soon.

Somehow, Rysenth had found the one thing that could save him: the golden bracelet. Rysenth had used this band to fight countless of battles. It was much more than just a bracelet, it was a portal. It was his tether to Mount Ashendir, to the forge where his greatest inventions rested. The flames of hope rekindled in his chest as he willed the bracelet to life. The bracelet pulsed, shimmering as purple energy coiled outward. A rip opened in the air before him in the space between the bracelet, its edges sparking with light.

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Rysenth's body cried out for relief. The pain was unbearable, his right arm hanging like dead weight, his ribs screaming with every breath. He reached into the portal and seized a small drawstring bag, dragging it free and yanking it open with his teeth. Inside were the Ashenbeans, seeds infused with the volcanic ash of Ashendir, cultivated by his forefathers many years ago. Legends claimed they were born from the last embers of dragons long turned to ash.

To Rysenth, they were his saving grace.

He shoved three into his mouth, crunching down on their bitter shells. Heat spread instantly through his veins, sharp as molten iron. His body jolted, then eased as the torment ebbed. The bleeding in his ruined arm slowed, the fractures knitting just enough to hold. His strength returned—not whole, but steady enough to fight against despair.

The rubble still bound his legs, stone pressing like the grip of a Titan.

Rysenth clenched his jaw, then angled the bracelet, pressing it into a wedge between the rock and his flesh. The portal expanded, shifting its edges outward, forcing cracks into the debris. The pressure gave way, enough for him to twist, to pull, to wriggle free at last. His legs screamed in protest, but he was no longer trapped.

Breathing ragged, Rysenth pushed himself upright and turned his eyes toward the abyss. Darkness stretched before him in endless coils, a cavernous hollow where no light dared linger. Even the glow of the portal struggled, its violet shimmer swallowed by the void.

Beneath the Ancestral Lands, he had expected only dirt and root, stone and silence.

But this…this was something else.

Before him was a hidden world carved in secret beneath their feet.

Rysenth called the portal to follow and it drifted obediently at his side, its arcane hum echoing faintly in the cavern. Reaching within the purple tear in reality, he retrieved a lantern wrought of blackened steel, one of his own designs. Its flame guttered alive, golden light spilling into the dark.

At once, jagged walls and winding tunnels emerged, stretching in every direction.

Rysenth stood there for a long moment, lantern in hand, heart heavy. He had survived the collapse, though by all rights he should have perished. It was a miracle that he'd lived through the fall. But had anyone else survived? Or was Rysenth alone now, the last ember of House Ishtar left to smolder in the dark, the last Lord of Linemall who still stood within these ruins?

Rysenth would have to find that out for himself.

If Erandyl had survived, or even Lukas—though Rysenth doubted it—then perhaps there was still a chance they could make it back to the surface. With the Dragon Lord of the Earth at his side, navigating this labyrinth would be simple. The Earthborn knew the bones of the world like no one else.

Together, they could find a way out of here. Together, they could survive and put an end to everything Valkari planned to bring upon this Kingdom.

Each step Rysenth took sent pain rattling through his battered body, forcing him into a limp as he pressed deeper into the winding tunnels. His lantern swung with his uneven gait, the circle of light shivering against the jagged walls.

But as the silence pressed in around him, a new scent broke through, sharp and overwhelming.

It was the scent of rot.

It hit him without warning, so pungent Rysenth doubled over, gagging as bile burned the back of his throat. He covered his mouth and nose, but the stench seeped in all the same, clinging to his tongue. His stomach lurched violently as it overwhelmed his sense of smell.

"By the Titans, what is that…?" His voice rasped in the darkness.

Rysenth forced himself onward, lantern raised, following the reek as dread tightened its grip around his chest.

The light quivered across stone, then caught on something far larger.

It was a body.

His blood ran cold.

The corpse of a dragonborn lay sprawled across the floor of the cavern, limbs at unnatural angles. She was a daughter of the Earth, scales the muted gray-green of stone, but the dragonborn was not one Rysenth recognized from the women that had traveled here with Erandyl.

Rysenth frowned.

How had she even gotten down here?

He stepped closer, though every instinct screamed at him to turn back.

The sight grew worse with every inch of light that Rysenth's lantern provided.

Her body had not simply fallen. It had been ripped apart. Flesh was torn ragged in strips, gashes so deep they split her muscle and bone. Her abdomen had been split open, entrails spilling across the rock in a grotesque tangle. Blood had dried in thick swaths across the ground, blackened now, but enough to stain everything around it.

Rysenth's lantern shook in his grasp as the truth dawned on him.

This was no ordinary death.

She had not just been killed. This dragonborn had been eaten alive.

His mouth went dry.

Rysenth stared at the gouges in her flesh, at the bite marks unmistakably carved into bone. His stomach twisted as he realized the horror of it, the dragonborn had been alive while it happened, torn into piece by piece, devoured while her screams filled the dark.

The lantern's flame flickered, and for the first time, the silence seemed too loud.

A sound stirred in the distance. It was the sound of scraping, the sound of shifting weight against stone.

Something moved in the tunnels beyond his sight.

Rysenth froze, every muscle coiled.

The air pressed heavier now, cloying with the scent of rot and the taste of blood.

His lantern creaked as he lifted it higher, his hand trembling. The light stretched farther into the black—and his heart nearly stopped.

There were bodies, there were dozens of them.

The corpses of dragonborn littered the cavern floor, scattered like discarded dolls. Some were Earthborn, even other Flameborn that Rysenth now knew had survived the fall but now lay dead at his feet. Each and every one of them had been torn open the same way, ribs splayed and limbs gnawed to bone. The stone floor was painted in layers of dried gore, whole patches glistening where it had not yet dried.

Rysenth staggered back, bile rising again.

The stench of death was suffocating now, thick and unmistakable.

The Dragon Lord of the Flames had walked straight into a graveyard carved out by a beast more terrifying than he could ever imagine.

And then there was more movement.

Something slithered against the far wall, just beyond the reach of the lantern's light.

Rysenth's pulse thundered in his ears. His knuckles whitened around the lantern as he forced the light higher, trying to pierce the void. The corpses seemed to watch him now, lifeless eyes turned toward him, their mouths frozen in silent screams. And as the light of his lantern guttered in the stale air, Rysenth realized with a chill that the corpses were still fresh.

They were a warning of what still roamed in these tunnels, a warning that Rysenth was not alone down here.

Throughout Linemall's history, the draconic kind had been the apex predator; a species that biologically surpassed all others before it through both magic and physicality. Even humanity had to resort to calling upon the strength of a god to defeat them during the Great War. It was a warning that there was still things that they did not understand about this world that they called Hiraeth.

It was a warning of the great unknown.