*Battle Between Sung Jin-Woo and Antares post time-travel*
*1st POV*
My blade clashed against the shadow mo-no Sung Jin-Woo's blade, both of us fighting for survival, one for his entire species, the other for myself and his species' destruction. Whose blade would prove stronger? Well, that was a laughable idea as my blade clashed against his own mass of power. I could tell he had grown far stronger than I thought he would, and his army far bigger than the one wielded by the previous monarch, Ashborn.
Meaning that my plan was going to fail, but my backup would not, it was quite simple. I had created my own Architect, a dragon statue shaped of stone and power, with the simple directive, find my replacement or perhaps my new body if all went to plan.
I, of course, couldn't use the Earth he was from; he would see the signs and immediately destroy everything I created. So whilst he killed my fellow Monarchs, I had used one of our creator's many tools to find an ownerless universe and send a temple there, one meant to house a test of my own design for the humans to find. Their greed and new to understand something that came out of nowhere, should be suitable to find a worthy vessel for himself, or one that, like Ashborn, he comes one with, it didn't matter, for as long as the Monarch of Destruction was born, he would be happy.
So as their blades clashed, he had sent one of his dragons away to activate the device and send his temple to the proper location, happy to know he would die in this battle but live to fight another day.
*Earth-134*
*1st POV: Leon Colta*
Traveling over the desert was the most exciting thing of the year, honestly, when I chose the archaeology program at a well, not really a local university, but not very expensive one, whose name I had forgotten as I mostly just went there for classes, nothing more. Honestly, at the time I thought it would be a little more exciting, and it seemed like a decent career choice at the time, but once I got into the school, well, it wasn't as fun or fulfilling, I guess, as I thought it would be.
Not that I didn't try, mind you, but I was starting to think that perhaps I had chosen the wrong path in life. Right now I was flying a helicopter our professor got for a very well "decent" price, the air quotes being more sarcastic as it was bumpy as all hell, so cheap, yeah, that was the right word.
For some reason, our professor thought it was a good idea to invite some of his students on a trip to a newly uncovered temple right here in the States. No idea why they contacted a professor of a not very well-known university, but well, it's something exciting, and I told myself if I couldn't see the wonder in it, then perhaps this career path wasn't right for me.
It didn't mean that the credits I had garnered so far would be useless, as there were other programs in the university I could transfer to, but for right now, I would just focus on this new temple, see how I felt about its discovery, all that jazz. Right now, I am with the five other university students and my professor on a very cramped helicopter ride.
One was a redhead named Sophia, who was, well, your stereotypical bookish but hot smart girl; honestly, it felt like she jumped straight out of a movie. Next up was Max, a thin, tall guy who had to slump over just to fit on the helicopter, then there was Josh, who was taking this course to fill out some credit requirements and was a soccer athlete, I think, or something, I think, didn't really care though.
Then there was Rose, a Latina girl whom I may or may not have had a crush on previously before finding out she had a crush on Sophia, whole thing don't want to think too hard about that. The final student was Mack, a bookish guy, really into fantasy books, and was looking to study in this field for inspiration for his own writing. The professor himself was an old guy who had a permanent slouch to him, with an excited look on his face, you'd think this was his first love or something, he was visiting for the first time in a while.
Honestly, it was a bit weird looking at him, so I just kinda dozed off as we flew toward our landing site, ignoring the conversation. When we did land eventually, I got out quickly and stretched my legs with the professor explaining the basics of what not to do and what we could do, which boiled down to just looking around and jotting down anything we saw.
Walking through the temple, the group was talking amonst thsmevles as the professor explained how this was a tremoduous find and currently unexplainable by modern science as their was no way in recent time or human history a temple could be built here due to all the sand and how unpredictable the weather was in this particular area.
Honestly I was looking at the murals of the walls we were passing by, normally any human who built something as grand as this would have them on the ground worshipping a god or something but instead it was just crude drawings of what I think were dragons but the way they moved made them look like gods amongst other various species I couldn't really get a good glimpse of.
It was all very strange, I couldn't quite understand why the people who built this place were trying to depict it at this point. I thought it was about a war amongst the gods, but other times it looked like a typical end-of-the-world prophecy, but over time, it all got bundled together for some reason. Honestly, it would probably take a miracle to decipher it all. I mean, who knew what kind of language this place used, because if it was the lines on the bottom, well, whoever had to deal with it had their work cut out for them, because I couldn't make any sense of it.
As we got deeper into the temple, I heard a click. No, we all heard a click as Mack, who was scrawling down some of the drawings onto his notebook, had stepped on a tile. We all looked around wanting to see if he had triggered a trap, and well, he did, the ceiling had started moving toward us at a very rapid pace, as the only way out was blocked by falling rocks, meaning we had no choice but to run forward.
The first to go was Josh, who sprinted down the hallway like a cat running from the neighborhood dog; soon enough, we followed after him. Eventually, we saw a lit room that we didn't have time to question, but as we entered, I realized that two of us were missing; it was Max and Mack, and while we looked around to see where they could've possibly gone, we saw it, blood splatter and the top half of Mack's body as the wall had full fallen down just as Mack tripped. We didn't see Max's body, but we guess he had fallen further behind and had gotten crushed before he could've made it.
I'm not ashamed to say I leaned up against a wall and puked, unable to hold it in alongside a few of my classmates. Once I was done puking, I got a good look at our new location, and it heavily resembled a coliseum. It had rows upon rows of filled seats, except they weren't people or anything like that, of course, they were statues of...lizard men or something like that, not really detailed but more crude in appearance.
As if they were hastily made for decoration alone, I couldn't tell why, as two large doors opened up and a large carved stone fell from the top of the temple, probably triggered by the opening of the doors. Although that wasn't the strangest part, even if the stone monument was carved in a language I couldn't understand yet I did somehow, it was as though it was in perfect English.
To those who find this arena.
Fight, fight, and survive.
Fight to the last bitter breath.
Discover what will be your right.
That's when I heard the scream, whilst we were reading the carved piece of stone, something had rushed out of the doors. That's when I saw it, a beast straight out of legend, a drake, a large lizard bigger than a thino, with scales red as blood, eyes yellow like they were sick. There were two beasts in total, one held Sophia in its jaw, the other our Professor, who had a look of despair on his face.
Soon enough, the rest of us scattered as we found old weapons scattered around, a few broken blades, and got ready as the two Drakes charged. The first of us to go was Rose, who had tears streaming down her face as she stabbed the Drake in the leg, and was quickly eaten in one bite. The next was, of course, Josh, who screamed in fear as he was slowly eaten by the second beast, so seeing my chance, I charged forward, jumping into the air with my broken blade, knowing that if I was going to die, I was going down swinging.
My blade made contact with the beast, but it made no dent, and it even ignored me as I landed atop it, clenching my teeth in frustration. I saw how the scale tipped upward, as though it was more like armor than actual skin, so I got my sword into position, getting it between the scales, but before I could even draw blood, I felt a swipe as the second Drake launched me off its partner's back into the wall.
I hit the wall and felt all my bones crack, barely able to hold on as they slowly approached me, their jaws dripping with blood and saliva. I could tell that even after eating, my classmates/professor were still hungry. I spat out some blood as I slowly bled to death, knowing that my body would be eaten as these two beasts would probably head back to their cages, I mean, who knew how long they survived here?
It could be that they only come out every once in a while to be fed, and we were just unlucky.
"Dammit, I really should've gone to a trade school or something."
That was my last thought as a blue screen flashed across my fading sight.
[Player found]
[Do you accept the system's integration?]
[Y/N]
I weakly lifted my finger just as the beast charged at me, clicking Y, not knowing whether that was a dying man's hope, this was what I thought it was, or part of my imagination.
"Well, not like I have much to lose at this point, let's hope this is what I think it is, I mean transmigration is on the rage these days."
My last thoughts before a bright light took over my body were "Well, that was a dumb thing to say" as I could feel my body being forcibly healed. The arena slowly disappeared alongside the two, now very confused drakes. Honestly, I was really hoping this was some elaborate nightmare, but well, odds were that this was just a dying colleague students vision. Who knows, I could be lying on the road somewhere after getting hit by a car, dreaming all this up.
Honestly, I'd probably prefer that over getting eaten by Drakes or whatever is about to happen to me if this is all real.