Nobody should ever have to justify their right to exist.

  Brom knew he needed to get up. He ached everywhere, from the little wounds of the bitey bastards to the two harpoons that were still partly stuck in him. It was so hard to breathe, he felt like Sabbath was sitting on his chest, a bowling ball of weight, only this came without the warmth. Because Sabbath wasn't here anymore... and that was Alex Ruddle's fault.

  He was lying on something hard, covered in a skim of liquid. Not water, that white crap that had been falling from the sky. There was no sky above him, only an endless and shapeless white void. With a groan, he forced himself on one elbow, his eyes flicking downward. There, the dark sea spread out, and he could see the Erzsébet as a tiny white speck in the inky black. He could see Boss, thrashing and bellowing as the battleship-shark absolutely shredded that koi. The glow of that beast was rapidly fading as Boss threw pieces of it like a dog flinging the stuffing from a toy.

  Getting to his feet was probably the hardest thing he'd ever done, unable to catch his breath, his torso a map of agony. His breath bubbled nastily, a pink foam on his lips, the harpoon that had been pushed through now falling clear. It made sense, one lung was shot clean through, should have collapsed, but he was betting the passive was holding it open. Fuck, this thing was turning out to be a double-edged sword. It wasn't doing anything about the length of the harpoon tearing into his gut, but it wasn't letting him bleed out from it.

  HP: 490/800

  HP: 489/800

  HP: 488/800

  Brom made a decision, digging his fingers into the wound. He made rather undignified noises of pain despite locking his jaw to try and hold them in, iron-plated fingers wriggling wetly in his own flesh until he caught the end of the metal. He pulled it out, feeling the barbs on it tearing nastily at him, doing just as much damage on its way out as it had on its way in.

  HP: 478/800

  - Bleeding

  The white liquid around his feet was turning pink. Even though his passive stopped him from bleeding actively, it wasn't preventing blood from escaping when he did shit like that. It didn't last long, the white dispersing it and consuming it. His very strength bleeding away the longer he stood there.

  "You are a tenacious bastard, I will give you that. Stubborn must be a family trait." Alex's voice was warmly conversational. "Stupid is too. If you die here, your pet down there vanishes, doesn't it? Then I've already won."

  Brom blinked, gaze snapping to the young man. His stomach abruptly took an elevator to the basement of his soul, eyes widening a little bit. "You've got to be shitting me."

  The dragon curled around Alex Ruddle was heartbreakingly beautiful. It was an eastern dragon in shape, scales luminous with that pure and pearlescent shine. The flawlessness of its form was marred only by the black liquid that leaked from its nose to foul its whiskers. More of the ichor trailed from the corners of its glowing eyes like corrupt tears. A few flaked scales here and there made Brom recall the chunks of flesh missing from that koi. He knew now what had driven it from the alien moon. Now this beautiful, corrupted beast was curled around his enemy, one of its massive, clawed feet was resting on the pearl that Alex's medallion had become while the teen was supporting the lustrous orb from below. Dark veins spread across the pearl where his fingertips touched it, the imperfection he caused juxtaposed by his reverent smile.

  Reluctantly, Brom looked at the massive bar above the dragon. No health reading, no this fucking System couldn't be that kind, just the name and level.

  Juvenile Origin Dragon (Heavenly) Lv 10

  "I have to thank you for coming Mister Jones. Without your ridiculous health pool, this wouldn't be possible."

  HP: 473/800

  HP: 472/800

  HP: 471/800

  With every beat of Brom's heart, another HP was stolen and funneled into the pearl. A cold sensation that had nothing to do with blood loss spread through him. Alex Ruddle had planned for this. He'd always known that Brom would come after him. The misdirection to Meyer's Reef had only been the lure to get Brom out to sea, away from any other help he might have summoned. Boss might have been a variable that Alex hadn't seen coming, but he was right. The beast of steel would vanish if Brom died. It might be ruining that koi, but that koi had been dead when it fell from the sky anyway. Something wasn't adding up, and Brom... well, Brom wasn't smart enough to figure out why the math was wrong.

  "Well then. I guess this is it, isn't it?" He spat out another wad of bloody saliva, ignoring the way the white liquid greedily devoured it.

  Alex finally tore his gaze away from the dragon, swinging the pearl around. "Yes, Mister Jones, it is. No hard feelings, huh?"

  The moment the pearl moved, the dragon's attention went with it. Its head lifted, those ichor-filled eyes staring directly at Brom. He could see it in real time, the way all those muscles bunched as the beast brought all of its power in line.

  "Oh, I have plenty of hard feelings." Brom's stance widened, raising his left fist as he pointed it toward Alex and his dragon.

  The dragon lunged forward, its jaws gaping. It wasn't big enough to swallow Brom whole, maw only big enough to maybe fit the bulk of his torso in it. Maybe the ichor interfered with its vision. Maybe it was just supremely confident in itself. Or maybe it just didn't have enough brainpower to compute that Brom was still dangerous. Whatever the reason, the dragon didn't even bother trying to dodge as Brom's right fist whipped around in a punch so telegraphed that the intent was delivered by written invitation with a tracking number.

  - Heinous Blow Activated!

  It hit the dragon at the hinge of the jaw and didn't stop going. The momentum of it carried sideways and downward, slamming the skull onto its side and driving it onto whatever they were standing on. The rest of the body followed, the motion eerily similar to derailing a train. Each segment just flopped over as the force rippled down the whole of its body, the beast left stunned by Heinous Blow and unable to respond. This Brom felt something cave in his own chest, just a small crack. Just twenty HP shaved off. But the connection was humming now, and each blow going forward cost Brom a price in blood.

  It was a price he was willing to pay.

  HP: 451/800

  The dragon recoiled, fast as the crack of a whip, shaking its head and wiggling its jaw. Those eyes, full of an alien intelligence, swept over Brom and reassessed their earlier dismissal. He'd just been upgraded from 'harmless' to 'mostly harmless'. He dropped his hands, shaking them, feeling a bone-deep ache.

  HP: 447/800

  HP: 446/800

  HP: 445/800

  He shouldn't have dropped his stance. It feinted at him with the next blow. That serpentine neck jabbed forward, jaws snapping with the hollow bone-on-bone impact of a crocodile's, nearly too quick to follow. Brom was forced to react to it, bringing both his hands up, and barely had time to drop an elbow as the tail swept around and impacted his ribs. It drove the air out of him and sent him flying, skidding across the not ground in a spray of white liquid.

  HP: 345/800

  One hit took one hundred health. He didn't have time to dwell on that, throwing his body to the side as the dragon pounced toward him like a cat. He was nearly caught under those taloned paws, swinging a fist wildly to ward off those snapping jaws that tried to take another bite out of him. He connected, listening to it make an undignified noise, backing away from him and shaking its head.

  HP: 275/800

  It wasn't twenty HP this time. That one blow, barely a love tap, had cost him a whopping seventy health. Brom hadn't been this hurt since, fuck, probably since he'd been wandering around in Boss' guts. That seemed like an age ago.

  "I swore I wasn't going to be impressed watching this, but I'll admit, I'm impressed. You're pretty talented for a novice. I'd actually be worried if you'd had formal training. Unfortunately, I don't think your questionable musical talents are going to be of as much use as a single boxing lesson would have been. Have you figured it out yet? You don't win this one, Mister Jones. You'll kill yourself trying to beat my dragon to death." Alex was stroking his hand over the surface of that pearl, leaving an ichor smear as he did so. Like throwing oil on a rainbow.

  "Health is a resource, as long as it's not zero, I'm not losing." But he had to admit, he wasn't seeing much of a way out of this.

  HP: 250/800

  HP: 249/800

  HP: 248/800

  Alex made a lazy gesture with the pearl, and the dragon let out a joyful noise. It bounded toward Brom, its body zig-zagging as it charged toward him. He watched the head. He watched the tail. He couldn't track them both. It reared back at the last second, haunches dropping as its neck curved. Brom should have known what was coming, but in his defense, this was the first time he'd ever fought a goddamn dragon.

  Those neck and belly scales lit up like a power bar, chest expanding. It opened those jaws, and Brom saw hell coming up its throat, a white-hot nova of heat. He brought his forearms up, slamming them together and ducking his head behind them. As if he could somehow hide his bulk behind that narrow surface.

  It wasn't nearly enough as the dragon dropped the sun on him. His remaining health evaporated.

  [Activation conditions met! Would you like to activate Ancestral Amulet of Protection?]

  Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author.

  This time, he didn't say it out loud. He just poured the last gasp of his will to the universe.

  Warmth folded around him, spreading from a point on his right wrist. The next breath he drew in was scented with soft powder and rosewater, a core memory of comfort that, even now, made Brom believe everything was going to be okay. It was the scent he always associated with Pearl Jones.

  HP: 800/800

  Brom blinked, lowering his arms, as the pain that had been twisting through him vanished. On his wrist, the medallion's silver had been tarnished black, the alexandrite gone dull. 'Remember to keep it safe, it will protect you.' He could almost hear her voice in his head as he stared up at the very puzzled dragon and the very irritated Alex.

  "Oh, c'mon. I call bullshit! How do you keep doing this?!"

  "Because if Zordon taught me anything, it's that I've got a power and a force that you've never seen before." Brom didn't expect them to get it; that was fine. It wasn't the one-liner he wanted to die with either, so he needed to make the most of this second opportunity he'd been given. He surged forward, aiming not for the dragon, but for Alex. The teenager was commanding the beast, the same way that Brom could summon Boss. If Brom going down would get rid of Boss, then Alex going down would get rid of the dragon.

  The teen sensed the danger, scrambling back, and the dragon shoved its body between its master and the angry barbarian who was closing the distance. That head whipped around, jaws beginning to open once more.

  Brom didn't hesitate, he stooped a little, clenched his fist, and threw the hardest uppercut of his life. His very life depended on landing a hit that could turn the tide, and he pushed everything he was into it.

  The Grip responded.

  - Heavy Attack Activated!

  The blow that landed was beyond anything that Brom was expecting. Lightning, frost, and the concussive force of a shaped charge of high-yield explosive tore down the black iron as runes blazed to life. The dragon screamed, its head snapped upward as plasma burst from its throat and was directed harmlessly into the sky. Fragments of fang and broken scale rained down around them, and both man and dragon swayed.

  HP: 680/800

  [Cooldown Activated: The Grip of Adamant Will 4:00]

  Brom wasn't even angry, but he was fairly certain that this fight would be decided before that cooldown was over. He marched toward the still squealing dragon, catching the tail that it tried to swat at him. He jerked it, letting the beast try to pull it free, before bringing the thin tip down over his knee with a wet snap. The squeal turned into a scream, the beast hauling the appendage back.

  HP: 610/800

  It tried to pounce again, and this time he didn't dodge. Instead, he braced himself and caught it, like he was manhandling an oversized dog and not a beast of myth and legend. Before it realized what was going on, he yanked on its feet and sent the whole of its front body toppling to the side. When the head came to snap at him, he linked his fists together and hammered down on it.

  - Heinous Blow Activated!

  It drove the dragon's head downward and then the stun kicked in, the skull just staying put for a moment.

  HP: 560/800

  Brom calmly put a knee on that snout, left hand grabbing the nearby whisker and wrapping it around his wrist, then pressing the fist down painfully as he leaned even more of his weight onto the dragon. His right hand rose, fell like a hammer.

  - Heavy Attack Activated!

  The bone cracked, and he slid his fingers through the seam of the dragon's eyelid, pushing until he was elbow deep in the socket. The beast thrashed as he stirred his hand around, raking his armored fingers across the bone from inside the orbit.

  HP: 490/800

  "I am sick and fucking tired of this, so let me make a few things clear to anyone watching." He yanked his hand back, unsympathetic to the dragon trying to escape his grip.

  - Unyielding Stance Activated!

  The dragon was pinned, wailing, under the man who would not move.

  "My name is Brom Alexander Jones." Another blow, another spray of shimmering blood.

  HP: 420/800

  "You kicked in my door." Another blow.

  HP: 350/800

  "Kidnapped my nephew." Another, the dragon's eye socket beginning to give way.

  HP: 280/800

  - Heinous Blow Activated!

  - Heavy Attack Activated!

  "Killed my cat." Another. The creature's long and elegant body went still for the duration of the stun, then began thrashing violently, trying to get the leverage to fling him away.

  HP: 210/800

  "And you thought you could run." Brom would not be moved, getting his arm under the dragon's jaw. It's grand health bar was nearly depleted now, dangerously low as it trembled in his arms.

  HP: 160/800

  "Sabbath sends his regards." With a last savage heave, Brom threw all his weight into it. There was a sickening sound, the dragon's keening growing louder and louder, until there was a snap. The dragon went still, the bar finally emptied, and there was silence.

  HP: 90/800

  Brom was quiet for a long moment. Then slowly he slid off the dragon, his eyes looking toward where Alex Ruddle stood with a horrified expression, clutching his pearl tightly to his chest. Splattered with dragon gore and brain matter, Brom stepped around the corpse and began to walk toward the young man.

  HP: 89/800

  HP: 88/800

  HP: 87/800

  Fuck, that debuff was still fucking going? His eyes fixed on that pearl, the way it shimmered with every heartbeat it stole from him. Then they snapped up to meet the eyes of the teenager holding it.

  Alex took a step back. Then another. He was shaking so badly his teeth were chattering, his fingers white-knuckled on the pearl. Gold light rippled around him, that same light that had once healed Brom. It was useless, though. You couldn't heal something already dead. But the young man kept trying, circling the corpse, reversing their positions. Until his mana gave out and he stood there, numbly, staring at the dead dragon and the advancing barbarian.

  HP: 76/800

  HP: 75/800

  HP: 74/800

  He shuffled right up to the eighteen-year-old who, until a few short minutes ago, had been so cocksure. With a tired expression, his hand reached out and plucked the pearl from Alex's grip. There was resistance, but it was negligible, like stealing a basketball from someone with fingers numb from the cold. The dark sheen on the pearl began to smooth away, draining off like water from treated glass, the moment it was removed from contact with Alex.

  "We didn't have to do this. It didn't have to be like this. I'm actually a big fan of talking, with words and everything." He hefted the pearl, running both hands over it. He couldn't help but marvel at its beauty, even as it continued to siphon his life away, voice soft as his thoughts continued. For once, the hero was getting to monologue a little. "Instead, you had to run out and make yourself a teenage cult leader. I don't get it."

  The Grip shivered, and suddenly, the black metal whipped out and dug into the pearl. It bit away chunks of it, just as it had with JJ's shield, what felt like a lifetime ago. It felt like it was ripping into himself, the pearl trying to defend by pulling in more health.

  HP: 54/800

  HP: 53/800

  HP: 52/800

  Alex laughed, using Brom's distraction with the pearl to open a good distance between himself and the barbarian. "It was all just quests. If I completed them, they were going to give me my Grandfather back. But instead you killed the dragon for a stupid fucking cat."

  Brom considered it for a long moment, looking from the pearl to Alex and back. "No, the dragon was just collateral. I'm going to kill you because you killed my cat."

  HP: 41/800

  HP: 40/800

  HP: 39/800

  Credit where credit is due, Alex Ruddle wasn't just going to wait for death to punch him in the face. A clatter as he took another step back gave him an opportunity. The harpoon that had been forced out of Brom's chest when they first came to this place lay there. The teenager glanced at it, then at Brom, and Brom realized in a sickening second what was about to happen. Almost in slow motion, he watched Alex Ruddle pick up that length of steel and come toward him with the slow pace of someone who has nothing left to lose. With everything in ruins around him, he knew what he had to do.

  HP: 26/800

  HP: 25/800

  HP: 24/800

  Brom's hands were stuck, the Grip consuming the pearl, and he brought it around to try and block Alex's precise thrust. The kid sidestepped his clumsy attempt. Alex Ruddle had been taught self-defense with the best lessons money could buy. Brom Jones had learned how to throw down in bars and back alleys. They were not the same.

  HP: 14/800

  - Bleeding

  He gasped, the harpoon driving into his ribs with all the force Alex could muster. Being a healer and not a more physical DPS class, it only did the basic damage, but that was enough. He didn't let go either when Brom dropped a shoulder into him. Instead, that harpoon was ripped free, held in his death grip, even as his body went flying into the corpse of the dragon.

  HP: 4/800

  - Bleeding

  ...he was going to die here, wasn't he? Because of a kid whose anger burned hotter than Brom's did. Because of this stupid System. This stupid curse. Because of his own weapon tying up his hands at a critical moment. Because he'd never properly learned how to fight. Alex had been right, he had just expected to punch his way out of this one.

  His legs gave out, and he hit the ground, his vision starting to tunnel.

  HP: 3/800

  HP: 2/800

  HP: 1/800

  [Consumption Successful!]

  [ Your Grip of Adamant Will (Legendary) has consumed a Pearl of the Outer Dragon (Unique)! Processing gains! (Note: Processing may take some time!)]

  - Bane of Broken Skies

  His vision exploded with notifications, ripping across his sight as he tipped forward, cheek splashing into that liquid and squishing against the firmament supporting him. He couldn't process it, the characters smeared like wet ink, incomprehensible. Too tired. Mental exhaustion that his physical enhancement couldn't keep up with. The stress of bringing his body right to the edge of death, like he was red-lining an engine. No more Brom Jones, that's what his brain said, and he had to obey.

  The last thing Brom was aware of was a crack, a shudder, and then he was tumbling through the sky with winter sunlight at his back.