The night Michael Williams died, the world stopped pretending heroes were myths.
Rain fell like judgment over the city, sirens screaming too late into the darkness. Steel twisted, fire roared, and terrified voices blended into one endless cry.
A chemical transport truck had overturned on the expressway bridge—its cargo unstable, its warning ignored. Traffic was gridlocked. Families were trapped. Panic ruled.
Michael didn't run.
Nineteen years old. No uniform. No badge. No superpower.
Just a young man with strong will, reckless courage, and a heart that refused to turn away.
He had been on his way home, phone in hand, worrying about bills, about tomorrow, about a future that never seemed to arrive fast enough. But when he saw the smoke, when he heard the screaming, something ancient and immovable inside him rose.
He climbed.
People shouted at him to stop. Police tried to hold him back. He broke free, hands bleeding as he tore open a jammed bus door. One child. Two. A woman unconscious. A man with a shattered leg.
Then the truck began to scream.
Metal groaned. The containment seals glowed an angry red.
Someone yelled that it was going to blow.
Michael went back anyway.
He carried the last trapped man—an old stranger whose eyes were filled with terror and disbelief—across the bridge just as the night turned white.
The explosion erased sound. It erased light. It erased Michael Williams.
The world would later call it the sacrifice that saved hundreds. His name would be spoken by presidents, written in history books, carved into stone. Candlelights would flood streets across continents. For one night, humanity remembered what courage looked like.
And in the instant after his death—
Time froze.
Michael opened his eyes.
There was no pain.
No darkness.
He stood in an endless expanse of quiet, where stars floated like distant thoughts and reality felt… thinner. His body was whole.
His mind was sharper than it had ever been.
And someone else was there.
Not a god with thunder or fire. Not a monster. Not an angel.
Just a presence so vast that existence itself seemed to lean toward it.
"Michael Williams," the being said, its voice neither male nor female, echoing directly inside his soul.
"You have died."
Michael exhaled slowly.
"…Yeah," he replied. "I figured."
There was no panic. No denial. Only calm acceptance.
The being paused, as if surprised.
"You are remembered," it continued. "Your death will echo through your world for generations."
Michael's eyes hardened.
"My family?"
The being understood immediately.
Images unfolded in the void—his parents, his siblings, his bloodline. Mourning… but protected. Watched. Shielded by unseen forces.
"They will never fall," the being said. "They will rise beyond wealth—into influence, power, and permanence. Feared where necessary.
Respected everywhere."
Michael studied the vision carefully.
"No manipulation?" he asked. "No turning them into tyrants or puppets?"
"None," the being replied. "They will remain human."
Only then did Michael nod.
"What do you want from me?"
The void darkened.
Another world appeared—vast beyond imagination. A world eighty times larger than Earth. Continents stretched like sleeping giants. Civilizations burned.
At the edges of reality, something watched.
The Null Realm.
Where it touched the world, life ended. Lands were consumed and became something else—silent, dead zones of existence known as the Voidlands. Nothing grew there. Nothing lived. Nothing returned.
"That world is called Drazyria," the being said. "And it is dying."
Michael saw armies shattered. Kingdoms betrayed. Races united—and broken. He saw a single land standing like a wall at the edge of annihilation.
A family crest burned into his vision.
A dragon.
"You will be reborn there," the being continued. "Into a house that once held the line against extinction. Betrayed. Broken. Still standing."
Michael's gaze sharpened.
"And you can't interfere."
"I cannot," the being admitted. "If I act directly, the balance collapses. Reality itself will fracture."
"So you need a hand," Michael said. "An enforcer."
"Yes."
Silence stretched.
Michael crossed his arms. "Then we make a deal."
The being listened.
"My family on Earth is protected. Forever. Not a nation. A family—untouchable."
"Agreed."
"My life in that world won't be wasted. I decide how I fight."
"Agreed."
"My final death—when it comes—will mean something."
"…Agreed."
A seal burned into existence, carving itself into Michael's soul and the being's essence alike. Unbreakable. Absolute.
"You will be given a system," the being said. "Knowledge beyond eras. The ability to build, to summon, to uplift. But the choices will always be yours."
Michael looked once more at Earth—at the world that would remember him.
Then he turned away.
"Send me."
He woke screaming.
Not in pain—but in memory.
Stone ceilings. The scent of iron and ash. A body younger, stronger, scarred beyond reason. He lay in a great hall draped in black banners, his breathing shallow.
Voices cried his name.
He was home.
The Williams Family—known as the Mighty Dragon of the Human Continent—had survived the Great War. But their land was poisoned. Their knights were dead. Their glory shattered by betrayal.
Michael felt it all.
Then the system awakened.
Not with noise.
With certainty.
[Welcome, User: Michael Williams]
[New User Gift Activated]
Somewhere beneath the ruined land, hidden factories hummed to life.
Fifteen hundred elite soldiers—armed, trained, loyal beyond doubt—waited in silence, clad in armor that blurred the line between man and machine.
Weapons rested in the dark. Ammunition stacked endlessly. Artillery slept, eager.
And Michael smiled.
The world had tried to end him once.
This time—
He would end the war.