Calamity Upon This World

"Do you now understand what fire is?" a voice resounded throughout the seemingly endless black void.

Everywhere the eye could see, it was all black, with nothing else in sight.

All except for a white-haired boy who stood in the centre.

Hearing the voice, William replied.

"Yes, I do."

"Then tell me your interpretation," the voice asked.

Without any hesitation, William replied.

"Fire is life."

"And why do you think that?" the voice asked.

"Because without fire, life is not possible."

Silence filled the void after Williams answered, before bright white light filled the whole void.

The light was so bright that William almost got blind and was forced to use his hands to cover his eyes.

After a few seconds, the sudden brightness finally subsided, and William's vision returned.

Once Williams vision returned, he was beyond bewildered by what he saw.

A massive, majestic orange and red bird stood in front of William.

The bird was so massive that it was even bigger than multiple planets put together.

Its wings, while not yet fully opened, were big enough to swat away planets with just a single flap.

It's orange and red wings looked like they were made of lava itself.

And just with its mere presence, the temperature rapidly rose to the point where William felt like his body was on fire, yet he didn't dare to complain in the presence of the otherworldly creature that stood in front of him.

Space itself warped around the bird just from the heat that it subconsciously released.

Even after looking up, William could not see the face of the creature.

There was not a single doubt in Williams mind that the creature in front of him was a pheonix.

'But how?' William thought.

In the countless hours that he spent reading in his family library, William had read basically every single book related to the neutral continent and mythical beasts.

And in all of them, there was not even a single mention of a creature similar to a pheonix.

The only reason William even knew of pheonixes was due to memories of his past life, where the immortal bird of flames was referenced a few times in multiple books.

William was confident that he had not left any possible place unsearched, which initially led him to believe that pheonixes didn't exist in Astressa.

And yet, defying all odds, there was one in front of him.

In the media from his past life, pheonixes are usually portrayed as being weaker than dragons, and yet, despite everything he had experienced from dragons, he couldn't even imagine a dragon who was stronger than the bird of fire in front of him.

William didn't even want to consider the possibility of a creature like this trying to kill him the same way dragons were currently doing.

If that happened, it would literally take someone like Zephyr to descend just to save him, assuming Zephyr actually cared about him, which William doubted.

But despite what he wanted, William couldn't completely dismiss the possibility of the bird trying to kill him.

After all, William was currently living on the assumption that his flaw caused all mythical creatures to want to kill him.

Despite acknowledging the futility of his own actions, William tried to sense his mana in case the worst came to the worst.

And to his horror, he still couldn't feel his mana.

However, it seems he was not going to die today, as the bird finally spoke after revealing its true form.

"Fear not, child; if I wanted to hurt you, I would've already done so."

William had no choice but to accept the bird's words, as even he knew this was true, that still didn't help the chills running down his spine despite the constantly increasing temperature.

"And I suppose this form might appear a bit scary for you; give me a second," the pheonix said as it began to shrink.

And once it had shrunk enough, it transformed as its claws turned into limbs and it stood on two legs, and before long, the previously planetary-sized pheonix was now an 8'0 inch human.

Which, while still massive compared to humans, was no longer as frightening as a creature capable of destroying your entire planet with a single flap of its wings.

The pheonix had long, lustrous-like gold hair that reached its back, and it had two eagle-like golden eyes, which made one feel like they were staring at a predator.

The pheonix was extremely ripped with muscles, despite not being too bulky.

It had orange-like tribal looking pants and a coat made up of feathers on its upper body, which left his 8-pack uncovered.

However, the most noteworthy thing about him were the two massive orange and red wings adorning his back.

"Greetings, divine human. My name is Fariel, and I belong to a race called the pheonix"

"You probably haven't heard of me since I'm the first and last of my kind."

'Ah, so that was why I have never heard or seen any mention of pheonixes in my second life.'

It finally made sense why, despite all his efforts to acquire as much information about his new world as possible, especially about the neutral continent, after Zephyr mentioned him needing to go there, he had never heard or seen any mention of pheonixes.

But that just made it more confusing. Just what was this dungeon?

Wasn't it supposed to be a mere A-rank dungeon?

In that case, why was a creature capable of casually destroying the planet with a single flap of its wing here? and not to mention, according to what Fariel himself said, the only pheonix in this whole universe.

William had many questions, and he was quite sure that there was more to this dungeon than what met the eye.

But before anything else, there was one question he desperately needed an answer to.

"Just what were all the scenarios I just went through, and what was the purpose of them?"

"They are all events that have happened throughout the history of the various planets in this universe, but don't worry, your involvement did not affect them; the results you saw were the things that had actually happened to these people."

"And as for your second question, this was just a test for me to see if you're worthy of inheriting my legacy," Fariel explained.

"So did I pass?" William asked.

"Yes, you did," Fariel replied.