Blazing Starfield.
SSS-class city, Dragon-Breaking City, Dragon-Slaying Academy.
Within a towering structure that reached into the clouds, an ancient holy dragon's head hung from its highest floor. An elderly man in purple robes stood with his hands behind his back on the top-floor platform, gazing into the distance with profound eyes, as though he could see through the void.
This tower was Dragon-Slaying Academy's most iconic structure, known as the "Dragon-Slaying Tower."
Balthazar, the Flame War God and founder of Dragon-Slaying Academy, had hung the head of an ancient holy dragon here, sealing that dragon's soul within its skull as well.
Balthazar had hunted a total of three ancient holy dragons.
This was the last ancient holy dragon he had slain.
No student dared approach this place without permission. The suffocating ancient dragon's might alone was enough to make every student shrink back at the sight of it.
This purple-robed elder, with his withered features, advanced age, and long white hair, was Dragon-Slaying Academy's headmaster, Barol.
At this moment.
Barol, whose expression had originally been indifferent, seemed to sense something. His aged face suddenly changed color.
Buzz!!
Then, with a teleportation skill, he vanished from where he stood and arrived inside a grand hall within the Dragon-Slaying Tower.
The entire hall gleamed with golden light, magnificent and sacred.
Crystal spheres floated one after another throughout the hall.
Each crystal sphere contained a soul.
Only one crystal sphere held no soul. It contained only a soul-lodging lamp.
A name was inscribed upon it in magical secret-rune script: Mark.
However...
The burning wick of that soul-lodging lamp suddenly went out.
Barol's aged face changed again upon seeing this. Shocked and furious, he said, "Mark is dead?"
Once the physical body died and the soul departed, the wick of the soul-lodging lamp would