I staggered backwards. The axe came rushing towards me at very high speed. I dodged the blow and swung my short sword in the direction of the opponent.
The opponent in question was a troll. A big, fat, hairy beast. He wore a woolen apron, aside from that he had nothing on. He protected his much too large body with a shield that was much too small, which led to the fact that he had already suffered some deep wounds. His skin was gray, reminiscent of the sky on a cold autumn day. His face looked like an overgrown, rotten potato with button eyes. His axe was technically much too big for him to swing, but he didn't seem to mind that at all. However, this slowed him down considerably, making his attacks easy to dodge. However, it would have been just stupid to parry them, as his blows had far too much power, which would cause my sword (and my arm) to break.
However, I have not remained uninjured so far either. I had a deep cut on my right arm that was bleeding profusely, which meant that my blows were also much less effective.
I dashed towards the troll and pretended to land a powerful blow with my sword from the right side, while I pulled a long, white knife from its sheath with my left hand. While the troll was preparing to parry my blow, I pulled my right arm back, and used the momentum to stab the knife right into his chest. Then I jumped backwards, and the troll collapsed dead. Now that all the adrenaline was gone, I started to feel the burning pain in my arm. I took some bandages and wine out of my leather backpack and rinsed my wound. That burned, damn it! I forced myself to bind the wound as tightly as possible and then drank something from the wineskin. I put away my weapons and grabbed some dried meat from a side pouch of my backpack. After I had eaten a little of it, I set off again.
I was in a large cave passage, in the middle of a mine that collapsed about ten years ago. I intended to look for potential lost resources that would come in handy in the future, given that I intended to slay the Ruler Of Dragons.
Several had tried before me, but no one had come back alive. The reason I had even come into this mine in the first place was that only here, a special kind of iron could be found, which is needed to slay dragons. It's not that deep, really. I had a map with me, but it had become completely useless given that, well, the mine had collapsed, and so, most of the marked paths were blocked by the rubble.
My supplies had almost run out though, and my arm still hurt. I hoped to find a warehouse of sorts, that would make my task significantly easier.
I stared at the ground when I suddenly stumbled over a gnarled root. When I looked up, I found myself in a huge cave, in the middle of which stood a huge, fruit-bearing tree.
When I looked a little closer, I noticed that a ladder was moored in the middle of the tree.
Curiously, I approached the tree when suddenly an arrow flew towards me. The arrow whizzed just past me, followed directly by another. This time I was fast enough. I quickly drew my sword and managed to parry it.
Shit. I didn't have a bow of any kind with me, but either way, the archer was too well hidden in the tree anyway. The only way to defeat him here was to climb the tree and, well, you can imagine what I did. Exactly. I moved about fifteen meters away from the tree and took a starting position. I tensed my legs and regulated my breathing. I was just about to start running when a shower of arrows rained down on me. It took my brain a second to cope with the fact that my ingenious plan to walk straight up the tree was destroyed. Frustrated, I swung my sword. I only hit one of the arrows, but the force of the momentum shot the others away with it. Pissed at that godforsaken archer, I decided to fly up instead. Right, I forgot to mention, yes, I can fly.
What I saw in the treetop blew me away. I saw a city. An actual city, hidden by the leaves of the trees. I didn't exactly understand how a city that big would fit in the tree, but before I could rack my brains over it, my head was hit with a violent blow from a metal object, whereupon I collapsed.
Suddenly I stood in front of a horde of blood-red dragons who looked at me angrily. You can hardly say a horde, there were eight in number. I had a sword unknown to me in my hand and combed my -long? - hair out of my face. An aura emanated from the sword, connecting it with the people standing next to me. I didn't know any of these people, but I knew they were important to me. Without knowing what was happening to me, we all ran towards the dragons with a roar. One of the dragons swung out with its huge claws and struck my party. To my left, it seemed to explode as it came into contact with the ground, and I saw Folgar flying through the air. How did I know his name? I had no Idea. The dragon in front of me spat a red-hot jet of fire at me, but I survived by dodging it. When I turned backwards while running towards the dragons, I saw that every single one of my comrades was dying, and the aura surrounding my sword was fading. Sheer hatred flowed through me as I jumped into the air, high above the heads of the dragons. I had to kill them before I would succumb to the grief of losing my comrades. My sword grew in size, and I started swinging it in the direction of the dragons. The blow didn't hit any of the dragons but all the remaining the aura that surrounded my sword flew towards towards the dragons, as if it were an extension of my blade.
I knew it was hopeless.
 The blade of Aura broke when it hit the hard scales of the dragon.
I knew I was going to die.
I was in the air, motionless. One of the dragons tried striking me with his massive claws. I flew out of the trajectory.
I knew resistance was pointless.
Like a madman, I flew inside of the mouth of the dragon in front of me.
I would go out with a bang.
I almost suffocated in the stench inside the dragon, but the only way to kill it would be from the inside. I channeled all my remaining spiritual energy into my right hand.
I would at least take out one of the dragons.
My hand couldn't contain the energy. It simply didn't withstand the power. It basically burst apart.
I couldn't achieve anything. I was going to dissolve inside the stomach acids of this god damn dragon. I couldn't even kill a single one. All of my comrades died for me, and I couldn't even kill one single dragon. I had failed in the worst way possible. My entire body felt like it was burning up. That's when I woke up.
I was lying on a wooden board. There were some small but deep wounds on my arms, which burned like hell. I had several burns on my stomach, and I was missing all my fingernails and toenails. That's when it hit me: I had been tortured. Why? By whom? Frankly, I had no idea. My hair was no longer quite as long, compared to how it had been in the fight against the dragons, although I was not sure if I had dreamt that, but the color of the strands that hung in my battered face were not the familiar black, but gray. My hands and legs were chained, although that was completely superfluous, because apart from the hellish pain, I wouldn't have had enough strength to get up. My eyes closed themselves, in a way. I couldn't open them; I was too weak even for that. I lay there for what felt like an hour until I could open my eyes again. A man entered my cell with something in his hand that I wasn't sure what it was. It didn't look like a knife, but more like some kind of stone, but he cut off my shackles with it without any problems. The stranger helped me get up, but when I stood, my body slackened under the pain.
Again, I woke up somewhere else. This time I was lying in a soft bed and the ceiling was very high and richly decorated. I felt much better than before, and most of my wounds seemed to have healed. I got out of my bed and found that I had nothing on. Ashamed, I hastily put on some clothes, which had probably been laid out for me on my bed. The fabric felt pleasantly warm and light, I had the feeling of being well dressed for the first time in years. There was a mirror in front of my bed. When I looked inside, I could hardly believe that I was looking at myself. My long hair was now completely white, and my eyes unmistakably gray, although they had been blood-red before. My otherwise almost flawless face was covered with scars, and I looked much stronger than usual. Besides, I had grown black claws instead of nails. I turned to the door. That means I would have done that if there had been a door. The walls had the same pattern everywhere, and the whole round room was lit by windows, round windows. I opened one of the windows and looked out. The view was amazing.
I found myself in a tall tower that protruded from the middle of a castle. The castle was in the middle of an overwhelmingly large city built with white polished marble and blood-red roofs, which I couldn't make out what they were made of. The valley where the castle stood was surrounded by snow-capped high mountains, the summit of which I could not make out. The vast area between the mountains and the city was covered by a dark forest with trees that towered almost above the city wall, which was over five hundred meters high. How I knew how high the wall was, I don't know either, but I just knew it.
I tried to remember how I got here, but the last thing I could remember was that I had been beaten to death from behind in that tree in the mine. Everything after that felt like a bad dream, and I didn't know what had happened and what had, in fact, just been a dream.
But now I wanted to get out of this tower somehow. I felt my way along the wall until I heard a squeaking, and a doorknob emerged from the wall. When I pulled it, the door opened. The door led to a balcony. When the fresh air filled my lungs, I suddenly started feeling nauseous. I collapsed, my head started hurting and I felt like I was going to vomit, even though I had nothing in my stomach. Lots of memories flowed into my head, and for what felt like an hour I lay motionless on the floor while my brain tried to find any connections between my old and new memories, but all the new memories were unbearable. I saw before my eyes how my comrades, whom I did not recognize, died, every bit of pain that I had experienced in the past - years? – suddenly came back to me. I lay on the floor, filled with hellish pain, gasping for air, even though breathing was already painful. Then, suddenly, it all stopped. I couldn't see anything anymore; I couldn't feel anything anymore. All I heard was a sweet scent, and a voice. If I had to describe this voice, I couldn't. It was cruel, tender, terrifying, and reassuring all at once. I did not know the language spoken by the voice, and yet I understood every word. It told me about why I should not give in now, that all the suffering would otherwise have been in vain, that I still had something to finish. Honestly, I had no idea what it was talking about. Then, I blacked out again.
When I woke up, I was surprisingly still lying on the balcony where I had become unconscious. Apparently, this was the real world now, given that I didn't wake up anywhere else. I stood up. My heart was still racing, but the pain had stopped. The balcony where I had collapsed was connected to a long spiral staircase that wound around the tower. I tried to fly down using spiritual energy, but I felt too weak. Carefully I went down the stairs. I wasn't sure where I wanted to go, but I wanted to get out of the tower. I walked down the stairs for what felt like ten minutes until I reached the bottom. I was standing in front of a big door.
When I tried to open it, I found that it was locked. I thought for a while. When I couldn't think of anything but how to open the door, I knocked on it. Knocking is a way to put it, I technically simply destroyed it with a punch. Surprisingly, that wasn't difficult for me at all. As I walked through the door, I found myself in a narrow, low corridor with ornate side walls. As far as I could see, they were depictions of great battles and exploits of dwarves against dragons. As I walked down the corridor, I thought about what I had dreamed. Or rather, what I had experienced in my sleep. I wasn't sure if it was a dream, or a vision, or a memory... My theory was the following. I probably suffered from amnesia. This realization somehow saddened me. I clenched my hands into fists. I immediately regretted this, as I cut open my palms with my claws. I cried out briefly, and when I looked to see how deep my wound was, I saw none. It was already completely healed, and the blood still stuck to my fingers. Out of pure curiosity, I buried my index finger in the palm of my right hand. I felt the pain, but only faintly. Within a second, I saw my palm heal. It seemed as if I had been gifted with some kind of regenerative ability. I stopped thinking too much about it, doing so would have been pointless anyway.
I followed the corridor until it split in two. There were no directional signs to be seen, so I decided to go left.
After about an hour, my path was blocked by a door. It wasn't locked. I walked through. I thought I had lost consciousness again, everything around me was black, and I couldn't hear, feel, smell anything...
Well, I did feel my face when I touched it with my hands. This I could feel, but not a floor. It felt as if I was floating and at the same time crushed by an indescribably heavy gravity. For what felt like an eternity, I was nothing in this black nothingness. Honestly, an eternity. I regularly stabbed myself in the hand to not lose my mind. Long after I had lost all sense of time, I died. I think so. I didn't feel anything anymore. I didn't have a body anymore. I could still move, though.
I looked around. I think. I couldn't turn my head, and I didn't have eyes either. I still saw something. And nothing. Simultaneously. I took a deep breath. I wanted to. But I couldn't breathe. Not like I needed to. I just couldn't. After all, I had no lungs. However, I could see. Sort of. I saw something. I wasn't sure what it was, but I saw something. Only by the time that I got used to the darkness, I noticed that it was not dark at all.
And then I fell. Someone had pushed me off the cliff. I turned around, looked into my daughter's mournful eyes and smiled, while crying. I knew she had to kill me. That's why I didn't fly away and accepted my death. I didn't know why I fell here; I didn't know I had a daughter at all, but that was irrelevant. After all, I was already dead. So, there I was, falling, towards the surface of the water. The wind felt pleasantly cool, and I was happy. At that moment, nothing in the world could make me happier.
And when I hit the water, I remembered everything again. I knew why my daughter had pushed me off the cliff. I knew why I had a daughter in the first place, too. I remembered who I was and whom I had known. In my last moments, I remembered what my role in this story was, and all my regret that I had accumulated over my thousands of years on this pitiful world came back at me. All I wanted, from the depths of my heart, was, to get a second chance at life. That wish did not come true, obviously. My body was smashed on the surface of the ocean. Then I saw my life flashing in front of my eyes.