SON OF THE HERO KING

In the long history of Lustburg, no one ever had the luck to enter Gabriel’s territory, or those that did never come back. Because of this, how that world looked was a complete mystery.

Sol had imagined many things. Mostly, he thought that he would see a lush forest, full of wide towering trees or something of the like.

But what he saw now was,

“I am in a desert?”

Slowly opening his eyes once again, to avoid being blinded by the glaring sun, or more precisely, suns, Sol finally observed his surroundings.

Sand, sand, sand and even more sand as far as his eyes could see.

An endless desert.

As if it wasn’t enough, Sol covered his eyes with his hand and briefly raised his head,

“Three suns.”

His expression immediately became ugly. He could already feel beads of sweat on his forehead flowing down slowly.

Not only were the multiple suns not helping, but the heavy suit he was wearing also wasn’t exactly what you could call desert friendly.

“Am I really in Phoenix territory?”

He couldn’t help but wonder.

Stumped, he tried to enter his dimension, but he could feel as if a wall was stopping him.

It didn’t take long for him to understand the reasons why.

The mortal dimension was a dimension owned by no one save the goddess. But this wasn’t the case here.

This part of the Astral dimension, if it was really the one belonging to Gabriel, was her divine territory and as such worked under her own laws. No one could enter or leave the mirror dimension without its master's permission and it was clear that the same rule applied to Gabriel or whoever this territory belonged to.

“Well...This isn’t exactly how I envisioned the start of my adventure.”

…

…

…

‘It’s so damn hot.’

Sitting on the sand, Sol did not move from the position he initially found himself in.

He did not know how long he had been sitting, but from how hot his butt felt, it must have been quite a while.

Even so, he did not intend to move now.

He did not know where he was.

He did not know where he had to go.

He had no food and no water on him, nor did he know where to find them.

Moving without thoughts meant death, but---staying here without moving also meant death.

Even so, Sol did not despair. He was simply analyzing the situation he was in and the best way to go at it.

Once he finally had a plan, he stood up and dusted himself.

“Well, first things first.”

He closed his eyes and focused a little.

Slowly, his skin began to bristle before it was covered by scales of the same color as his skin.

Even though it had been a while, Sol remembered that reptiles had a better heat regulation thanks to their scales.

He did not know if dragons were cold blooded creatures, but if the scales of a dragon were less useful than that of a simple reptile, then it would be a joke.

As he thought, the moment his body was covered in scales, the unbearable heat suddenly became much less so. At the same time, he could feel that he had stopped sweating. Clearly, those scales had also regulated the loss of water in his body.

He let out a sigh of relief and focused on his transformation.

Since it wasn’t his natural form, he still had some problem keeping it for long, but that was mostly during a fight.

Right now, since he was just using them to fight the heat, he should be able to keep them indefinitely without much trouble. Mana was not a problem either since as long as his output was controlled, thanks to his core he had a near infinite mana.

The only problem now was his lack of water and food.

What’s more, any kind of beast or spirit that could survive in this environment would be no joke.

“Now then.”

He crouched down, put all his strength in his legs, and--jumped as high as possible.

*BOOM*

The ground trembled as he was launched high in the sky.

The hot air scorched his skin, but he could barely feel anything thanks to the scales. Once he reached peak altitude, he looked at his surroundings, but was disappointed to see no signs of settlement.

Once he landed, and after losing his footings and rolling a little on the ground, taking some sand in his mouth and other parts he never hoped to have sand in, Sol stood up and cursed like a sailor in his mind for a few minutes straight.

Calming down, he took off his suit and everything else, shook them to get off the sand and simply put his pants back on. For the top, he had decided to just have the shirt that was under the suit.

The scales helped him, but that suit was really useless.

“Okay, let’s see how lucky I am.”

His body could theoretically handle a lack of food for a few days. He did not know how long he could last.

As such, he simply decided to lay back down on the sand, added a very light layer of mana on his body to add some protection without exceeding his mana regeneration speed, used his shirt as a cushion, curled up and---closed his eyes.

Since either way he was going to die, might as well not make any efforts, before sleeping, he did not forget to mumble,

“I really wonder what Luxuria will do when she hears that her Blessed died like that. Heh, same for Tiamat. Oh, I also remember that Ambrosia is my mother-in-law.”

He then fell asleep with a smirk on his face.

----

“That rascale…”

A voluptuous woman with vermillion hair chortled as she watched the amusing scene through a floating mirror and heard those words.

Standing next to her, her daughter, Nephthys, gave a little smile,

“It seems like he understood we couldn’t do much to him.”

Gabriel could only give a bitter smile, “Indeed, everything aside, Tiamat would go crazy if she heard that I bullied her grandson. At the same time, that ambrosia dotes on her daughter like a mother hen. I really can’t go too far with this.”

As Sol deducted, the current territory entirely belonged to Gabriel.

Even though she was in no way omniscient while here, she could still easily observe every corner. What’s more, how could she not have felt divine power tearing apart the dimensional walls and entering her world?

That was why she had been observing Sol since the moment he entered and she had to say,

“He is pretty interesting. Though I find the way he acted a little shameless.”

As the herald of purity and chastity, Gabriel loved stories of heroes struggling against all adversities until they finally succeeded.

Initially, Sol should have landed in her palace, but she had slightly deviated the coordinates so that he landed a few hundred kilometers away from the city.

At the same time, she had tweaked the spatial laws so that no matter which path he took, he would find the city after a few days of walking.

But he broke all her plans in the simplest way, by refusing to move.

Had it been anyone else, she would have simply left them to die, but as he said, she really couldn’t afford it.

And she knew that Tiamat already awoke and was waiting excitedly for her grandson, if she took too long, the dragon would come here and the two of them would most likely fight.

“You seem pretty happy.”

“Hehehe!” Nephthys, was indeed pretty happy, “I don’t need my daughter to follow a hero. Anubis always told me that heroes were the ones who died the fastest. That was why he chose to become a villain.”

Gabriel let out another sigh, of course, how could anyone get the moniker of Necromancer King by acting like a kind and gentle hero?

Anubis was the one furthest from what a hero should be. Back then, during the holy war, the number of people who died under his undead calamities was simply too much to count.

When he tried to create the underworld, he fought against some of the divine beasts and in the end, fled after sealing the divine beasts of Gluttony, Greed and Temperance.

A fact that had been deeply hidden in the waves of history. After all, for the divine beasts, such a defeat was a stain in their history.

Scrunching her eyebrows, Gabriel looked at the young man sleeping peacefully under the scorching sun and decided to try one last thing before transporting him here.

In this world, evil or justice were a matter of perspective.

What stayed true for everyone though—was strength.

“Sol Dragona Luxuria, let’s see how strong you truly are.”

(AN: Sol first used those scales during his fight in the coliseum against the four gladiators. Though currently they aren't really scale in the truest form. Imagine more Natsu scales at the start of fairy tail during the Erza vs Jelhal arc. Also, once again Anubis is supposed to be mc of a prequel called Son of the demon king. So he is pretty busted. Anyway, this is the true start of the much anticipated Phoenix volume. I hope you guys will like Isis after she is really developed. Finally, I already said that Phoenixes followed the Egypt theme. Desert, Oasis and pyramid.)