Sacrifice: Time of Mine

There was once a little girl that was being chased by a small dragon.

"Where did you come from?" the little girl, Darea shouted.

Back then, she can still open her eyes quite easily without killing anyone.

The Great Darea Continent was yet to be called or unified back then and they were split into three, originally. In one of them, beasts and demons were looking everywhere and humans had the greatest difficulty in surviving.

Unlike in other continents, humans are not hunters but prey. 

After being chased for a while, the little girl finally had enough.

"Even if I'm just a Rank Eeh, doesn't mean you can bully me. I'm done running, let's fight!"

Roar*

After a moment of battle, disrupting the wildlife, Darea collapsed on the ground. She gritted her teeth as the dragon opened its mouth, not to eat her but it seemed like it was haughtily laughing.

Feeling insulted instead of intimidated or scared, Darea pointed, "Just wait for months. I just escaped those who captured me and destroyed my homeland. I'm just starting. Wait and see how I defeat you!"

She found a peculiar dragon who looked down on her.

Darea escaped once again while the dragon had fun chasing her. The dragon was having fun establishing itself as the stronger one.

Darea didn't want to shoo it and tell it to find an opponent on its level. She wanted to get stronger and show this dragon what's real strength is!

A few months after running and hiding, Darea came out as a Rank Dih. Her talent surprised the dragon.

"Let's fight, lizard." Darea lifted her head which a moment later, led to her defeat.

"Why...?" she looked at her hands. She thought she got stronger and stronger, however, it was still not enough.

Darea glared at the "laughing" dragon.

"I haven't learned any elesps yet. Just you see." she coolly said before escaping again.

After many months of experience and coupled with her recent rank-up, she was able to become more adept at escaping and hiding. Thus, a year passed by. Darea traveled far and visited many cities, met many dangers, but overcame them all.

Learning skills, techniques, and unlocking elesks and elesps, she grew stronger. When she came back to the forest she met that dragon, she found it was missing.

Darea searched for this dragon to see it being captive by the same people that destroyed her home. She was filled with fury since she was still a child. However, she knew that she stands no chance against these people as of now.

The strongest there, their leader, was a Rank Ey Elementalist. Darea was just a Rank Cee and was far from defeating the leader, much less everyone there.

However, that doesn't mean she would give up. She planned to track them in the shadows while growing stronger and stronger to the path of supremacy these bandits gave her. But Darea couldn't do it since the dragon which she considered a rival was in danger.

Months went by and Darea went to fight the bandits in skirmishes all alone. Those she found allies against these tyrants were killed after immediately. Yet, she did not dread nor held back. She found out that being alone is more suitable for her.

With her talent, she let herself be a disciple to many masters. However, as soon as she surpassed them, she will leave. At first, killing dozens of Rank Cees was her best. But that was not enough to deter the bandit's movement from going to another place and sell the dragon.

Only because of the allies she found and the sacrifices they made that these bandits slowed down. After a couple of years, Darea grew to became a beautiful maiden and had stepped onto Rank Bih. With her skill and experience, she took down most of the Rank Bih Bandits alone like an assassin.

After weakening the bandits as a whole, she finally came out and fought the Rank Ey leader with all her got. Only when she was on the brink of death did she annihilated the whole bandits, saving hundreds of people as captives.

Finally, she looked into the sturdiest cage and opened it. What she found brought her great disappointment.

The dragon was curling and cowering in fear.

"In front of weaker people, you laugh but in front of stronger people, you cower." 

That was the only thing that Darea said before she left.

The dragon saw her graceful figure, walking alone on the carnage that she created just to save the dragon. Even though she was a half-step from dying, she walked as if nothing was wrong.

The dragon's heat wavered.

However, Darea knew that these bandits were just a branch of her real enemies. To defeat her parents, the enemy should be at least Rank Es which she was still far from achieving.

That's why she continued to train until one day, the dragon showed up again.

It challenged her and this time, the dragon collapsed while Darea was just sweating. She was already stronger than the dragon. But Darea didn't kill the dragon as she already thought of it as a former companion.

The dragon kept chasing Darea but for a different reason and in a different sense. It kept chasing and chasing until it learned how to get stronger and reached a dragon's equivalence to Rank Ey, getting her humanoid form after more than a decade.

Thus, Sheran was born.

But when Sheran thought that she could finally catch up to Darea, the latter beat her up until her consciousness faded.

When she woke up, Darea had left her, filling her with confusion and fury.

"I treated her as a friend, how can she do this to me!?" 

Thinking that she was treated unfairly, Sheran began the quest of finding Darea only to find many decades later that Darea fought the Rank Es bandit leader of the whole continent.

"Sheran, what are you doing here?"