Hahln had never experienced so much pain in his entire, million-year-long life. He had been through so many things over the years, but this…
His entire being was being ripped apart. His mind was fracturing. Most of the thoughts swirling around inside him didn’t even feel as though they were his—because they weren’t his.
Seaina hated this plan with a fiery passion, but she’d been sworn to obey Hahln, and she was loyal, to the end. As the pain came, the last thought that was truly her own came with it:
This is the end. The end of me.
Jurhn threw back his head and roared as everything split apart inside and outside of him. The thoughts of his fellow party members drifted into his mind, melding with his own.
Wairc relished the transformation. Ah. The pain! It was the best thing he’d ever felt. The myth, it was real! The transformation, it was happening! For the first time in untold millions of years, dragonkin were fulfilling their primal destiny!
The dragonkins’ thoughts slammed into one another, quickly losing any sense of coherency as the transformation continued and the melding process truly began.
The four dragonkin were no longer separate entities.
But while this melding of their very beings—of their souls—made them more powerful, it damaged the parts of them that were them. None of the four dragonkin were able to take control of the transformation. They were not able to choose what was preserved of them.
Hahln, even being their leader, suffered the same fate as the other four.
The transformation had no use for four minds inside one body, so it took what it needed and discarded the rest, creating an amalgamation of the four different entities.
The newly created being that had emerged from the transformation was a dragon. And not just any dragon—it was a True Dragon, or so the dragonkin called them, and thus the System identified them as. A True Dragon hadn’t been seen for a great many years in the Greater Universe. Very few Denizens outside the dragonkin cultures knew of their existence, and those outsiders who did know of their existence feared them.
And in their fear they hunted them.
A True Dragon was simply too powerful—too dangerous—to let live.
Though not all True Dragons had been defeated. Some had hidden away, and still others had simply… disappeared, never to be found again, as though they weren’t even in the same universe anymore.
The True Dragon spread its black, bat-like wings wide, covering the entire battlefield of A Grades and B Grades in shadow. It rose up onto its hand legs, threw back its head to the sky, and released a roar that broke the sound barrier, a roar that could be heard on all corners of massive planet of Galadsea. A roar that would have been heard by the Empire of Servitude’s Armada if only sound could travel through the vacuum of space.
The True Dragon struggled to register who around it was friend or foe. The parts of who it used to be that remained had a target in mind. A being they wished to eradicate. An imposter dragonkin who needed to die. But the other beings around it, the elves, the humans, the demonkin, the dwarves—fear wafting off every one of them, tasting so sweet—none of them felt like allies, and so the True Dragon did not care if they lived or died.
The True Dragon, still roaring, brought its head down, continuing that same roar as it scanned the area for its target. The True Dragon was a primal being, one that had been powerful before the System had come. Its spiritual sense was controlled by pure instinct.
It sensed something—several somethings—were trying to hide. This did not dissuade the True Dragon. The True Dragon was an ancient predator. The fact that beings were hiding from it only made it want to hunt them more.
There.
The True Dragon homed in on its enemy. Its giant maw still open in a deafening roar, the dragon sparked a stream of pure flame. The stream of flame shot from its mouth straight for the concealed being. There were A Grade Champions in the way of the flames, but the True Dragon did not care.
The A Grade Champions were turned to ash.
The stream of flame reached the concealed enemy and destroyed them.
~
Xavier felt the pain of one of his drones burning alive until its life was finally extinguished.
The heat of that fire had been like nothing he’d ever experienced. Fear seized him as he stared at the being that had produced that stream of flame.
He tried to scan it, but it was too powerful. His Identify spell also did nothing.
Roln… Roln, what the hell is that?
He’d sensed what happened. He’d been observing, with the Immortal Soul lens, as the four dragonkin roared in unison, then they’d transformed. Combined. Into something else.
A dragon like none Xavier had seen before.
Four A Grade dragonkin had combined into a dragon. A dragon that felt powerful. Too powerful to even be considered A Grade.
The flames turned the A Grades around it to ash. Denizens that had been training for perhaps a million years, who’d been gaining power all that time, were obliterated in an instant. And the drone the dragon had just killed… it had been hidden by a concealment that the A Grade Champions hadn’t been able to detect.
So how the hell had this thing done it?
Run, Xavier. You have to run!
Run?
Xavier wasn’t one to run from a fight, but feeling just how powerful that thing was—that True Dragon, as Roln had called it… he didn’t argue with the mental construct.
Instead, he got the hell out of there, launching himself into the air. In his mind, he wasn’t running away. This was nothing more than a tactical retreat. When the parties of Champions had finally made it to the ground Xavier had been hesitant to engage them. It had been clear that every single one of the ninety-nine A Grade Champion parties had travelled down to the planet at the same time.
They were finally sick of waiting to fight him.
But he’d still engaged them anyway. And he’d been winning. The Champions had been a disorganised mess, and they’d all been way too close to one another. It was difficult fighting in a group of that many powerful Denizens even when there was a clear chain of command.
When there wasn’t…
Xavier had taken full advantage of the situation, causing more and more chaos with every Champion he killed. His victory was beginning to feel like a sure thing. Like nothing could stop him.
Until this.
Xavier flew and didn’t stop until he was several hundred miles away. He’d left every single one of his drones behind to attract the True Dragon’s attention. It was attacking anyone around it, killing those who should have been its allies without concern. He wasn’t the only one retreating from the monster. Parties of A Grade Champions were getting the hell out of there. The Teleportation and Portal Locks were dropped for the first time in a long time, and Xavier could teleport to the other side of the planet, far out of danger, if he wished—though he had a sneaking suspicion this being would be able to detect one of his teleports. It had the nose of a bloodhound.
None of the other A Grades had been able to find one of his concealed drones.
What do you know about this thing? Xavier asked Roln, hating that his thoughts sounded a touch frantic.
Not much, Roln replied, but there was something in the mental construct’s words. The dead Wanderer was holding back.
Roln, what is it? Tell me!
You should abandon this floor, Xavier.
Xavier blinked. That was the last thing he’d expected the dead Wanderer to tell him. He knew they often disagreed on what level of risk was worth it, but it wasn’t often the mental construct told him to simply abandon a fight, especially since Xavier hadn’t even tried fighting this thing.
I saw the four dragonkin that turned into this. I could have taken them. I could have killed them all, easily enough.
Yes. You’re right. You would have obliterated them. This being? It’s not them.
Xavier activated Chronomantic Mindforge, targeting one of the surviving B Grade soldiers nearby, but not making a move to actually use the spell’s powers. All he wanted to do was take advantage of the spell’s ability to slow down time. Then, he retreated the main part of his consciousness to his mind space, further slowing the passage of time until it was practically at a standstill. Here, he had as much time as he would need to speak to the dead Wanderer about what the hell had just happened out there.
“Roln, what are you holding back?” Xavier stood across from the mental construct.
Roln shut his eyes. Sighed. “You should sit down for this.”
Xavier didn’t want to sit but didn’t feel like arguing. He made his way to one of the armchairs near the fire and lowered himself into it. Roln sat opposite him. The mental construct was silent. This wasn’t going to be an easy conversation. But despite how much time they had for it, Xavier lacked the patience to wait Roln out.
“Tell me.”
Roln inclined his head. “Even the things I know are just rumours,” he said, his voice not much more than a whisper. “I’ve seen a True Dragon or two before, in my travels, though those were much weaker one than this.”
Xavier frowned. “How did they do it? How did they combine themselves into one? I… I didn’t know that was even possible. I’ve delved deep into so many different varieties of spells, so many different classes. I’ve never heard of anything like this…”
“That’s because they’re rare. Incredibly so. And the ability they use predates the System—technically, I don’t even think it’s integrated into this System. It’s something that was stamped into their DNA billions of years ago, long before the System took over their planet.”
Xavier’s forehead creased, remembering the way that dragon—that beast—had felt as he’d looked at it through his Immortal Soul lens. “It was so powerful…” He bit his lip. Looked Roln in the eye. “That thing, it didn’t feel like an A Grade, Roln.”
Roln blinked slowly. “That’s because it wasn’t A Grade… not anymore. The four dragonkin combined transformed into something far more powerful. Something you are nowhere near ready to face.”
“More powerful than an A Grade.” Xavier shut his eyes. “You can’t mean to say, that True Dragon was… S Grade?”
Roln stared at him. “That’s exactly what I’m saying.”