And then… it stopped.
The blood no longer vanished beneath the egg.
Kael held his breath. Yue went rigid beside him.
Then—
Crack.
Kael's mind raced with wild possibilities.
A dragon.
A phoenix.
A mythical beast lost to time.
Something powerful. Something glorious.
His eyes gleamed as he gently lifted the cracked egg, heart pounding in anticipation.
The fractures split all at once.
Crkkk—
A black, oily substance slithered out through the cracks.
It wasn't flesh. It wasn't scales.
It was wrong.
Thick. Viscous. Like living tar with a shine that swallowed light.
Kael stared at it, deadpan.
"…What is this?" he muttered. "Where's my dragon?"
Yue hovered closer, squinting. "…That… doesn't look right."
The oily black mass moved.
Slid up Kael's fingers, wrapping around them like liquid shadow.
It pulsed faintly, as if breathing.
Kael recoiled. "Hey. It's moving—what the hell?"
The thing stopped. Still.
Then it twitched again… and slowly reformed its upper mass.
For a second, it looked almost humanoid. No, not a body. Not a face.
But—
Eyes.
Two faint white slits, glowing dimly within the shifting black mass—soft, lidless, and utterly alien.
Kael froze.
A chill rippled down his spine. His fingers, still curled around the remnants of the egg, twitched.
He didn't move. Couldn't.
Because those eyes… were looking at him.
Not like a beast. Not like an animal obeying its master.
No—studying him. Measuring. Judging.
"What…" Kael breathed, voice barely a whisper, "...what have I tamed?"
Suddenly—footsteps. Faint, but growing louder.
Yue vanished into the treeline and returned moments later.
Her face was pale.
"Twenty-two," she whispered.
"Soldiers. Mages. And… Aerik. He's with them."
Kael didn't even blink. Just nodded, gaze fixed on the black slime now coiled lazily up his forearm like a pet serpent.
Yue stepped closer.
"Kael, we need to go. You can't take them all alone. Not yet."
But Kael didn't move.
"No," he said calmly. "I'm fighting."
Yue stared.
"What happened to your heroic philosophy? 'Crush the weak until I can crush the strong'?"
A smirk twitched on Kael's lips.
"Something about being unpredictable," he said. "Makes life more interesting."
Then he lifted his arm slightly, the slime now pulsing in sync with his heartbeat.
"And besides…" His voice dropped, quieter, almost reverent. "I want to see what he can do."
"I can feel it," Kael muttered.
"Subtle, like a whisper behind my eyes. It's not just alive. It's… hungry."
Yue swallowed. Her voice trembled, just a little.
"What is it saying, Kael?"
Kael looked at her—calm, steady, and smiling with something that wasn't quite sanity.
"Blood."
###
Night had already descended, swallowing Mount Veilspire in an oppressive blackness.
Aerik moved cautiously behind Eiden, flanked by twenty soldiers.
Their glow spells cast eerie orbs of light, illuminating only a small radius ahead—beyond that, an abyss of darkness awaited.
As Aerik's eyes caught the trail ahead, soaked in gore and shattered flesh, a cold dread gripped his heart. He muttered prayers under his breath, clutching his weapon tighter.
"Eiden," he whispered, voice trembling, "we need to leave. Come back in the morning with reinforcements. This... this is beyond us. We need a higher-ranked magician. We can't handle whatever is causing this carnage."
Eiden spun on him, eyes flashing with impatience and disdain.
"This? This can be done by a rank 3 beast. We have twenty rank 2 magicians. Surely, we can at least handle one. Are you afraid? I thought the Drenlor name stood for something stronger."
Aerik's fists clenched with rage.
He wanted to strangle the smug arrogance right out of Eiden. But instead, he swallowed his anger and fell silent.
Then, as if the mountain itself was holding its breath, the air grew heavy.
The wind stopped.
Only the crunch of their footsteps broke the stillness.
Darkness pressed in from all sides.
And then—
Nothing but silence.
A deep, cold silence, crawling with dread.
The mountain waited.
And so did whatever lurked within its shadows.
Eiden raised a sharp hand—Stop.
The men froze, breaths caught in their throats, spells igniting at their fingertips, ready to unleash destruction.
Suddenly, their glow spells cast a harsh, flickering light onto a gnarled tree branch above.
"aaaaaaaaaaa"
A scream tore through the silence—then, silence returned.
All eyes darted upward.
There, perched with unnatural ease on the twisted branch, was a figure cloaked in shadow and dread.
A man—no, something other—wearing, crimson demonic mask that seemed to pulse with its own terrible heartbeat.
His black robes were soaked in old blood, fluttering like smoke in the stagnant air.
In one hand, he casually gripped a red katana that throbbed with an eerie pulse, like a living vein of pure malice.
Wrapped around his other arm, a black, sinuous substance coiled and twisted—alive, tasting the air like a serpent stalking prey.
Aerik collapsed to his knees, voice trembling, eyes wide with ancestral terror.
"D-Devil..." he choked out, his words barely a whisper swallowed by the oppressive dark.
The figure's head tilted.
The katana hummed—a deadly lullaby.
And the black serpent-like shadow flickered, as if savoring the moment before the nightmare would begin.
Eiden's voice cracked, furious and sharp.
"What are you waiting for? Attack!"
The soldiers snapped out of their trance, spells igniting, blades flashing — all lunging forward in unison.
But the devil only raised a finger — a slow, mocking murderous gesture.
Then, without a sound, he vanished into the shadows, swallowed whole by the darkness.
Silence fell — heavy, suffocating.
"What?" Eiden spat, disbelief twisting his face.
"So the devil's running away now? I came all this way for you, and you don't want to fight me?"
Aerik's fists clenched, the urge to strangle Eiden boiling up inside him.
This lunatic came for the devil…
And he dragged me here like some expendable sidekick for slaughter.
His eyes burned with a mix of fury and fear as he glared at Eiden—part ally, part reckless reckoning.
Before anyone could respond, Eiden resumed his rant, furious and loud —
Until a bloodcurdling scream tore through the night, followed by the sickening thud of a sword striking the earth.
They whipped around — only to see… nothing.
One soldier had vanished.
Silence.
Aerik clenched his fists, voice breaking with panic and rage.
"He's hunting us. He's hunting us all."