He was running. Bare feet slapped against marble inlaid with gold, the sound ringing through corridors that seemed to stretch into eternity. Sunlight poured through arched windows of crystal and stained glass, splintering into rivers of color across walls carved with the deeds of many great kings who were his ancestors. The air smelled faintly of oil and steel, yet somewhere in the distance, flowers bloomed, their perfume carried on the wind.

Above him, the vaulted ceiling was not a ceiling at all, but an open sky framed by soaring buttresses of white stone and steel. It glimmered with suspended bridges and luminous banners, each stitched with a crest of a crowned dragon. This was no ordinary castle; it was a place that had walked through ages, carrying both the weight of the past and the heartbeat of futures yet to come.

Then came the sound. A roar deep as the ocean, sharp as lightning, ancient as the mountains. It shook the chandeliers until their crystal teardrops sang. He looked up and saw the shadow pass vast wings blotting the light, scales like shards of stars. The dragon’s cry rolled through the castle, a call that seemed to claw into the foundations of the stones and his bones.

Below, far in the courtyard, titans in human form trained. Knights — though no ordinary fighters. Their armor shimmered with shifting patterns of light, their weapons forged from metals that hummed with caged storms. Each strike of their practice blows left ripples in the air, like reality itself bowed to their skill. They moved with grace that belied their size, power chained to discipline. And their armor, it was a work of art which shined brightly in the morning sky.

“My prince…” The voice was old, heavy with patience and sorrow. It came from the far end of the hall — where the light bent strangely, as though the world behind it belonged to another time. An old man stood there, clad in robes the color of midnight seas, his beard as white as starlight, his eyes deep as a winter sky. “Come before your father sees you.”

The boy, he, moved toward him, without a second thought. His steps echoed like drumbeats in the empty hall. The old man’s gaze was steady, knowing, and the air between them seemed to hum with unspoken truths. Just as he reached out… Artorius woke up.

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The roar still echoed in his chest when his eyes opened. Gone was the castle of his dreams with that young boy and old man who seemed very familiar. There was no sky. No ground. No air. 

Only liquid, thick and luminous, pressing into his mouth, burning his lungs. He convulsed, thrashing instinctively, clawing at the suffocating void around him. It was like drowning in sweet nectar, a syrupy sea of light that stung and soothed all at once which tasted of honey, vanilla, sugar, and cinnamon all at once. Sweet, cloying, and merciless.

Panic surged. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. He had no idea where he was. All he could do was curse the system and the admin which randomly teleported him here. He was inside something. The glow around him was dim, golden walls curving in all directions. He slammed against one with his hand. The surface was hard and ridged, yet warm. Like a cage or even a shell. He was running out of time and had no idea how much longer he could hold out, so he tried again and again to break out. 

Just then a shape moved in the shadows vast, sleek, circling like a predator. The first glimpse was a glimmer of pearl-white scales, trailing like ribbons through the fluid. Its body was serpentine, sinuous, and beautiful. Long whiskers curled from its jaw like strands of light, and its eyes glowed with impossible kindness. For a heartbeat, Artorius thought it was salvation, something pure, something noble. Then it turned its head towards him as rows of teeth glinted in the glow as it struck out and he had time to only see a pop up from the system.

[Luck Dragon — Level 0]

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The impact slammed into him like a spear. His body spiraled in the fluid, pain ripping through his side. Blood bloomed into the yolk like crimson smoke, carried on unseen currents. He cried out in pain, but only bubbles burst from his throat. His lungs burned with drowning fire.

The creature circled back. Its body was like a dream given flesh, long and shimmering, its eyes, those shining eyes, held not hunger, not malice, not cruelty. Only a desire to stop him. The egg was too small for two lives.

It struck out again, jaws snapping wide open to finish him. Impulse overrode thought as Artorius grabbed hold of its neck and tried to choke it. It clawed him, tearing across his forearm, trying to get him off. Not letting up, he flexed harder to throttle it some more. The creature recoiled, twisting sinuously, then giving as much as it got, it coiled around him like a serpent. Its body tightened, crushing his ribs, forcing the yolk deeper into his lungs.

Not letting up, he also upped the ante as he bit out. His jaws closed around its flesh and fur, tearing soft scales loose. Silver ichor spilled into the yolk, mixing with his blood. The taste was electric, alive, like biting into lightning and song. The dragon writhed, thrashing, slamming him against the wall until cracks spiderwebbed outward.

It was strong. Too strong for him, but when had that ever stopped him. His chest ached, vision dimming. The fluid was filling him, drowning him. His self was fading in and out, as his ribs creaked and groaned under the pressure of the creature trying to crush him like a giant anaconda. All he could do was hold on for dear life and savagely tear into it.

He didn’t know who gave in first, he was far too gone to notice as the little dragon hold on him slackened. He was acting more on instinct as something ferocious he never knew he had revealed himself. He didn’t know when he started more than tearing into the beast, but actually consuming it. He only caught hold of himself after he was ripping into its heart.

You have slain [Luck Dragon — Level 0]

Reading the message before him, he looked at the corpse of the creature, he met its dead, wide eyes which were not looking at him with hate, but resigned and sorrow. Seeing that hollowed him out. He killed such a noble thing. A thing of legend. Savaged by his hand. Bubbles burst from his throat in what might have been a sob.

He also noticed that he wasn’t drowning in this viscous liquid anymore, it seemed to settle around him like this was his place now. Then he watched as the body dissolved. Not into rot, not into blood, but into light. Pearlescent motes swirled through the fluid, drawn into him, burning across his body, healing his wounds and aches. He felt it seep into his marrow — the echo of laughter, the taste of sunlight, the whisper of fables.

Exhaustion threatened to drown him and he didn’t resist as he sank deeper into the yolk, curling his body tight. And then… he stilled. The yolk was not only fluid. It was essence. Food for young dragons to grow strong.

He felt his body open up as it poured into him, raw and unrefined, the condensed dreamstuff of a forgotten brood. Each breathless moment he absorbed it, his body hardened, his soul thickened, his aura sharpened. He felt songs rushing into his veins, histories etching into his bones. His blood sang with predatory instinct — yet also shimmered with a thread of fate, of luck.

Time blurred. He meditated in silence, curled in his shell of light, his mind hovering between that of a man and that of a beast as he floated in that light, drinking deeply. When at last he awoke, he was in an empty place with a message hovering before him. 

+10 to Luck!

Then an unconscious urge filled him. It was time to be born. His hands flexed and formed a fist. The shell that had once imprisoned him now felt fragile and laughably weak beneath his strength as he stuck. He continued striking against it, cracks spread like lightning as light bled through. He hit one more time and the world outside rushed in. A flood of air, heavy and hot, rolled across his face. With a final, furious heave, Artorius tore through. 

The egg shattered. Shards of shell scattered like golden glass, what dregs left of the yolk spilling in a shimmering wave across stone. He collapsed onto the cavern floor, coughing, gasping not as a drowning man, not as a mortal, but as something more.

And he didn’t stop there as if driven by need, he started munching on the egg shell, breaking and tearing into it like a ravenous beast. It was only after he was half through it did he catch hold of himself and stop. 

His reflection glared back at him from the black glass of the floor: his eyes burning with slit-pupiled light before they flickered back to normal. But he felt like he needed to unleash something that had been building up from deep within his chest, the fire that had been lit at long last had erupted. His head tilted back and he roared.

It was not a scream. Not a cry of pain. It was not even human. It was a sound that shook stone, a sound older than language, deeper than thunder. A roar that carried pain, rage, and defiance but also beauty and musical symphony. It echoed through the cavern, a hymn of something both savage and noble. 

The cavern answered. Across the place he hatched in other young hatchlings answered in challenge, in welcome, in fury, in joy, in awe and a chorus of different emotions. Far above, in their shadowed perches, much older broods awoke from their slumber, eyes cracking open their ancient pupils like suns glimpsing the newborn roar. 

The Nest had recognized him. Artorius Pendrath had been born. Not just as kin to dragons. But as something dragons themselves would fear.

His voice had carried further than he intended. Higher than the Nest. Into places unseen. Into a silence older than fire. And something… heard him.

From within one of the Dragon Peaks, in a cavern where light itself had been strangled at birth, something stirred. It was not a presence so much as a wound, a gash in the fabric of existence that bled nothingness into the world.

Eyes opened. Not shining, not blazing, but devouring. Black voids ringed in emptiness. A mouth stretched in the dark. Not a smile of warmth, nor even malice but hunger, endless. It widened, impossibly wide, savoring the moment.

It delighted in what he had done. Delighted in the blood on his hands. Delighted in the killing of something noble, something pure, something blessed. The killing of a Luck Dragon, a creature fate itself had touched.

Its laughter did not echo but slithered, soft and cold, coiling like a parasite and slipping into the nest below.

The System message flared before his eyes, cold and merciless: [You have drawn the gleeful attention of the Void Worm ??? for slaying a Luck Dragon!]

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