Six pairs of legs moved swiftly through the thick forest floor. Each step was rushed. Urgent.
"Are you sure you heard right? A powerful mana stone appeared in this area?" a young man, barely twenty, asked with a tremble in his voice. Mana was a rare luxury in this world—and rumors of a stone had every nearby hunter burning with greed.
"Can't you feel it? I can taste mana in the air," a woman replied, her voice warm and bright, almost too alive for a forest so dead. "This treasure could save our clan from poverty."
But even the birds were silent today.
The closer they moved toward their destination, the more eerie the air became. No breeze stirred the trees. No animals scurried beneath the brush. It was as if the world itself refused to breathe in this place.
Silence.
Only footsteps.
"I don't like this, sis..." A small boy trembled as he walked. His gut screamed for him to run.
"Come on, Dravion. Cheer up!" his older brother grinned, wide and arrogant. "We're so close. Aren't you a man? You can do it. And even if you're scared, with me here—pfft—gods themselves would kneel before us!"
"If you say so, big brother..." Dravion muttered, but the fear never left him.
Moments passed.
"Stop." The middle-aged man in front raised a hand sharply. "What is that?"
His finger pointed through the trees at a strange, looming object. At least two meters tall.
"Is that... a rock?" one of the younger men asked. "Why does it look... scaly?"
"You're right. It kind of looks like an... egg?" a woman's voice cracked, doubt laced with awe.
"An egg? Are you nuts?" The middle-aged man scoffed. "At that size? You think dragons live around here?"
"Dragons abandoned this region fifty thousand years ago," someone added. "There's no way an egg could survive here."
"Then it must be the stone," the muscular hunter said, eyes gleaming. "It's just shaped weird."
"Let's check it fast. Before someone else finds it."
They crept through the underbrush, blades cutting away dense bushes until the dark mass was fully revealed.
It was black. Impossibly black. And warm.
"I can feel the mana..." the leader whispered, wide-eyed. "It's sweet. Powerful. We... we really found it... the mana stone everyone craves... it's here..."
His hand brushed against the sharp surface — a sudden sting. A thin line of blood bloomed across his skin, drawn by the edge of the scale. Small… but strangely fragrant.
Crack
A golden mist spilled from the object like breath from a god.
"Don't breathe it in—we don't know what it—"
Too late.
The scent was thick. Addictive. The entire group fell into a daze, spacing out as if drunk on honeyed magic.
Splash!
A red burst sprayed across the leaves.
The man's head was gone.
Gone...
One blink ago, it was there. Now, only a stump.
Silence fell... The kind that makes your soul itch.
"AAAAAHHHHH!!!"
The scream tore through the forest as another head flew.
"Delicious."
A young voice. Smooth like velvet, but layered with something feral. Something wrong.
The woman turned, frozen in her final moment. A pair of golden eyes stared back. Slitted like a serpent. Luminous and cold.
I'm dead. That was her final thought. Those eyes were not mortal.
"Run, Dravion! Run—!"
The voice cut off. Another died. Then another. Even the boastful brother, he who claimed the gods would kneel, fell in silence.
And when the blood settled, only one child remained. He dropped on his butt, trembling like a leaf in the storm.
"Are you afraid of death?" A voice asked—smooth, young, yet impossibly cold.
In the boy's wide eyes, a small creature walked slowly toward him. Its skin was black, laced with golden lines that pulsed like living runes. Its face was... wrong. Twisted. Monstrous.
Dragon... Why is there a dragon here...? No... Mommy... Daddy... Please... save me...
The boy couldn't even scream. His voice was caught somewhere between terror and disbelief.
In his final moment, he didn't feel pain. It was too fast.
The creature's jaw unhinged, and with a casual snap, the boy's head was gone—crushed like a ripe melon. Blood splashed across the leaves, and his small body collapsed without resistance.
Silence returned to the forest.
The coppery smell of blood clung to the trees. It would have made most men puke. But to this small being, it was... sweet.
"Delicious prey... but why does it feel so lonely to eat them...?"
The dragon child stood still, golden eyes scanning the corpses around him. The slaughter hadn't brought joy. Only... silence. Emptiness.
The scent of blood made his heart race. His body moved on instinct. He didn't understand why, but it felt... right.
"They had pointy ears. Blonde hair... like Sister did once..." A single tear ran down his scaled cheek.
Huh...? Sister...? Who's Sister? Mine...? Did I ever have one...? I can't remember... Who am I...?
He pressed a claw against his head, shaking it violently, trying to force out the fragments clawing into his mind.
"Primarion..." he whispered.
Then his voice dropped, low and bitter.
"No. I hate it. I hate that name. It hurts. It burns."
His breath slowed. He looked down at the boy's lifeless body.
"Dravion... the boy was called Dravion."
A pause. Then a slow, dark smile crept across his bloodstained lips.
"I shall be Dravion then. Yes... it sounds better."
Dravion stood in the clearing, surrounded by silence and blood.
The sky dimmed. Rain began to fall, thick and warm, as if the heavens wept—not out of sorrow, but reverence. The droplets shimmered with faint light, each one soaked in mana. And all of it gathered around him.
He licked the blood from his lips, confused by the taste that still lingered on his tongue.
Then, steady on all fours, he pressed his claws into the soft soil—marking this place as his birthplace. His dominion.
He cast one last glance at the boy's corpse.
"Your name… I'll take it. Wear it better than you ever would."
He turned toward the woods, something deep in his chest pulsing—alive, ancient, and angry.
And in the shadows, far beyond his senses, a young voice chuckled. Soft, smooth, but colder than winter steel. The kind of sound that made predators take a step back.
"Shit... good thing I let them check the egg first. A dragon, huh..."
A crooked grin curled on the unseen face.
"My young lady will love this… I'll let you live a little longer, little demon. But we'll meet again soon."