When I got back to the world, the first thing I noticed was the smell of crushed herbs and the clean, earthy smell of the Silverwood. It smelled like life, which was a stark, gentle contrast to the memory of blood and ozone that was still in my head. I lay on a rough cot in the dimly lit common room of The Grey Anchor. The familiar sounds of Port Varrick's busy streets were a distant, muffled hum. My body was a landscape of deep, painful aches, like the phantom pain of a gut wound and the burning memory of scales erupting, which my own screaming nerves told me were ghosts. But I was complete. Living.
"My lord. You're awake."
Seraphina's voice was a soft, hesitant whisper from the corner of the room. I turned my head slowly, every muscle protesting. She sat on a small stool, grinding herbs in a stone mortar, her movements precise but lacking their usual calm grace. When my eyes met hers, she flinched, just for a fraction of a second, a subtle, almost imperceptible recoiling that was more telling than a scream. She was still loyal. But now, she was also afraid.
"What happened?" I rasped, my throat raw, as if from a roar I didn't remember releasing.
"You… you saved us," she said, her gaze dropping back to her work. "You defeated the Huntsman. And then… you collapsed." A careful, clinical summary. She was omitting the most important part.
But I remembered. As my consciousness slowly pieced itself back together, the memories came flooding back, not as a clear narrative, but as a series of horrifying, visceral flashes. The sound of tearing flesh and bone. The cold, supreme arrogance, a feeling of looking down on a Master-level killer as if he were a gnat to be swatted. The intoxicating, terrifying surge of power that was not my own. And the last, most terrible image: seeing her, Seraphina, her face a mask of pure terror, and feeling a surge of predatory, possessive rage aimed directly at her.
A wave of nausea and self-loathing washed over me, so profound it was a physical blow. I had lost control. Completely. I had become the monster.
I thought back to the novel, to The Crimson Dragon's Lament. I scoured my memory of the book, searching for any mention of this, any hint that the original Lancelot had struggled with such a loss of control. There was nothing. The book described his breakthroughs, his leaps in power, as glorious, heroic moments of ascension. He would face an impossible foe, push past his limits, and emerge stronger, purer. He never became a mindless beast. He never turned on his allies.
'So why?' the question hammered in my mind. 'Why am I different?'
The answer came not from the book's plot, but from its fundamental rules. The power to jump tiers in a moment of crisis, to punch far above one's weight, was a known, if rare, phenomenon. The original Lancelot had done it. But what I had done in that cavern… it was something else entirely. As a brand-new Expert, a Nascent Expert at best, I had not just fought a Master; I had brutally, contemptuously dismantled him. That wasn't just a power-up. That was a violation of the natural order.
The realization settled in my soul with the cold weight of a tombstone. The power I had unleashed wasn't just my own, amplified by desperation. It was the will of the dragon. It was the combat instinct and primal fury of Infernus the Worldburner, a Paragon-level being, poured through the narrow, inadequate vessel of my Expert-tier body. Even a fraction of a Paragon's will, its sheer, ancient understanding of violence and supremacy, was enough to make a mockery of the tiers. A master swordsman can be deadly even with a simple wooden stick; Infernus's will was the master, and my body was the stick.
And that led to the final, horrifying conclusion. The original Lancelot's soul, the one native to this world, born of its laws, had been strong enough, or perhaps compatible enough, to act as a proper container, to suppress the dragon's will and command its power. But my soul… my soul was an anomaly. A foreign entity from another world, a cheap replacement part jammed into a machine it was never designed for. It was weaker, less resilient. It could barely hold back the draconic instincts when I was calm. In a moment of absolute crisis, it had shattered, and the beast had broken its chains.
I looked down at my hands, flexing my fingers, half-expecting to see claws. There was only flesh, but it felt alien, a cage for something terrible. This power, this gift that had saved my life, was also a curse, a time bomb ticking in the center of my soul. 'It will happen again,' I thought with a chilling certainty.
"I will not let it," I whispered to myself, the words a fierce, desperate promise. I would not be a slave to the beast in my blood. I would tame it. I would chain it. I would become its master.
After a few more hours of recovery, aided by one of Seraphina's potent, fast-acting salves, I was able to walk. The first person I sought out was Leo. I found him in his own room, propped up on a cot, his chest heavily bandaged. His face was pale and drawn, but his ancient, weary eyes were clear and sharp.
"So the monster is awake," he rasped, his voice rough.
"I'm sorry," I said, the words feeling hopelessly inadequate. "For what I did… for what I almost did."
He just grunted, a flicker of something unreadable in his gaze. "I've seen power corrupt men before, kid. First time I've seen it try to eat one from the inside out." He shifted, wincing in pain. "That Huntsman was the real deal. From a faction within the Cult known as the 'Ashen Hand'. Their specialty is internal security. Cleaners. I've been running from them for a decade." He looked at me, a new, grim light in his eyes. "You didn't just kill one of their agents. You tore apart one of their Masters. They will not forget this. You, me, your little band of loyal soldiers… we're on their permanent list now. There's no going back."
He was silent for a moment. "My consultation is over," he stated. My heart sank. "This is no longer a job. It's my war again. And you, kid," he looked at my hands, then at my eyes, "you're a walking catastrophe. You need a keeper. And I need to see this through to the end. I'm in." He had formally joined my cause, not out of loyalty or friendship, but out of a shared, grim necessity.
The loyalty of the others, however, felt… strained. When I entered the common room, Garrick and Rolan immediately stood, their posture stiff, formal. They looked at me with the same loyalty as before, but it was now overlaid with a new, deep-seated wariness. They had seen what I was capable of, and it was not the clean, honorable strength of an Ashworth warrior. I was something other, something to be feared as much as followed. I accepted it. It was a natural consequence, a price I had to pay.
That evening, Seraphina approached me as I stood alone by the window, watching the fog roll in. Her fear was still there, a faint tremor in her hands, but her loyalty had won out.
"My lord," she began, her voice a hesitant whisper. "After you… collapsed. There was someone else." She described the impossible arrival of a woman with shimmering, insect-like wings, her unnatural stillness, the scent of winter and flowers. "She… she stopped you," Seraphina said, her eyes wide with awe and terror. "With a touch. She said you were a 'storm in a teacup' and that your cup was about to overflow."
My blood ran cold. A woman with fairy wings. Another impossible being, another deviation from the novel I had never foreseen. A new faction.
"Before she vanished," Seraphina continued, holding out a small, simple ring of unadorned, matte-black metal, "she gave me this. She said it would help. A 'larger vessel'."