Darkness pressed in on all sides, but it was not the comforting kind that came with sleep. It was the sterile, suffocating void of an underground lab, where screams were swallowed whole and even hope had long since been sterilized.
Fluorescent lights flickered overhead, humming dully like a dying heart monitor. The walls were white, yet stained… a colourless kind of madness that reflected nothing but cruelty.
Strapped to a rusted operating table was a boy who was barely sixteen with pale, papery skin and veins bulging through his arms like serpents writhing beneath his flesh.
His name? He had one once, but here, he was known only as Subject 1317.
Thick cables slithered into his spine, ribs, and temples. Syringes hissed as they pumped glowing green liquid into his bloodstream. Runes danced around his chest as he convulsed repeatedly.
"Still no reaction," muttered a lab coat behind a curved pane of enchanted glass. Her voice was flat, almost sounding bored. She tapped her tablet and sighed. "Three injections of core-stabilizer, full-mana infusion, and two neural calibrations... and still nothing. Not even a Tier-1 response."
A second scientist, who looked slightly older, with a surgical mask and black gloves, glanced at the boy. "His mana nodes are stable. His physique is stronger than that of our A-Class contract candidates. But no bond with any beast, no feedback. It's like he's... incompatible with the contract system entirely."
A third voice, this one digital and female, rang out from the intercom. "Recommendation: Terminate. Recovery cost exceeds potential gain. Subject 1317 has failed to awaken a beast contract for the fifth cycle."
The older scientist stepped forward, his eyes devoid of emotion. "Then we proceed with the purge."
He pressed a button, and immediately, gas hissed into the chamber. The boy's eyes widened for a moment, red veins threading across his sclera. He choked and gagged repeatedly, his body writhing in pain.
But he didn't scream.
He had no energy left for that.
He had been here for years, experimented on, cut open, and pumped full of mana reagents and beast DNA, trying… failing… to awaken a bond. Other kids had succeeded with their first crystal test: small wolves, ember snakes, even cloud sparrows, with him being one of the exceptions.
Every time he tried to link with a beast, it went berserk, or he failed entirely.
He had once thought he was cursed.
He was right.
"I just wanted to feel warm…"
That was his last thought.
His eyes faded to glass and his heart slowly grew silent. The mana circuits in his body flickered and died like candles in a storm.
The scientists logged it.
[Subject 1317: Terminated]
They stripped his corpse of any valuable implants, tagged his ankle, zipped him into a body bag, and carted him away with the rest of the week's "waste." There was no ceremony or burial for them, as they were not useful, to say the least.
Location: Sector 9 – Disposal Trench
Rain fell hard that night. It felt bitter, metallic and carried the scent of iron and ozone. A truck rolled to a stop at the edge of a steep trench carved out of the jungle earth. Two masked workers hopped down, dragging black bags one by one to the pit's edge. They worked in silence, tossing the bodies like trash.
One of the workers paused, glancing at the tag on the next body.
"1317? Huh... This one lasted longer than the others."
"Doesn't matter," the other replied, already walking back to the truck. "A failure's still a failure."
With a grunt, the man heaved the bag over the edge. It tumbled, bounced off a few rocks, and came to rest at the trench bottom with a wet thud. The truck's engines whined, and soon the taillights vanished into the dark.
For a while, all was still.
Then—
A faint glow flickered from the bag, and a pulse that seemed like a heartbeat resounded
…
Earth – Present Time
Aleron clenched the wheel, sweat pouring down his face. Rain lashed at his windshield. The truck behind him wasn't slowing. Red lights reflected in his rearview. It was too fast… too close; he couldn't do anything about it!
"No, no, no—!"
Before he could react, there was a crash; the glass shattered. The scream never left his throat as the cabin crumpled inward.
And then... nothing.
…
Somewhere Beyond Life and Death
Aleron's mind floated in a place without time. He had no body, no heartbeat, no eyes or sense of time… Just awareness.
"Is this… death? Or did I finally fall asleep… warm? Cold?"
Then, a cold, mechanical voice echoed directly into his thoughts.
[Cognitive Signature Detected: Earth-Origin Soul]
[Compatible soul match found. Emotional frequency aligned with prior host.]
[Host Compatibility: 100%]
[Activating Rebirth Protocol – Forbidden Lineage Recognized.]
[Binding System]
"System...? What the hell?"
[Previous Host: Subject 1317 – deceased. Initiating Soul Transfer...]
Back in the Trench
The rain poured harder. Thunder cracked across the night sky.
Inside the body bag, the corpse's bones shifted and its muscles twitched.
And then—
A violent and desperate gasp that sounded like a man rising from drowning.
The body bag split with a wet rip as pale fingers burst free, clawing through the mud like a man rising from his grave. A boy's body, which looked frail, pale, and was shaking faintly, emerged from the corpse pile.
He coughed blood as his eyes rolled wildly. His breath was ragged.
He was alive.
But he wasn't 1317 anymore.
"Where... the fuck am I?"
Memories that weren't his flooded in… torture, injections, cold eyes, voices that called him 'thing' instead of person.
Then the System's voice returned:
[System Online]
[Host: Aleron – Synchronization Complete]
[Ability detected – SSS-ranked dragon summoner]
[Warning: You are incompatible with all contracted beasts below SSS-rank.]
[Reason: Your soul rejects all lesser lifeforms. Only forbidden SSS-ranked dragons of cataclysmic lineage can respond to your summon.]
Lightning flashed and the sky seemed to collapse.
Aleron stared at his shaking hands.
"So… he wasn't trash. He was too powerful for the world to understand."
"And now I've inherited that curse."
He looked up at the nine heavens, his eyes gleaming with fury. Something inside him stirred…
"Alright then."
"If only dragons will answer me…"
"Then I'll burn this damn world to the ground with them."
[Forbidden Dragon egg detected.]
[New Quest Unlocked: First Forbidden Contract]