The egg in Sai Ji's hands didn't just pulse. It echoed.
A deep, resonant thump that vibrated through his bones and out into the air, warping the ambient mana. The protective runes Nyx had etched around their shallow cave flickered and died, overwhelmed.
Crack.
A hairline fracture, glowing like a line of molten gold, appeared on the shell.
Sai Ji's breath hitched. "Okay. Okay, it's just… stretching. Babies stretch, right?"
Sal Vera's voice was a blade of ice in his mind. "No. It is awakening. And its birth cry is a beacon."
The egg pulsed again, harder. The snow around their feet didn't melt; it sublimated, vanishing into steam with a sharp hiss. The air grew hot and thick, smelling of ozone and sacred incense.
Fern was on his feet in an instant, spear leveled at the cave entrance. "Master, the energy spike—"
Lura's nostrils flared, her multiple tails stiffening like raised hackles. "We've got company. Big. Angry. And not from around here."
Before anyone could react, the world above them changed. The raging blizzard didn't part. It was erased. A perfect circle of clear, starless black sky appeared directly above the ridge, as if a cookie cutter had been taken to the atmosphere. Through it descended a shape that made the Frostfire Wyvern seem like a garden lizard.
It was less a creature and more a consequence given form—a World Predator. Its name etched itself across Sai Ji's vision in jagged, system-error script: VORRAX, SKY RENDER. Its body was a symphony of predatory geometry: wings of folded shadow that blotted out the light, armor of black, ossified magic, and four eyes that burned with the cold light of dead stars. Its level was a string of question marks, but its presence was an absolute: DOMINANCE.
Its roar was not sound. It was a pressure wave of silent authority that flattened the remaining snow and made the mountain stone groan.
WORLD-LEVEL ALERT
Anomaly Detected: 'Primordial Awakening'
Protocol: Immediate Elimination.
Targets: Unregistered Primordial Lifeform. Sovereign-Class Host.
"That's not a monster," Nyx breathed, his usual calm shattered into grim awe. "That is the system's immune response. A deletion tool."
"And we're the virus," Lura finished, her grin a tight, fierce slash.
Vorrrax did not land. It arrived. Its claws touched the ridge, and the mountain peak simply compacted beneath them, sinking with a deep, grinding moan. Its four eyes fixed, not on the party, but on the glowing egg in Sai Ji's hands. Hunger, of a cosmic, impersonal kind, radiated from it.
Pain lanced through Sai Ji's chest—hot, deep, and binding. A system window, glitching with gold and crimson, forced itself open.
MYTHICAL BOND INTERFACE
Entity: Infernal Sun-Dragon (Primordial)
Sync Rate: 12% → 24% → 39%... JUMP DETECTED.
Warning: Soul-strain imminent. Bond instability may cause cascading failure.
"Sai Ji!" Aeliana grabbed his arm as he staggered. The connection wasn't painful in a physical sense; it was like suddenly having a second, far larger and hotter nervous system wired into his own.
Fern stepped forward, planting himself between Sai Ji and the looming abyss of Vorrax. Black-gold power, even more concentrated and fierce under pressure, wreathed him. "We hold here."
Lura flanked him, blades humming a duet of imminent violence. "Finally. A fight that might leave a scratch."
Aeliana raised her staff, her voice cutting through the psychic roar. "Barrier, maximum output! Now!"
A dome of shimmering silver light snapped into existence around Sai Ji just as Vorrax acted.
It didn't roar. It inhaled. The very light from the sky, the color from the world, seemed to be sucked into its expanding maw, compressing into a point of absolute nullity.
"MOVE!" Aeliana screamed.
Vorraxx fired.
A beam of distilled void, a line of non-existence, tore across the distance. It didn't burn or freeze; it unmade.
Fern vanished. Not dodging. The space he occupied was simply… deleted from the narrative for a heart-stopping second.
"FERN!" Lura's shriek was raw.
The void-beam hit Aeliana's barrier. The silver dome held for a millisecond—heroic, impossible—before shattering into a million dissolving fragments. The deflected but not negated energy slammed toward Sai Ji.
In that moment, as death in its most absolute form raced toward him, two things happened.
The egg in his hands gave one final, mighty pulse, and a claw of living sunfire tore through the shell.
And something within Sai Ji, something buried beneath layers of amnesia and denial, recognized the affront.
A memory, not his own, flashed: A throne of stars. A sea of kneeling shadows. A single word that was law. His eyes ignited with faint, ancient gold.
SYSTEM OVERRIDE (RESTRICTED)
Sovereign Authority – Fragmentary Access Granted.
Protocol: 'Proto-State' – Territorial Assertion.
Duration: 15 Seconds.
The void-beam struck him.
And it bent.
It warped around an invisible field of sheer, unquestionable "NO" that emanated from Sai Ji. It wasn't a shield. It was a decree. This space is mine. Your entropy is not permitted here.
For the first time, Vorrax hesitated. Its four starry eyes blinked in sequence, processing the impossible.
Sai Ji looked up. He didn't feel powerful. He felt cold, and clear, and utterly certain. The words that left his lips were not his own, yet they were.
"Bow."
The command was quiet. It carried no magic. It was Authority.
Reality itself flinched. The unimaginable weight of the World Predator shuddered. Against its will, against the very programming of its existence, its massive, armored neck creaked and began to bend downward.
Aeliana stared, beyond shock. Lura felt her instincts scream—this was not combat. This was hierarchy.
SYSTEM ERROR
Unauthorized Sovereign Protocol Activation.
Host not fully Awakened. Bond incomplete.
Override in effect. Duration remaining: 00:00:08.
The pressure on Vorrax broke. It roared, a sound of furious, humiliated defiance, and ripped its head back up, space cracking around its wings like broken glass.
Sai Ji felt the borrowed power thinning, the system clawing it back. He had seconds. He looked at the egg, now half-open, a tiny, fiery eye blinking up at him from within. He felt its fear, its trust, its raw, newborn power.
He raised a hand. Not at Vorrax. At the space between them. Flame gathered at his fingertips—not his, not yet, but the Primordial's, drawn through their unstable bond. It was gold, blinding, and sang with the heat of creation.
"Enough," Sai Ji said, his voice echoing with dual tones—his own, and something older.
He didn't cast a spell. He made a statement. He rejected the predator's presence in his domain.
He snapped his fingers.
A column of primordial flame, thin as a spear and bright as a supernova, lanced upward. It did not strike Vorrax with explosive force. It pierced the concept of its dominance. The flame burned away not flesh, but the absolute authority it wielded, the "right" it had to be here and erase them.
The World Predator did not cry out. It flinched, a full-body recoil of something that had never felt contested. The void around it churned. Then, with a sound like tearing spacetime, it turned and fled, ripping a gash in the sky through which it vanished, the system's deletion protocol seemingly overridden by a higher, older priority: Survival.
The borrowed authority left Sai Ji in a rush. The gold faded from his eyes. His legs buckled, and he would have fallen if Lura hadn't darted forward to catch him. Across the ravaged stone, the air shimmered and Fern slammed back into existence, gasping, clawing at his chest as if remembering how to breathe.
"I… do not recommend… being unmade…" he rasped.
But all eyes were on Sai Ji's hands.
With a final, loud CRACK, the golden shell split fully in two.
There, sitting in the cradle of broken shell, was a creature the size of a small cat. Its scales were liquid sunlight, shifting through hues of gold, orange, and white-hot yellow. Tiny, useless wings of flame fluttered on its back. It had a long, slender neck and a head crowned with two nubs that would become horns. It blinked large, intelligent eyes of molten gold, free of pupil or iris, and let out a tiny, confused chirp that smelled of cinnamon and ash.
Peeep?
It looked around, saw the towering, worried faces of Fern, Lura, Nyx, and Aeliana, and shrank back slightly. Then its gaze found Sai Ji. It tilted its head. A warm, questioning feeling brushed against Sai Ji's soul—not words, but pure emotional signal: Safe? Mine?
The system's final notification was soft, almost reverent.
[MYTHICAL BOND STABILIZED]
Entity: Primordial Sun-Dragon (Hatchling)
Sync Rate: 72%
Status: Imprinted. Soul-Linked.
Designation: [Awaiting Input]
Exhaustion, relief, and a surreal, towering wave of responsibility crashed over Sai Ji. He carefully reached out a finger. The hatchling sniffed it, then butted its warm head against his knuckle with a contented rumble that was like a miniature earthquake.
Aeliana's hand came to rest on his shoulder, her touch saying everything her awestruck silence could not.
Fern and Lura simply stared, their fierce professionalism momentarily erased by pure wonder.
Nyk let out a slow, controlled breath. "A new age begins… with a squeak."
The tiny dragon yawned, revealing a mouthful of tiny, needle-sharp teeth that glowed from within. Then it clumsily clambered up Sai Ji's arm, curled into the hollow of his neck, and promptly fell asleep, its body radiating a gentle, soothing heat.
Sai Ji looked at the sleeping, world-breaking creature now snoring against his collarbone. He looked at the scorched, shattered mountain peak, still steaming where primordial fire had rejected cosmic law.
A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble up. He swallowed it.
"Well," he whispered, the sound lost in the returning whisper of the wind. "Guess I'm a dad now."
Above them, the torn sky slowly stitched itself back together. But the silence that followed was different. It was the silence after a declaration of war. The World Predator had fled, but it had seen him. It had felt his defiance.
And somewhere, in the deep code of Aetheria or in the spaces between, something far older and more patient had just taken note. The hunt was not over. It had simply changed form.