The air didn't smell like oxygen anymore. It smelled like ionized ozone, burnt marrow, and the metallic tang of a thousand gallons of spilled blood.
This is a bad way to go, I thought, my consciousness flickering like a dying candle in a hurricane.
I wasn't supposed to be here!
Ten minutes ago—or was it a lifetime?—I was sitting in my ergonomic chair in a high-rise apartment, finishing the final chapter of The Era of Heroes. It was a mediocre web novel, honestly. The pacing was rushed, and the author had a fetish for killing off cool side characters just to make the "Hero" look better.
The most tragic casualty had been the Obsidian Dragons—the ancient protectors of the world, slaughtered in the prologue to provide the "holy" kingdom with enough Dragon-Steel to kickstart an industrial revolution...
Now, I was the one bleeding.
I tried to move my arm, but what responded was a massive, obsidian-scaled limb the size of a redwood tree. I tried to groan, and the earth shook for three miles in every direction. A low, guttural vibration escaped my throat, a sound that carried the weight of ten thousand years of history.
I opened my eyes.
The sky was choked with black smoke. Below me, on the scorched plains of the Dragon's Peak, stood the "Holy" Army of the Solari Empire. From this height, they looked like ants in silver armor.
...But ants didn't carry twelve-foot ballistae tipped with harpoons made of my father's ribs.
"THE BEAST STILL BREATHES!" a voice boomed, magically amplified to roar across the battlefield. "SECOND DIVISION, RELOAD! TARGET THE NECK!"
A notification pinged—not on a screen, but directly into the folds of my soul.
###
[WARNING: EXTREME VITALITY LOSS DETECTED]
Current Vessel: Prince Valerius (The Last Obsidian Drake)
Condition: Near-Death (3% HP)
Status: The "Tutorial Boss" of The Era of Heroes.
[Current Objective: Survive the Prologue]
###
"A System?" I mentally hissed.
My draconic brain was slow, heavy, and filled with a primal rage that wanted me to stand up and incinerate the world. But I knew the plot. If I stood up, the General of the Solari—a man named Kaelen the Dragonslayer—would use a legendary artifact to pierce my remaining eye.
Really? What the hell am I thinking about—incinerating the world? Am I going mad? Must be the dragon instincts...
In the novel, this was where Valerius died. His death provided the "Dragon Heart" that the Hero, Leon, would eventually consume to gain his first power-up.
Not today, I thought, grit and modern cynicism cutting through the dragon's pride.
'If I'm the tutorial boss, then the game is officially broken.'
I looked at the "System" prompt flickering in the corner of my vision. There was one hidden skill listed at the bottom of the racial profile.
A skill the original Valerius had been too proud to use. To a dragon, turning into a human was the ultimate humiliation—it was like a god choosing to become a cockroach.
###
[Skill: Human Metamorphosis - Forbidden Rank]
Description: Compress the Draconic Soul into a mortal vessel. All stats will be suppressed by 99.9%.
Cost: Permanent loss of 50% of current mana capacity.
Note: You will be vulnerable. You will be weak. You will be delicious to predators.
###
The old fool never did it… but I will.
"Do it," I commanded.
System: …Really?
"What the fuck? Why do you sound disappointed? For fuck's sake—YES, yes, quick!!"
"FIRE!" the General shouted.
A hundred iron harpoons whistled through the air, trailing heavy chains. They were designed to anchor me to the earth so they could carve the scales from my living body.
I closed my eyes.
[sync starting : 1% 2% ....]
'Compress. Condense. Minimize.'
I felt my bones snapping. It wasn't the sound of breaking; it was the sound of folding. Imagine a mountain trying to fit inside a thimble. The agony was beyond anything a human mind could comprehend.
My massive wings folded into my shoulder blades, the membrane dissolving into skin. My teeth receded, my snout shortened, and my sixty-foot tail whipped inward, disappearing into the base of a newly formed spine.
The harpoons hit.
Clang. Clang.
CRASH.
They struck the stone where my massive body had been lying a millisecond before. The soldiers screamed in confusion as the gargantuan silhouette of the Obsidian Prince vanished into a cloud of white steam and golden magical discharge.
"Where is it?!"
"Did it teleport?!"
"The beast is gone!"
In the center of the crater, hidden by the thick, sulfurous mist, a young man lay face down in the dirt.
I was gasping for air.
Every breath felt like inhaling shards of glass. My skin felt thin, fragile—like wet paper compared to the diamond-hard scales I had just shed.
I reached up and felt my face. Smooth. Soft. A nose. Two eyes.
I looked at my hands. They were pale, trembling, and covered in soot. I was a teenager—maybe seventeen.
###
[SUCCESS: Human Metamorphosis Complete]
Current Identity: Val (Unranked Human)
Sync Rate: 95% (Stable)
Warning: You are currently naked in the middle of a war zone.
Survival chances: 12%.
###
Twelve percent? I've had worse odds on a Monday morning, I thought, though my teeth were chattering uncontrollably.
I heard the heavy clank of boots. The mist was clearing.
"Search the crater!" a commander barked. "Dragons don't just vanish! It must have used an illusion! Check every shadow!"
I looked around frantically. A few yards away, a young human scout lay dead, crushed by a falling rock during my initial transformation.
He was roughly my size....
'Forgive me, kid. I'll make sure your boots see the capital.'
With strength that was still—thankfully—slightly above human, I dragged the scout's body behind a jagged rock. I stripped the leather gambeson, the dirt-stained tunic, and the worn boots. As I pulled the tunic over my head, I felt a searing heat on my chest.
I then casually hid the body under a pile of heavy rocks, without the slightest regret.
I looked down. A faint, glowing tattoo of a black dragon was etched over my heart. It pulsed with a dim, rhythmic light.
###
[Warning]
A dragon's heart never stops burning. If your heartbeat exceeds 180 BPM, your human disguise will fail.
Stay calm. Stay cold. Stay alive.
###
"Hey! You over there!"
I froze. A squad of Solari knights stepped through the mist, swords drawn. Their armor was etched with the very scales of my ancestors. Seeing them made my blood boil—literally. I could feel the temperature of my skin rising.
[Sync Rate: 91%... 88%...]
"I-I'm here!" I shouted, pitching my voice high and cracking it with fake terror. I stumbled out from behind the rock, rubbing my eyes and coughing. "The blast... the dragon... it exploded!"
The knights stopped, their eyes narrowing. "A survivor? From the third infantry?"
"I think so," I whimpered, falling to my knees. "It was so bright. The dragon... it turned into light and went toward the Western Forest! I saw it! It was flying low!"
I pointed in the opposite direction of the capital.
The knights looked at each other. They didn't see a prince. They didn't see a god. They saw a pathetic, soot-covered boy who had probably wet himself in the face of a dragon.
"The beast must have used a Blink spell," the lead knight spat. "Inform the General! It's heading for the Western Forest! Don't let him escape!"
They didn't even give me a second glance. They sprinted past me, their heavy armor clanking like a thousand dinner bells.
I stayed on my knees until the sounds of the army faded. I looked down at my hands. They were no longer trembling. The rage was still there, tucked deep inside the "Human" box I had built in my mind.
I stood up, my new human legs feeling light and strange. I looked back at the Peak—the ancestral home of my race, now a smoking tomb.
'I know my mind is affected by this stupid dragon pride… but still, this is me. And I want to survive.'
"You wanted a hero story," I whispered to the empty air, thinking of the author, the readers, and the Empire. "You wanted the 'Great Hero' to slay the 'Last Dragon' and bring peace to the world."
I turned toward the distant, shimmering spires of Oakhaven, the capital of the Solari Empire.
"But the tutorial boss just walked off the map. And I'm coming for my heart."
[Sync Rate: 100%]
[Current Objective Updated: Enter the Capital City - Oakhaven]
[Reward: Access to 'The Hoard' Map]
The Dragon Prince was dead.
Long live Val...