Lurk slowly opened his eyes, but the first thing he felt was not light—it was overwhelming pain throughout his entire body, the lingering aftermath of Fenrath Moongrim's devastating blow that had rendered him unconscious in the Colosseum arena.
He was no longer in Caelora.
The smell of sulfur and corrupted mana pierced his senses.
Lurk groaned as he felt his body being dragged roughly across a cold obsidian floor.
The one dragging him was Ashell, who no longer wore the disguise of a human noble.
Her true form had fully awakened—an elite Succubus with black wings and a deadly aura of scorching dust.
They arrived inside an enormous hall.
At the far end of the chamber stood seven massive empty thrones.
Yet directly before those seven thrones stood a figure whose aura was so overwhelming that the air itself seemed to stop flowing.
"Wake him up, Ashell," the figure commanded.
Ashell immediately slapped Lurk across the face harshly until the young prince fully regained consciousness.
Lurk staggered to his feet, staring around at the horrifying creatures surrounding him—beings unlike anything he had ever seen before.
"Welcome to the Demon Dominion, new warrior," the figure said with terrifying authority. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Numrath, king of the Demon Dominion. And before you stand the seven demon princes: Beelzebub, Ifrit, Pazuzu, Azazel, Abaddon, Moloch, and Agares."
Lurk fell silent as he realized a pair of horns had begun growing from his head.
Numrath then showed him a magical replay of the moment he lost control within the arena—when he attacked Elara and brutally shattered the arms of Drestan and Kael.
"That is your power now," Numrath said calmly. "I can give you even more, though I cannot guarantee your survival."
Lurk, desperate after being defeated by Fenrath in a single blow, immediately replied,
"Give it to me! Whatever it is!"
Ifrit burst into booming laughter from the upper balcony.
"Silence, fool! Thousands have tried, and only two survived. You're nothing but a weak creature defeated in a single strike! Hahaha!"
But Lurk did not care.
He asked what kind of power Numrath was referring to, and Numrath answered that he would grant him power similar to Sage Neravos—the power of a Dragonkin.
Lurk immediately objected, stating that according to the history books of Urtz, dragons were sacred beings who stood on the side of the gods.
Numrath laughed at his response.
"Those books are correct, Prince of Sisilia—but history has changed."
He then summoned Cronos, a dragon unlike anything recorded in any historical text.
Its body was as hard as obsidian and radiated an aura of death.
Numrath explained that he had discovered Cronos' corpse in a place far removed from life itself—not within the Blind Spot, but in a remote land where the body remained perfectly preserved due to its immense power.
Numrath had resurrected it as a Nekragon.
"Long ago, before humans, elves, and the other races existed, this world belonged to dragons. But they were destroyed in an event known as The Great Dragonfall because of their own greed. Only two dragons remained: Tabantha and his mate, Gaia. They became the origin of all dragons that exist today, including the one bonded to Neravos," Numrath explained.
Cronos himself had told Numrath this history and had helped him locate nine other powerful dragons to resurrect as an army of Nekragons.
After Lurk declared his readiness, Numrath ordered Ashell to bring him to the Ritual Altar.
News of the creation of the third Nekragonkin quickly spread, causing the entire Dominion to gather around the altar.
At the center of the ritual grounds, ten portals opened simultaneously, summoning ten gigantic Nekragons.
Numrath introduced the two dragons that already possessed hosts—the dragons belonging to the two senior Nekragonkin, Draken and Vorgas—as well as the remaining eight dragons: Exterminium, Anima-Voro, Venenum-Rex, Inferno-Aeterna, Gravelord, Obsidion-Fracture, Soul Eater, and Venator.
Lurk chose Exterminium.
The moment the ritual began, unimaginable pain struck him.
His skin peeled away and transformed into black scales.
His bones shattered and reassembled into an entirely new structure.
His heart weakened, and breathing became nearly impossible.
The demon princes assumed he had failed when his body stopped moving entirely, but Beelzebub noticed that Numrath was smiling.
Slowly, Lurk's body reconstructed itself perfectly.
Cheers erupted throughout the Dominion as Lurk rose as the third Nekragonkin.
The voice of the dragon within him whispered promises of vengeance against Urtz.
Draken and Vorgas approached him with cold gazes.
"Congratulations. Painful, wasn't it?" one of them said.
Numrath looked toward them and spoke calmly.
"Take him. Train him until he can fully control that power."
Meanwhile, deep beneath the underground prison, Rael—chained and covered in wounds—heard the massive roar echoing from above.
Breathing heavily, he wondered whether the third Nekragonkin had truly been successfully created.
It was a question he would carry with him until the day he finally stood before Numrath himself.