Kairon didn't remember crashing through the warehouse window—only the explosion of glass, the whip-crack of a steel wire slicing past his cheek, and the burning in his lungs as he ran.
The elite hunter's killing intent still clung to him like smoke.
His boots slammed against the wet concrete of the alley, slipping once, twice, before momentum dragged him forward. His vision blurred. His ribs screamed where the hunter's kick had landed earlier—clean, precise, meant to shatter bone.
If I hadn't transformed even a little… I'd be dead.
Rain hit the back of his neck. The city was dim—streetlights flickering like nervous fireflies. Behind him, something landed on the ground without sound. Only a faint ripple in the air and a thin metallic vibration told him the hunter was still nearby.
Kairon forced himself around a corner, sliding behind an overflowing trash bin. He flattened himself against the wall, covering his mouth with trembling fingers.
Silence.
Then—
Shhhh.
A razor-thin wire sliced across the brick where his head had been a heartbeat ago, carving a line into the wall as though it were soft clay.
Kairon rolled forward, bolting down the emergency stairwell. His foot hit the fourth step—then he froze as instincts screamed.
UP!
He leapt straight up just as the staircase exploded—wire, metal, and sparks erupting in an upward bloom. The shockwave flung him onto the rooftop like a ragdoll.
The elite hunter landed across from him.
White mask. Black coat. No aura leaking—so controlled it felt like a void.
The most terrifying part was that the hunter didn't even look winded.
"Target: Kairon Aurel," the hunter's distorted voice rasped. "Threat classification updated. Pursuit continues."
Kairon spat blood as he got to his feet.
"I'm not—"
He stopped himself. What could he say? I'm not a threat? I'm not what you think I am?
The hunter wouldn't care.
When the hunter stepped forward, Kairon made a desperate decision.
He let a sliver of draconic energy leak out.
Just enough to propel him backward off the roof.
Wind roared around him as he plunged ten meters down—landing hard on a balcony, the metal screaming under the impact. Pain shot through his legs, but adrenaline numbed it. He stumbled inside the apartment, startling a couple who screamed at the sight of him.
"Sorry—wrong place—wrong time," Kairon choked out as he bolted through the other door.
He didn't stop running until he crashed into a different block, far away from the warehouse district.
Only then—gasping, hunched, soaked in rain and sweat—did he allow himself to believe it:
I escaped.
Barely.
The elite hunter did not chase him further.
But Kairon knew one thing with bone-deep certainty:
They won't stop.
Across the city, in a quiet underground chamber beneath his family's unused shrine, Arin sat cross-legged.
His palms rested lightly on his knees. His breathing was calm, almost motionless.
But the air around him crackled.
Thin silver runes floated in rings around his body, shifting in rotation like celestial orbits.
He had been trying—again—to suppress his aura.
And—again—he was failing.
Every time he thought he reached stability, something pulsed from deep within his core. Something old. Something not entirely human.
And today, after sensing Kairon's danger from kilometers away, his emotions had flared too hard.
The stone lanterns around the shrine vibrated. The floor trembled under him. A faint hum reverberated through the entire room.
"Not again," Arin muttered, trying to force everything back down.
His aura refused to obey.
Silver-white light surged around him in a wave—so bright it seeped through the cracks in the shrine's foundation, shooting upward like beams through the ground.
Outside, passersby froze as the shrine rumbled, dust raining from its roof.
"What the hell was that?"
"Is that… a spiritual reaction?"
"Call the clan watchers—now!"
Arin clenched his jaw as sweat rolled down his neck.
The aura wrapped around him like a furious storm, spiraling upward until it burst through the ceiling, scattering debris.
I'm losing control… again.
He finally forced his palms together, focusing every shred of will into compressing the wild aura—
—and the energy snapped inward, contained once more.
Arin slumped, chest heaving.
But outside?
Everyone in the vicinity was already reporting what they'd felt.
The clans would notice.
The hidden powers in the city would notice.
And worst of all—
The man watching Arin from the hilltop absolutely noticed.
The man adjusted the hood of his weathered cloak, watching the dissipating silver aura with sharp, unblinking eyes.
"So. You've awakened again, child."
His voice was soft—almost too soft for the storm-wind carrying it.
A carved wooden token hung from his belt: a small sigil shaped like the crescent spine of a dragon.
Anyone knowledgeable would recognize it immediately.
The Crest of the Pale Wyrm Brotherhood—a secret order that had vanished a century ago.
"A descendant," the man murmured. "Or perhaps… a reincarnation."
The aura had carried something familiar. Something ancient.
He stepped forward, touching the bark of the withered tree beside him.
Images flickered across his mind. A battlefield long gone. A silver dragon, wounded and dying, spiraling into the clouds.
"Arin," he whispered, as though tasting the name. "Your blood should not exist."
Lightning flickered across the sky.
"But it does. Which means the prophecy shifts once again."
He turned away from the shrine.
"And the clans will panic."
Panic didn't begin to describe the situation.
Inside the Council Hall of the City Clans, chaos reigned.
Dozens of clan heads and scouts shouted over each other:
"The aura was clearly Tier 4—maybe Tier 5!"
"That wasn't human! Nothing human swells like that!"
"Identify the source immediately!"
"And what of the dragon creature sighting earlier? The black-scaled signature matched the boy, Kairon!"
The head of the Ironfang Clan slammed the table.
"Then we're hunting two awakened dragon entities!"
Murmurs rippled through the room.
Yet even through the noise, two facts became clear:
1. The clans believed Kairon was a transforming dragon-blood.
2. They now believed a second awakened entity had appeared—Arin.
A scout rushed in, panting.
"We found traces leading west—toward the abandoned textile district. Something large crashed there. A hunter from the Bureau encountered it."
The room went silent.
The Bureau's elite hunters were known for killing first and documenting corpses later.
The Ironfang head snarled.
"Mobilize every squad. If the Bureau already made contact, we're behind."
Another clan head spoke with icy frustration:
"And the aura earlier—"
"Find its source," the Ironfang leader ordered. "Watch the boy Arin. If he's involved—seize him."
The decision was made.
The hunt escalated.
The city's underbelly stirred like a hornet nest kicked open.
---
While the clans scoured the city, something else began to happen.
In the heart of the old metro tunnels—far below the streets—something slept inside a forgotten maintenance chamber.
A faint heat shimmered in the darkness.
Then—
Crack.
A glowing fissure appeared across a stone-like cocoon resting atop severed cables and debris. The cocoon pulsed once with deep crimson light.
The temperature spiked.
Electricity from the live cables arced toward the cocoon, feeding it like hungry serpents.
Crack. Crack!
A second glow emerged—a molten gold mixed with ember heat.
The cocoon split open.
A low, resonant growl rumbled through the entire tunnel system, shaking dust from ancient pipes.
Then a voice—deep, rough, yet unmistakably young.
"…Where… am I?"
A large, taloned hand—covered in crimson-black scales—emerged first. Then a second.
A horned head followed, exhaling smoke.
Golden eyes blinked open.
The creature flexed its wings—still weak, still forming—but unmistakably draconic.
"I smell…"
The young dragon inhaled, pupils narrowing.
"Another."
Heat rolled from its body, vaporizing the moisture in the air. It took its first shaky step out of the broken shell.
"A rival."
The tunnels thrummed with heat as fire-like energy roared from its chest.
"A dragon… like me."
The creature tilted its head.
"No…"
A pause.
"A threat."
It launched into the tunnels, molten footprints left behind on the cracking concrete.
Above, the street lamps flickered.
People wondered if it was just a power outage.
It wasn't.
Something ancient had woken.
Something hungry.
Something that felt Kairon's presence—and was moving toward it.
---
Back in his cramped apartment, Kairon struggled to bandage his ribs, wincing every time he moved.
His friend Mira hovered nearby, eyes wide with worry.
"You look like you got hit by a truck."
"I wish," Kairon groaned. "A truck wouldn't chase me across rooftops."
Mira paused. "…You're being serious, aren't you."
He nodded weakly.
Before she could question more, Arin burst through the door—eyes still faintly glowing silver from his earlier aura leak.
"Kairon—what happened? I felt—"
"Don't say it out loud," Kairon hissed. "Walls have ears."
Arin swallowed hard.
"Kairon… the clans are moving. And something else… something old… is watching us."
As if on cue—
A distant, earth-shaking roar echoed through the city.
Not mechanical.
Not human.
Not anything the city had heard in modern times.
Kairon's blood ran cold.
Arin's eyes widened.
Mira's knees nearly buckled.
And from far beneath the city, the second dragon crawled upward toward the surface—drawn to the other heartbeat like its own.
Kairon whispered, barely audible:
"…Something's coming for me."
Arin stepped forward, aura flickering.
"Then we face it together."
But neither of them understood the full horror yet.
The city would not survive two awakened dragons.
The clans would not allow it.
And the Bureau would kill them all.