The physical world was boring.
Kael was currently seven months old. His daily routine consisted of sleeping, eating, and pretending to be fascinated by a mobile of spinning griffins while his mother, Seraphina, cooed at him and his sister poking his cheeks.
But while his body lay in the crib, wrapped in silk that cost more than a commoner's house, his mind was elsewhere.
Deeper.
Kael closed his eyes, visualizing the core of his being. The darkness of sleep shifted, twisting into a landscape of jagged black rock and purple skies.
The Mindscape.
It was a barren wasteland, representing his currently underdeveloped soul. But in the center of this wasteland sat a massive, fractured throne made of obsidian.
And curled around it was the dragon.
Klaus looked different here. In the physical world, he was a tattoo or a small spectral lizard. Here, he was titanic, a creature of shadow and starlight that blocked out the artificial sky. But if one looked closely, they could see the cracks in his scales, the way his form flickered like a dying candle.
"You're awake," Kael said. His voice here wasn't the gurgle of an infant. It was the cold, sharp voice of his past life.
The dragon opened one massive eye. The pupil was a vertical slit of burning white.
"You are an odd hatchling," Klaus rumbled. His voice shook the ground, but there was a wheeze in it. "Most infants scream when I pull them into the mental realm. You just... criticize the décor."
"It's a bit empty," Kael noted, walking toward the massive beast. He didn't flinch. "So, let's cut to the chase. You're Klaus. The Calamity. The Dragon who challenged the Void God and died four hundred years ago."
Klaus let out a snort of smoke that smelled like ozone. "Allegedly."
"And now you're inside me. A baby. Specifically, the 'Fourth' child of the Raven family." Kael crossed his arms. "Why?"
"Because I had no choice," Klaus grumbled, shifting his massive bulk. "I did not choose you, little anomaly. You pulled me here. My soul was drifting in the void, shattered, waiting for entropy to finish me off. Then you were born."
The dragon lowered his head until it was inches from Kael.
"Your soul... it has a gravity to it. A hunger. It called out to the void, and I was the only thing strong enough—or stupid enough—to answer."
Kael processed this. "So we're stuck together."
"Bonded," Klaus corrected. "If you die, I fade into nothingness. If I leave, your infant soul collapses from the strain of my residual mana. A parasitic symbiosis."
"Great," Kael deadpanned. "So I have a legendary dragon. Does this mean I can shoot beams of destruction? Do I get your magic?"
Klaus laughed. It was a dry, rasping sound.
"Look at me, boy. Really look at me."
The dragon shifted, exposing his chest.
There was no heart beating there. Instead, there was a gaping, jagged hole where his core used to be. Starlight bled from the wound, evaporating into mist before it hit the ground.
"I am a ruin," Klaus whispered, the arrogance gone from his voice. "My physical body is dust. My core is shattered. I am currently existing on the fumes of your infant life force. If I tried to cast a single Dragon's Breath right now, your body would turn to ash and I would cease to exist."
Kael frowned, looking at the bleeding light. "So you're useless."
"I am dormant," Klaus snapped, looking offended. "I possess knowledge lost to this era. I know the breathing techniques of the Old Gods. I know where the forgotten armories are buried. But power? No. You have to earn that yourself."
"So, the plan?"
"We recover," Klaus said, his eyes narrowing. "You must cultivate. You must forge a Mana Core strong enough to hold us both. As you ascend the ranks of this world from F-Rank trash to a Sovereign I will repair my soul. When you reach the peak, I might regain my physical form."
"And until then?"
"Until then, we hide."
"Hide from who?" Kael asked. "The Empire? The Demons?"
Klaus shuddered. It was a subtle movement, but for a dragon of his size, it was noticeable. The shadows around them seemed to darken.
"Worse," he whispered. "My sister."
Thousands of miles to the East, the air itself seemed to freeze.
The Draconic Isles were a paradise of floating mountains and waterfalls of liquid mana. It was a realm where dragons ruled as gods, untouchable by the petty squabbles of humans or demons.
At the very peak of the highest spire, inside a palace carved from a single diamond, a woman sat on her throne.
She looked human beautiful, with flowing golden hair and eyes that burned like molten gold but her presence was heavy enough to crush steel.
Sylvara.
Rank: Sovereign I.
Title: The Queen of Scales.
She was currently filing her nails.
"Report," she said softly.
A massive Red Dragon, easily the size of a cathedral, trembled as it bowed before her human form.
"M-My Queen," the Red Dragon stammered. "The mana monitors... they picked up a signature."
Sylvara didn't look up. "A signature?"
"In the West. The Human Empire. It... it matched the frequency of The Calamity."
Crack.
The diamond file in Sylvara's hand snapped in half.
Slowly, she looked up. The air in the room became a vacuum. The Red Dragon whimpered, pressing its snout into the floor.
"Klaus?" she whispered.
"The signature was faint," the Red Dragon rushed to explain. "It vanished almost instantly, as if... as if he is hiding."
Sylvara stood up.
The floating mountains outside the window dipped three feet from the sudden spike in her aura.
"He's alive," she murmured, a smile spreading across her face. It was not a kind smile. It was the smile of a predator who just found a trail of blood. "That idiot brother of mine is actually alive."
"Shall we send a legion to the Human Empire?" the Red Dragon asked. "Burn it down until we find him?"
"No," Sylvara said, smoothing her dress. "If he's hiding, he's weak. And if he's weak... he's likely ashamed. If we invade, he'll run."
She walked to the window, looking West, her gaze piercing through clouds and distance.
"Let him play his little games," she said, her voice dropping to a terrifying purr. "Let him think he's safe. But keep watch. Because when I find him..."
She tapped the glass, and a crack spiderwebbed across the reinforced window.
"...I'm going to remind him why he's the little brother and making me sad has consequences".
[Back in the Mindscape]
Klaus sneezed. A burst of shadow-flame erupted from his nostrils.
A bad feeling started to rise in his mind and his spine went cold.
"Someone is talking about me," the dragon muttered, looking nervous. "We need to hurry, kid. Cultivate faster. If she finds me while I look like this..."
He gestured to his spectral form.
"...she will never let me live it down."
Kael smirked. "A dragon afraid of his big sister. Pathetic."
"Respect your elders!" Klaus roared, though he didn't deny it. "Now, wake up. Your mother is coming to change your diaper. Have some dignity."
"Wait, what—"
[Connection Severed]
Kael's eyes snapped open in the physical world just as the nursery door creaked open.