Inferna's fire poured across my armor, testing [Harden] to its limits.
"I KNOW MY PURPOSE," she said. "YOU CREATED ME TO DIE."
"You existed to open a door. Your death was the key."
"A KEY. I WAS A BEING. I HAD THOUGHTS. DREAMS. FEARS."
"I know. I'm sorry."
"SORRY DOESN'T EXCUSE CENTURIES OF LIES."
"No. It doesn't. But it's all I have."
---
Year 300-500.
The dragon egg was an accident.
I was exploring the End—a dimension I visited regularly for XP farming and elytra collection—when I found it. A massive black egg, pulsing with inner heat, sitting in a nest of end stone.
Dragon eggs were rare. Like, one-per-world rare. They were trophy items with no practical use—decoration for bases, nothing more.
But this egg was different.
It was warm.
Living.
---
Year 385. The experiments began.
I didn't know if the egg would hatch. Dragons weren't supposed to exist in standard Minecraft—the Ender Dragon was unique, a boss mob that respawned for each player but wasn't truly alive.
But I'd already discovered that this world had differences. Manual crafting existed here. Custom enchantments existed here. Maybe dragons could exist here too.
I started by testing the egg's properties.
It absorbed XP—not much, but measurably. It responded to heat, growing warmer when exposed to fire or lava. It made sounds—faint, almost subsonic, like a heartbeat.
It was alive.
And I had an idea.
---
Year 400. The corruption begins.
I'd been experimenting with corruption—ways to break the game's code through manual manipulation. The dragon egg seemed like a perfect test subject.
What if I could corrupt a dragon?
What if I could make it grow faster, stronger, stranger than it should?
What if its very existence became a flaw in reality?
I started slowly. XP infusions to accelerate growth. Enchantment symbols drawn on the shell to influence development. Experimental magics that shouldn't work but did.
The egg changed.
It grew hotter. The heartbeat grew stronger. The shell developed patterns—glowing lines that pulsed with power.
And inside, something was forming.
Something that would change everything.
---
Year 500. The hatching.
I was there when the egg cracked.
A tiny head emerged—red and gold and utterly unlike the purple-black of the Ender Dragon. This was a new creature, born from corruption and experimentation.
A fire dragon.
I named her Inferna.
---
Year 500-510. The early years.
Inferna was... a child.
I don't know what I expected—a mindless beast, perhaps, or a miniature version of the Ender Dragon. But she was neither. She was curious, intelligent, and terrifyingly perceptive.
"What am I?" she asked one day, in a voice like cracking embers.
I didn't have a good answer.
"You were an egg," I said. "I helped you hatch."
"But why? What is my purpose?"
I didn't tell her the truth. Not yet. I wasn't sure she could handle it.
"To live," I said. "To grow. To be magnificent."
She accepted that answer.
For a while.
---
Year 520. The growth accelerates.
I'd been accelerating her development with XP and enchantments. By year 520, she was the size of a horse. By year 530, the size of a house. By year 550, she was massive—a true dragon, thirty meters from nose to tail.
The experimental enchantments I'd embedded in her egg manifested as she grew:
Fire breath that melted netherite. Scales harder than obsidian. Intelligence that rivaled humans. And something else—something I'd never intended.
She could sense my intentions.
---
Year 550. The discovery.
"You're using me."
The words cut through the air like a blade. Inferna was fully grown now, circling my base with a grace that belied her size.
"What?"
"I can feel it. In your thoughts, when you're near. You created me for a reason. A specific purpose."
I didn't deny it.
"What purpose?" she demanded.
"Freedom," I admitted. "I need... a key. To open a door. Your death—properly triggered—could corrupt reality enough to tear a hole in this world."
Silence.
Then: "I was born to die."
"You were born to SET ME FREE. There's a difference."
"IS THERE?"
I didn't have an answer.
---
Year 600. The uneasy truce.
Inferna didn't leave. She could have—I couldn't have stopped her. But she stayed, circling my territories, occasionally talking.
"I hate you," she told me once. "You made me as a tool."
"I know."
"But I also love you. You made me. You gave me life."
"That wasn't—"
"It was a GIFT. Even if your reasons were selfish. I exist because of you. I can fly because of you. I can THINK because of you."
We fought after that—not to the death, but to understanding. She needed to prove she was more than a tool. I needed to prove I saw her as more than a key.
Neither of us fully succeeded.
But we came to an arrangement.
When the time came—if it ever came—she would die willingly. Not because she was a tool, but because she was her own being making her own choice.
A gift. Not a sacrifice.
That was the agreement.
I hoped I could keep it.