The White Dragon Awakens
*Cough! Cough! Ghak!*
An old man in a tattered robe hacked up a cough as ugly as metal scraping metal. His robe looked as if it had survived a war—torn, slashed, scorched, and half-melted in places, the damage scattered across every fold.
Around him lay the carcasses of beasts reduced to nothing but hide and bone, yet the variety of wounds was far too diverse to blame on animals alone.
A vessel once shattered never heals properly…!
Among the attacks of his pursuers, the one that had carried a holy knight’s sacred power had done the real damage.
If I’d only had a little more time, I could have completed the grand magic!
One more day. That was all he had needed to avoid ending up like this. But the old man was too stubborn to die drowning in regret. With whatever strength remained, he staggered toward the forest.
Something’s wrong. Was the terrain around my hideout ever like this?
Having confirmed how formidable the intruders were, he had used an escape teleport only he could operate. Mid-transit he had felt a strange distortion of mana, but he had no luxury to examine it.
I can’t die like this! I absolutely will not die like this!
He ignored the mismatched landscape and the peculiar mana alike, draining the life force of every living animal he passed as he fled without end.
“Hah— hah— hoo— huff— huff—”
Kaisent cursed himself for never training the way his brothers had.
An hour of aimless walking through irregular hills and dense forest had brought him to the point where every step downhill forced him to clutch at his trembling legs. At last he leaned his back against a massive tree and decided to rest.
“Haaah— hah—”
He forced his ragged breathing under control, wiped the sweat from his face, and began to think how he might spare himself this grueling labor.
The best option was to use Mingming to climb into the canopy, survey the location and surrounding geography, and set a proper direction. The problem was that once Mingming’s energy ran dry, it could do nothing—if he climbed up and came back down only to be ambushed by beasts, his life would be forfeit.
Of course Kaisent already knew the answer. Call the beasts, kill them, leave the corpses, then climb and descend. Problem and formula both solved.
And yet he kept sweating and trudging for one reason alone.
I’m scared…
The introverted boy, once exposed to the raw killing intent of wild animals, had frozen in terror. That instinctive bloodlust of creatures that wanted to tear him apart for a single meal—combined with the fear of violence he had learned from witnessing his father’s power, and the fact that the only violence he had ever enacted was through data-driven game characters—made returning to that situation an ordeal too heavy to bear.
Rather than face that ordeal, he would rather let his body suffer. That timid choice had brought him here.
Rustle-rustle-crash!
“Ugh!”
Just as his stamina was beginning to recover, a sound rose from the undergrowth somewhere nearby—not wind, but the irregular, heavy rush of something large running hard.
Kaisent reflexively ducked behind the tree.
Moments later a humanoid creature burst from the brush: green skin, a nervous, irritable face, thick muscle layered over a heavy gut.
“Kukeeeek!”
While Kaisent was still deciding what to do, a black hand shot out of the undergrowth and clamped around the creature’s throat. The green-skinned thing’s flesh shriveled; its eyes dried and collapsed. In an instant only a hide remained. When the hand vanished, the empty skin crumpled to the ground in layered folds—bones and all dissolved, nothing left but leather.
Terrified, Kaisent clamped a hand over his mouth, dropped lower, and made himself as hard to find as possible.
“Ghk! Cough! Cough!”
A beat later, an old man in a tattered robe emerged from the brush.
A person!
His complexion was deathly pale and the hood of his half-shredded robe partly hid his face, but he was unmistakably an intelligent being who had known civilization. He also looked wounded. If they helped each other, things might become much simpler.
Even so, Kaisent could not bring himself to approach. This was clearly the same being who had used that ominous black hand to leave nothing but hide.
Something feels wrong. But I don’t even know where I am…
Instinctive dread coiled in his chest, yet the old man’s desperate state also sparked a hopeful calculation: if he offered any help at all, perhaps he would not be killed.
“Hoooo—”
The old man steadied his breathing for a moment, then started walking again.
If Kaisent let him go, he would be alone once more. That fear finally pushed him into a gamble.
“Um— e-excuse me!”
“Who’s there!”
“Eek!”
The moment Kaisent leaned only his upper body out from behind the tree and announced himself, the old man snapped into a ready stance, prepared to strike.
“I-I-I-I’m not an enemy! I’m sorry, but if you could just take me to a place with communications facilities… or—could I maybe use a bio-device to make one call?”
Kaisent spilled the words as fast as he could, desperate to prove he meant no harm.
Communications facilities? Bio-device?
The old man frowned at the strange terms tumbling from the boy’s mouth, but a fierce hope crushed the question flat.
I have no idea what a brat is doing out here, but this is an opportunity!
At a glance the boy looked frail, his build and face far removed from any fighter. An immature child—no better prize could have appeared.
In the worst case I was going to grab whatever beast wandered by!
Timid nature. Immature age. The perfect treasure he had been craving had just walked into view.
No sign of pursuit yet. I still have a little time.
The only real regret was how little of that time remained. Still, seeing Kaisent’s fear, the old man forced a smile onto his face.
“Heh, heh-heh-heh. Forgive me, child. Right now I am… *cough! cough!* being chased by wicked villains, you see. *Haaark!*”
He tried to sound as kindly as possible so the boy would not run, yet Kaisent felt only dissonance.
It’s like he’s wearing clothes that don’t fit.
The boy’s instinct had already delivered a perfect verdict on a man who had spent a lifetime savoring others’ pain—but it was far too late to flee now.
“Th-then if there’s anything I can do to help…”
“If you help me, I will help you in turn. First we need to leave this place. Would you mind lending me your shoulder?”
The old man was no actor, but he truly had no intention of harming the boy just yet, and for once a thread of sincerity came through. Kaisent hesitated, then trusted in Mingming and stepped closer.
“That’s it. Good boy. *Cough. Cough.*”
While Kaisent approached, the old man quietly gathered every scrap of his remaining mana.
Without a proper magic circle I’ll have to improvise. The memory loss will be severe, but better that than dying here.
When Kaisent came within arm’s reach, the old man kept the kindly smile fixed in place until the very end.
“So where should we—”
“Thank you. Truly, thank you, child!”
With genuine gratitude for the boy who meant to support him, the old man reached for Kaisent’s head—pouring every last drop of mana and life force into a grand magic.
The instant his hand closed on the boy’s skull—
Shhk!
“Ghk!?”
A mass of flesh erupted from Kaisent’s neck, reshaping itself into a razor-sharp form that punched straight through the old man’s throat. The unexpected shock shattered part of the grand magic; the old man was dragged, unstable and incomplete, into Kaisent’s mental world.
“Ghak! Ghk! Kahak!”
Choking on the shock of a pierced throat, the old man tumbled into Kaisent’s mental world.
Damn it…! To think he was carrying a monster like that…!
He had prided himself on knowing every kind of creature for his chimera research, yet this one was entirely new—a monster that mimicked a human body, reshaped itself, and struck. For a moment he wondered if the boy himself was the monster, but a glance around confirmed it: this was unmistakably the mental world of an intelligent being.
An empty white space. Breadth without end. Neither hot nor cold nor warm. He knew the nature of such places because he had invaded them many times before.
“Wh-what? Where is this…?”
A moment later Kaisent appeared. Invasion of a mental world always summoned its master—the body’s owner and its final defense.
“Heh, heh-heh-heh-heh. So that’s why you approached without suspicion—you had a monster like that. But in this place it means nothing!”
The old man lunged to kill Kaisent’s soul. A sharp dagger formed in his hand at the same instant.
This is his world! Kill him before he grows familiar with its laws!
A mental world overwhelmingly favored the defender. With a thought, its master could create anything to attack an invader or shield himself. Yet most victims never understood their own domain well enough; countless souls had reeled under the old man’s assault. In that opening he would annihilate the soul, claim the world as his own, and steal the body.
The flesh he wore now was already his fourth—once the body of another immature boy he had seized.
“I’ll put your body to good use! Kahahahaha!”
“H-hiiik! Stay away! Stay away from me!”
The moment Kaisent realized Mingming was not with him, terror seized him and he fled. But the old man, having concentrated all his spiritual power into a temporarily reinforced body, closed the gap in an instant.
“Aaaah!”
“Don’t be afraid, child. Your body will receive the adoration of countless people! Hahahaha!”
Kaisent tripped in his panic and fell. The old man mounted him and raised the dagger in both hands to drive it down.
In that instant Kaisent’s life flashed before his eyes.
—What? You don’t want to fight? You don’t want combat training?
The memory that stood out most was the first time he had mustered the courage to defy his father. He had expected anger at the refusal. Instead his father had thought for a moment, then given a short laugh.
—Heh. Things are getting rather interesting. Fine. I have no desire to force something on my child simply because I’m a parent.
Relief had begun to loosen Kaisent’s tension—until the next condition arrived.
—But as a parent, I also can’t stand watching a child’s talent rust. I’ll exempt you from combat training. In exchange, you will complete every other form of training without fail.
His father had always given all his children a fixed education: self-defense, marksmanship, weapon arts, and the practical skills of living—crafting, repair, and more. Once a child found a path, he hired the finest experts in that field for advanced instruction.
As long as it did not involve fighting other people, Kaisent had accepted. When the bargain was struck and the conversation nearly over, his father had smiled at him—a smile of genuine curiosity, as if he could not wait to see what future awaited.
—I look forward to seeing how long you can keep suppressing your true nature. And what kind of current will rise when that nature finally breaks free.
The flashback ended. The descending dagger had nearly reached Kaisent’s abdomen.
Die? Me?
Kaisent looked up. The old man’s ugly smile radiated certainty of victory. Imagining the joy that man would feel at killing him, Kaisent felt something else entirely.
The likes of you… against me?
The sheer audacity of such an insignificant creature looking down on him ignited a fierce, blazing rage.
Crunch!
“Hahaha… haha… ha…?”
The old man felt something wrong. The boy who should have been writhing in pain was staring up at him with cold eyes. He looked down—and found both of his hands gone. More precisely, Kaisent had torn them off.
“……. ……. ……Huh?”
He could only stare blankly at the empty stumps, unable to process what had happened.
“Ghk!”
Kaisent heaved the body straddling him with sudden, crushing force. The old man could not withstand it and tumbled away.
“You damned little brat!”
Accustomed to mental-world combat, the old man regenerated both hands at once and prepared to charge again—then his pupils blew wide with shock. His gaze climbed slowly upward until he was forced to tip his head all the way back.
“Ah… ah… aaa… uh… aaa…”
The small, fragile boy from moments ago now wore the form of a colossal white dragon. As the transformation completed, those pure white eyes darkened to pitch black. Meeting that abyssal gaze, the old man dropped to his knees without realizing it.
Th-this… this is… a Lord’s presence…!
In his days as a novice mage he had once felt a Dragon Lord’s aura from far away. This was greater—more overwhelming in both power and bearing than that Lord had ever been.
A mental world was the place where its master could reveal every talent he possessed. Which meant the rabbit-scared Kaisent carried the potential to grow into a being of this very rank.
This brat’s rank is higher than a Dragon Lord’s!?
Crrrk!
“Gh… gaaah…! Ghkke… kkegeek…!”
A voice that layered a boy’s youthful tone with a middle-aged baritone rolled through the white space, and the old man was crushed into the floor. No technique had been used—only speech—and that alone produced this result. The gulf in rank unilaterally pinned a man who had slain countless souls and mastered mental-world combat.
I-I’m going to die. Die. Just die. No. Save me. I don’t want to die. Please save me. I’ll be your servant. I’ll be your slave. I’ll do anything. Please just spare me.
“Ggaaagh…! Ggaagak! Gkkigigigik!!”
Knowing that death here meant the annihilation of his soul, the old man begged for his life with everything he had. It was not physical strength but the sheer weight of rank that forced pure terror up from the depths of his spirit.
Kaisent looked down with those black eyes and crushed the old man’s soul beneath his own rank. Two commands only—do not look, do not speak—and the old man’s body was ground further into ruin. His rank simply could not endure the hostility pouring from Kaisent’s.
Please… spare me… please… sa…ve…
In the end, unable to withstand the gulf of rank that carried Kaisent’s hostile will, the old man’s soul shattered and was annihilated.