The White Dragon's Successor (1)

The quest-complete message was the last thing on my mind.

A roar unlike anything I had ever heard thundered from outside — and on its heels, someone came crashing through the doorway in a blind panic.

"Chieftain! The Megalodon is attacking!"

"Damn it! Why?! The trade period should still be in effect!"

The Megalodon had come crashing in without warning. The Chieftain seemed to know something about why — but in a moment like this, there was no time to ask.

"Battle stations, now! Get the children and the elderly who can't fight to safety first! Everyone else, hold the Megalodon!"

He was already barking orders as he charged outside. We followed him out of the building.

And then my body locked up cold.

The Megalodon. Calling it the size of a house wouldn't even begin to cover it. The Minotaur we had faced before — that towering slab of muscle — felt small beside this thing. Its body stretched dozens of meters from snout to tail, a living mountain of flesh, and its jaws were lined with fangs far longer and more vicious than any ordinary shark's.

Then the display appeared.

Level 100. The pressure rolling off that number was staggering. Ursula, the Named Monster we had just barely survived, had only been thirty-five. This thing was a hundred — and it wasn't even an ordinary monster. It had a star.

Beating something like that was impossible.

We have to run.

Every cell in my body was screaming it, a raw electric terror buzzing through my skin. The presence pouring off this creature made Ursula feel like a bad dream. This — this was a Megalodon.

"Elena. We ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠have to run."

"What about the Merfolk?"

"That's not the problem. If we stay here, we all die."

Elena was clearly worried about them, but we didn't have the luxury. Whether we were here or not wouldn't change a thing. Even if we threw ourselves into the fight, the Merfolk had no chance of surviving this. Everything still in this place was going to be slaughtered for nothing.

A guttural roar shook the water.

"Attack! Non-combatants, evacuate — now!"

At the Chieftain's command, every merfolk still able to fight surged forward to meet the Megalodon. Behind them, the rest of the tribe fled as fast as their tails could carry them.

The water erupted. Tridents flashed. Every warrior hurled the strongest attack they had at that mountainous body — and not one of them left a mark.

"Let's go. Now."

"All right."

Elena was still glancing back at the Merfolk, but she ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠knew as well as I did that there was nothing we could do.

Their strikes landed. The Megalodon did not even seem to notice. It didn't bother with an attack of its own. It simply charged.

The Megalodon was only swimming forward. That was all. But the wake it left behind was catastrophic. The warriors scattered to either side — and in the space it tore through the water, a colossal whirlpool bloomed and swallowed dozens of them whole.

We're insane if we stay.

I turned to run — and a low hum stopped me cold.

What is that?

The sound wasn't coming from anywhere around me. It was coming from me. From my inventory. Something in there had started to glow.

As if I had time to check. I tried to keep moving, to get the hell out of there — and whatever it was locked my body in place, refusing to let me take another step.

What the hell do you want from me?!

I was one wrong move from dying, and this thing had decided now was the moment to seize control. I had no choice. I opened the inventory.

The source of the chaos was the egg I had received from the last event. Why it had chosen this exact instant to lose its ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠mind, I had no idea — until I noticed the item sitting in the slot beside it. Something I ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠was certain I had never seen before.

It wants me to hatch it? Here? Now?

Merfolk were dying by the dozen on one side of me, and this egg wanted to be born. Every instinct I had said to get somewhere safe first. But the egg had frozen me in place, and I didn't have a choice.

To hell with it.

The moment I used the stone, the egg flared with a fierce, blinding light.

"What are you doing?!"

Elena had started running, then turned back to find me standing there playing with an egg, and the look on her face said she could not believe it. She was the one who had told me we needed to run.

"It's this thing — I can't—"

"What is that supposed to be?"

She came closer — and a crack split down the side of the egg. Then another.

Hurry up and be born already!

I did not have time for this. I barely had time to run.

Something started pushing its way out, shattering the shell from the inside. Snow-white skin. A face that called a lizard to mind — or, from another angle, a snake.

What the hell is this?

The White Dragon?

That was the creature tied to the Epic Quest I had received — the White Dragon's Proxy Trial, supposedly required to enter The Struggle. And it had just completed itself, here, in the middle of this. A hollow laugh escaped me.

What the hell is even going on.

This lizard-looking thing was apparently the White Dragon. The problem was that it looked exactly like a lizard. Just a lizard. Except it wasn't, because we were at the bottom of the ocean and it was swimming as naturally as if it had been born to the water.

Then it turned and stared straight at me.

"So. You're supposed to be my master?"

"Excuse me?"

"I asked if you were my master."

The sheer nerve of it. Fresh out of an egg, talking down to me like I was the help, and asking if I was its master in the same breath.

"Yeah. I'm the one who summoned you."

"Hmph. Can't say I'm impressed."

"…"

And what exactly was I supposed to do with that? Talking down to me because I didn't meet its standards.

A roar tore through the water. While I was bickering with a newborn dragon, the Megalodon was still tearing the city apart.

"I don't have time to argue with you. Keep up."

Right. We had been running from that thing. If I stood here any longer thanks to this White Dragon, the Megalodon was going to kill us both.

"Hnh. That thing's being controlled by someone, you know."

"I don't care. I said follow me."

It had been alive for all of thirty seconds and it already carried itself like it owned the ocean. The White Dragon was staring the Megalodon dead in the eye — this palm-sized scrap of a creature, squaring up to a monster the size of a building, as if it actually intended to fight.

It drifted closer to the Megalodon. Then, without taking its eyes off that mountain of teeth, it tossed a single sentence back at me.

"Looks to me like that thing's hunting you. Tell you what — I take it out, and from now on, I'm your Hyung."

"What kind of bullshit is that?"

I meant it. How was it planning to kill a Megalodon, and what the hell did it mean by Hyung?

The Megalodon coiled itself for another charge — this time aimed squarely at us — and with a violent lash of its tail, it came on.

"So? You going to call me Hyung or not?"

"You can actually kill that thing?!"

"That's what I said."

"Fine! You take it out and I'll call you Hyung — just do something!"

I didn't understand a word of what this White Dragon was saying. I didn't know why it wanted to be called Hyung, and I couldn't begin to imagine how it planned to fight that monster. But if it could actually kill the Megalodon, I would have called it whatever it wanted.

"Okay. Guess I'll put in a little work."

It turned to face the Megalodon rushing toward us.

Its body flared with light — and in the space of a heartbeat, the White Dragon swelled until it rivaled the Megalodon itself. The tiny, almost cute creature from a moment ago was gone. What hung in the water now was a presence that did not yield an inch to the monster in front of it.

"Hnn. So this is what it feels like."

Fully grown, the White Dragon regarded the Megalodon bearing down on it. Then it opened its jaws.

Something flashed in the back of its throat — just for an instant.

Light.

A column of radiance erupted from the White Dragon's mouth and struck the Megalodon head-on. One moment the beast was there. The next, it was gone — not broken, not torn apart. Gone. Not even a silhouette left behind.

What the White Dragon had unleashed was a Pure White Breath. In the path the breath carved through the sea, the water itself ceased to exist, a brief and perfect vacuum — and when the ocean rushed back in to fill the void, a whirlpool tore itself open in the space where a Level 100 monster had been.

What… what did I just watch?

I stared from behind it, my face gone completely blank. That nightmare of a Megalodon had died to a single attack.

That was a White Dragon.

Then the colossal form collapsed in on itself as quickly as it had appeared, shrinking back down to the same palm-sized, almost adorable creature as before. The newly tiny White Dragon drifted over to where I was still standing there stunned, climbed onto my shoulder, and cleared its throat.

"Ahem. Time to start calling me Hyung, don't you think?"

It paddled around me like a little white loach, looking insufferably pleased with itself.

"Hy— Hyung?"

"Ah-ah! Put some respect into it!"

"Hyung-nim!"

I had just acquired myself a real piece of work.