Dragon Heart
Transplanting a Dragon Heart was an extremely difficult—and dangerous—thing to do.
To pour the vast mana contained in a dragon’s heart into a human body was much like having a waterfall crash into a still lake.
Thump. Thump.
In an inn in the north of Thebes, Kim Jun rented the largest room available and took out the Dragon Heart, which was almost as large as his own body.
I can do this.
This heart had been obtained on Dragon's Plain, the 80th floor, before his regression.
Back then, when he had first attempted the transplant, his level had been 91. Now he was level 33, a gap so wide it was almost absurd compared to his previous life.
Even then, it had been a dangerous gamble that had demanded his life as collateral.
I need Seoyeon’s help.
He had even received the reward for the first clear of the 6th floor, so Lee Seoyeon was now level 10.
At that point, her unique skill, Mana Stabilization, should have been considerably stronger as well.
Knock, knock.
Kim Jun carefully knocked on the room where his companions were staying and called for Lee Seoyeon.
"Seoyeon, could you come out for a moment?"
The door opened, and Lee Seoyeon’s face appeared. Behind her, Ryu Jia was wearing a suspicious expression.
"Oh? You’re calling for me alone? At this hour of night?"
"Why are you only calling Unnie? That’s weird. I’m coming too."
"It’s not like that. Go back to sleep."
After briefly asking for their understanding, Kim Jun quietly walked with Lee Seoyeon to a forest on the outskirts of Thebes.
"Guild Leader? You must have brought me all the way out here for a reason. Will you tell me now?"
Lee Seoyeon smiled, but beneath that expression was the intuition that something serious was about to happen.
Kim Jun, the Guild Leader of Han, was never someone who moved lightly.
There had to be an important reason for calling her out at this hour and bringing her all the way here.
And her guess was correct.
"Seoyeon."
"Yes."
"Please help me transplant this Dragon Heart."
"Pardon?"
The heart Kim Jun took from his subspace pouch was still pulsing a deep red.
At the fierce wave of mana pouring from it, Lee Seoyeon’s body reflexively drew back.
"Y-you have a Dragon Heart?"
"Yes."
"But how are you going to transplant it?"
"I’ll handle the transplant. I just need you to keep the mana inside me from going out of control."
If not for Lee Seoyeon, even after obtaining the Dragon Heart, Kim Jun would have needed months to fully absorb its power.
But he didn’t have that kind of time now.
The Tower never gave challengers a chance to catch their breath.
Stagnation for even a moment meant retreat, and retreat was no different from death.
"I’m starting."
"Y-yes…"
Lee Seoyeon’s voice trembled with tension.
The overwhelming presence of the Dragon Heart had planted unease in her mind, but she steadied herself by drawing slow breaths in and out.
Carefully, she moved behind Kim Jun and knelt there.
Kim Jun placed both hands on the massive Dragon Heart.
Thump. Thump.
The mana he felt from the Dragon Heart was monstrous.
An overwhelming quantity beyond comparison, even if he added together all the mana in his body.
Will this be all right?
He hesitated for a moment. Could a human body endure a power like this? But he had already crossed the river and there was no going back now.
"Huu."
After taking a deep breath, he began to absorb the Dragon Heart’s mana.
"Hngh!"
Dense, crimson mana slithered up his fingers like a starving snake.
At first it had been a thin thread, barely connected, but the current grew stronger by the second.
He could see red lines spreading beneath his skin.
Like a river of flowing lava, that mana raced up Kim Jun’s hand, from his hand to his arm, from his arm to his shoulder, and finally toward his heart.
"Grrrgh!"
A strangled cry tore from his mouth.
His whole body stiffened, and every blood vessel beneath his skin bulged red, like chains of iron heated in fire.
The torrent of mana was testing the limits of his humanity.
"Aaaagh!"
Kim Jun’s face twisted.
Pain crashed over him.
It felt as though every cell in his body were burning. His human mana circuits were too narrow and too weak to contain the immense power of a dragon.
At this rate...
An alarm blared through his consciousness. If this kept up, his mana circuit would overload and explode.
His body would be washed away by the rushing current of mana, and his soul would be torn apart.
"Guild Leader!"
Lee Seoyeon called out in panic, but there was only one thing she could do now: stabilize the flow from behind him.
Shhh—
Blue mana poured from her fingertips, wrapping around Kim Jun’s body.
But before the Dragon Heart’s overwhelming, violent mana, it was as thin as a single thread.
Stronger!
Lee Seoyeon clenched her teeth and poured out every last drop of her mana.
Inside Kim Jun, a fiercer battle was already raging.
He turned his consciousness inward. There, he could see his mana circuit.
Small streams of blue light flowed through his body. Above them, red dragon mana poured down in a merciless torrent.
Don’t resist. Don’t reject it. Let it flow.
Like ripples crossing the surface of a deep lake when the wind blows, Kim Jun’s mana trembled.
He simply closed his eyes and felt the current in full.
Let it all pass through.
Within his consciousness, two rivers met.
Human blue mana and the red mana surging from the Dragon Heart.
At first they collided, whipping into a violent vortex, but once Kim Jun let go of all resistance, the two currents slowly began to find a single flow.
Gurgle.
The original flow of mana. He let it move naturally through that current.
The red wave running through the blue river soon became one with it, and then—
Rumble rumble rumble!
—the united mana gathered at his fingertips.
Fwoooosh—!
Flames erupted from both of Kim Jun’s hands.
"!!"
It was coming.
A massive wave was surging through him.
The mana that had been blocked and faint until now exploded like a flood.
The dragon mana in every blood vessel began to stabilize, little by little.
"Guild Leader! Open everything up! Now!"
He had to absorb every ounce of the Dragon Heart’s power. Not a single grain could be wasted.
He went back inward. There was definitely a barrier somewhere. Something was preventing him from drawing out the dragon mana in full.
"Grrrgh!"
He sent his consciousness back into his body.
Like exploring a maze, he traced the paths of mana.
From his hand to his chest. And from the flow that began in his chest, it spread everywhere, yet circling back again and again around the same place.
Found it.
The point where heart and soul connected. The microscopic gap at the boundary where human and dragon power met.
The tide of mana that failed to pass through that place and vanished instead.
Wooo—
Focusing every ounce of his concentration, he pried the gap open.
Wuuuuung—
The thread-thin crack widened more and more, and through it Kim Jun caught sight of something.
Dragon consciousness.
A force of life from the age of myth, impossible to understand with human reason.
Woooooong—!
In an instant, the dragon consciousness noticed him. And then it rushed straight at Kim Jun.
"Kuhk!"
His body shook violently, and blood poured from his mouth.
"Focus! If you stop here, you die!"
Kim Jun, facing the dragon consciousness directly, had his breath stolen by its crushing presence. Ancient memories pierced through his mind like lightning.
The moment of soaring freely through a blue sky, the moment of breathing fire that burned mountain ranges to ash, the desperate battles against transcendent beings, and finally... the moment of death.
Who are you?
The dragon’s voice echoed through his consciousness.
*
What am I supposed to do?
Lee Seoyeon panicked. Kim Jun’s condition was far from normal.
His body had gone rigid, not moving an inch, while cold sweat streamed down him in rivulets.
His lips had turned blue, and his breathing was ragged.
More than anything, his eyes were the problem.
His pupils had dilated violently, and he was staring blankly into space, having lost focus altogether.
"Guild Leader! Guild Leader!"
No matter how many times she called his name, he didn’t respond.
Is he really going to die like this?
Lee Seoyeon’s hands trembled. It looked as though even her Mana Stabilization skill wouldn’t be enough to handle this situation.
The wave of mana pouring out of the Dragon Heart was still fierce, and Kim Jun’s body was shaking from the strain, unable to endure it.
Even if it’s hard, I have to hold on. I can’t let him fight alone!
Lee Seoyeon forced her already exhausted body onward.
Her arms and legs had grown as heavy as lead, and her head spun dizzily.
Her mana was running dry. And yet she could not give up.
She couldn’t let the guild leader fight alone.
Lee Seoyeon bit down so hard on her lip that it drew blood. The pain sharpened her focus.
She gathered every last drop of mana left in her body.
From the tips of her fingers to her toes, even the faint traces hidden in her hair, she scraped together everything she could and poured it into Kim Jun.
Please... please come back, Guild Leader...
And so, for five long hours.
Hissssss—
Heat burst from Kim Jun’s body.
Lee Seoyeon’s face had gone pale as paper.
She had spent five straight hours pouring every scrap of her concentration into sustaining Kim Jun’s mana, her condition as fragile as a dying ember in the wind.
Her body had already long since passed its limit, but her will alone clung to the last thread of hope.
And at last, as though answering that heartfelt devotion, a miracle began to unfold.
Like the stillness after a long storm, something inside Kim Jun’s body began to settle.
The red mana flowing through his blood vessels.
The dragon’s wild mana wave began to harmonize with his own.
Thump. Thump.
His heart, which had seemed to flicker out and then spark back to life, now began to beat anew.
Fwoooosh—!
The blue mana disappeared.
What remained was only red mana.
"Guild Leader...?"
Lee Seoyeon stared in shock.
Whooooosh—!
A fierce wind burst outward in every direction around Kim Jun.
Leaves were whipped up and torn from the trees, and dust spiraled from the ground into the air.
His hair lashed in the wind, and the hem of his clothes snapped violently.
The oppressive pressure of mana pouring from his body made the air itself tremble.
Kwaaaaaa—!
It gathered around Kim Jun once more and surged high into the sky, as if a dragon itself were ascending.
"Thank you, Seoyeon."
"Guild Leader..."
Deep exhaustion lined Kim Jun’s face, but at the same time, a sense of relief lingered there too, as if he had finally put down a burden far too heavy to bear.
9
---