A deep chorus of voices repeated that line to Zane inside his head, as he struggled to stare at the message before his eyes.
His vision was blurry, his skull hurt. A mixture of red and black energy emitted from his half-naked figure, deep and ominous. The chains around his joints tightened, and seared into his skin.
"… Gah…!"
Involuntarily letting out a scream, Zane tried to break free, but to no avail. Needless to say, it felt terrible.
The System messages had not lied—his body was shifting. To what, he did not know, but all he could say for sure is that this new physique was going to make him even stronger than before.
'If the price for that is just a little pain… then there's nothing to be scared of!'
Gritting his teeth, he attempted to forcibly suppress the inner pain and turmoil, but that only served to make it worse. Still, he endured through the blistering pain, as the flaming chains coiled around the rest of his body.
"Agh…!"
A burst of red energy shot out of the magic circle beneath where Zane's body, and he struggled to look as the System messages in front of him shifted.
[Impurities — Cleansed.]
[Power — Bestowed.]
[Memories — ER#O%R?! CO$%RUP#T!3D]
"Ngh!"
Suddenly, the hologram shone red at the error message, and Zane was hit by a sudden sudden spike in pain. Then, the moment after, the System screen vanished along with the pain, along with any discomfort. It was like a machine turning off, quick and sudden.
"What the hell…"
Groaning, Zane slowly sat up, the chains nowhere to be seen. His body felt a lot stronger than prior to the transformation, just as expected, despite his muscles not physically growing by all that much. When he attempted to open his System to see the stat changes, however, he was first greeted by a different message.
[Devour — Tier Up!]
[I -> II]
[Devoured skill capacity increased from 5 to 6 (does not affect innate skills).]
"Heh… so this is how I tier up the [Devour] skill?" Zane wondered aloud, smiling wryly to himself. "Well, it doesn't matter, I suppose. Even if I have to suffer this kind of pain to achieve it every time, compared to what I've done, this is nothing."
That's right. Nothing could ever surpass the amount of pain he felt when he murdered his own friend. The fact that Leo himself had asked him to do it made things even worse, contrary to what one might expect.
Turning around, Zane expected to see the fountain still there, but to his surprise, all the liquid had been drained. The fountain had changed shape into what looked like an incubator, with a funnel at the top. Of course, being ancient, the apparatus did not function using electricity, and instead had what seemed like a red mana barrier surrounding the beautiful, large egg that it held within.
'… Huh.'
Zane had originally been planning on drinking more vampire blood to see if he could further evolve his [Devour] skill, but looks like that would have to wait until another day. That left the question, though… why was there a fountain with vampire blood down here? Who put it in these catacombs? It was too convenient to be a coincidence.
'Is… there someone watching my progress?' Zane thought, subconsciously glancing up at the ceiling. Of course, he found no one there, and decided to simply stop thinking about it for the time being. Instead, he walked closer towards the incubator until he was right in front of it, and bent down slightly to inspect the egg.
It was exquisite.
Elegant, cloud-like curves of red covered the surface of the shell, complimented by marvelous white highlights yet shrouded in darkness. Its pattern looked like the vast sky of a Van Gogh painting, filled with aesthetic spirals and beautiful light colors.
Instantly, Zane was drew in. The mana barrier around the egg seemed to be linked to the funnel above it somehow, which would mean something was supposed to be dropped in to unlock it.
'Hm…'
After thinking for a moment, Zane pulled out one of his daggers, and made a tiny slit in his fingertips. With his vampiric regeneration abilities, an injury as small as that would heal almost immediately, but that was fine. All he wanted to try was one drop.
This contraption had originally been a fountain of blood. Now that it had changed shape, it made sense that it would still have something to do with blood. Zane didn't know if his guess would be on the mark or not, but seeing as how he had no other good leads, he decided it was worth a shot.
Letting a single drop of blood flow out of the wound on his finger and fall into the funnel above the incubator, Zane watched in anticipation as the red mana barrier slowly dissipated.
He smiled. It had worked—but perhaps a little too well, as a crack suddenly emerged in the egg's shell.
Now, all that's left was to wait.
Cautiously, Zane backed up, in case whatever came out of there wasn't going to be friendly. But despite the carefulness he had in his mind, he was also somewhat curious to see what kind of mythical creature would be inside that strange egg.
Suddenly, a tiny hand emerged from the crack—white and angelic, with five scarlet talons that looked not fully developed yet. Its movements were slow, hesitant—like it was scared of getting out of that shell, but knew it had to eventually.
Then came the other hand, on the other side. And lastly—the top of the shell was popped off, and out emerged the creature's head, small and adorable. At last, Zane could tell what the creature was—but even after seeing it with his own very eyes, he found it hard to believe.
"This is… a Dragon?"
There was no doubt about it. Fine, majestic white scales, paired with two blood-red horns and eyes that shone like rubies. Its two small wings, crimson with white highlights, flapped gently by its two sides, and after innocently exploring its new environment for a bit, its gaze centered on Zane.
The two stared at one another for a moment, each blinking several times. Zane slowly approached it, ready to back away the instant it tried to spit fire at him or anything of the sort, but even as he got right in front of the little beast, it showed no hostile intentions. Instead, when Zane brought his hand up to the eggshell, the tiny Dragon hopped into it like home, and snuggled up close.
"…"
Zane, glancing down at this mythical creature, was fascinated. He'd heard before that the first thing an animal saw when it hatched would be recognized as its parent, but Dragons were hardly normal animals. These things were legendary beasts spoken of only in myths and tales of old, divine because they were perfect, perfect because they were divine.
"… Well. I don't see an adult Dragon nearby, so I guess you're mine now," Zane said with a wry smile, playfully tickling the beast's stomach as it laughed and gently sprawled its arms and legs.
"Heh… you like that, huh?"
In response, the dragon roared a bit, as if cheering in agreement, and Zane continued.
"But… if you're going to be staying with me from now on, then you'll need a name. Let's see…"
After thinking for a moment, Zane continued.
"… How about Scarlet? Your wings and horns are both red. It's a pretty simple name, but… sometimes simple is nice. What do you think?"
He nudged the Dragon's tummy a bit, and in reply, it giggled happily. Looks like it liked the name.
"Good. Scarlet it is."
Saying that, Zane patted Scarlet's little head, which the Dragon seemed to enjoy. In his mind, however, he was worrying. Having a mythical beast as a pet was going to be extremely helpful down the line, but there was a slight problem—where was he going to procure food for this thing?
As a Dragon, it must eat a lot, even though it was a baby at this point. Zane had gotten by thus far since [Devour] cleansed all debuffs on his body, hunger included, but there really was no edible food in this place apart from the rotting corpses of his former party members, most of which were inside that basement chamber inhabited by—most likely—the final boss of this Dungeon.
Upon inspecting Scarlet using his System, however, Zane understood, as his eyes widened in realization.
[Scarlet, Vampire Dragon (+)]
[Type: Beast]
[Level: 10]
[Class: ???]
"Huh… I see now."
No wonder that egg had looked so exquisite. No wonder this little creature's talons, wings, horns, and eyes were all glistening red. No wonder the mechanism had reacted to Zane's blood, and no wonder his special, vampire blood was able to directly crack the egg.
This Dragon was a vampire—a being that only needed blood to survive, and to which normal food was nothing but a delicacy.
But if that's the case, then…
"… Come now. It's feeding time."