I floated, suspended in the void, with no sense of direction or time. The darkness around me wasn't like anything I'd experienced in the waking world—it was an abyss so profound that it felt like it could swallow my very essence.
There was no ground beneath me, no sky above. Just an infinite blackness, pressing in from all sides. Yet, amidst the black, there were flashes of color, strange shapes and forms that defied logic, shifting in and out of existence as if they were teasing my mind with glimpses of something far beyond my comprehension.
This was Aragorn, the system whispered into the recesses of my mind, or at least it tried to.
The name barely registered before it was garbled into unintelligible symbols, the system struggling to communicate in this dimension.
Aragorn, a realm where dragons and higher beings lived, a place so far removed from my own existence that even being here felt wrong.
My consciousness drifted through this space, but it was like trying to swim in oil—thick, viscous, and impossible to escape from.
My mind felt sluggish, like it was being stretched thin over an incomprehensible landscape.
I tried to focus on the information the system was feeding me, but it was all jumbled, encrypted in a language I had never seen before. Red letters would appear, disintegrate, and reform, glitching violently as if the system was being forced to display information that didn't belong here.
In the rare moments when the messages were clear, they were brief and almost nonsensical.
[ENTERED UPPER DIMENSION: ARAGORN]
[ERROR: CANNOT PROCESS]
The Aragorn was beyond anything I had ever known.
The sky—or what I thought was the sky—was a swirling mass of colors that I had no name for. They were vivid and yet muted at the same time, constantly shifting as if alive.
Beneath me, the ground wasn't solid but rather a dense fog, swirling with energies that I couldn't begin to understand.
Shapes moved within that fog—huge, monstrous things that I could barely glimpse before they vanished into the mist again. They exuded an aura of power, the kind that made even my newly gained status seem insignificant.
I couldn't comprehend it.
My mind, still clinging to the logic of a lower dimension, refused to make sense of what I was seeing. It was like trying to read a book in a language I didn't know, while the letters constantly changed before my eyes.
The system was no help, glitching and struggling, showing me half-formed messages that disintegrated before I could grasp their meaning.
For a moment—a terrifyingly long moment—I forgot who I was.
My name, my past, my very existence seemed to fade into the background, lost in the overwhelming strangeness of this place.
I felt like a dead soul, drifting aimlessly, waiting for reincarnation or oblivion. The memories of my life were distant, like echoes in a vast, empty space.
But the system breached through the Aragorn. It pushed through the glitches, through the distortions, and finally, it managed to show me something clear.
[DRAGON HEART ASSIMILATION COMPLETE]
['KALTES HERZ VESPERTINE' HAS BEEN CONVERTED INTO A DRAGON]
The words slammed into me with the force of a tidal wave, and suddenly, everything came rushing back.
Memories, thoughts, feelings—everything that made me who I was flooded into my mind, overwhelming me.
I screamed, or at least I tried to, but there was no sound in this place.
The agony of all those voices, all those memories crashing into me at once was unbearable. I felt like I was being torn apart, each piece of my consciousness fighting to reassert itself in a mind that was already cracking under the strain.
And then, as abruptly as it had begun, it was over. The void, the chaos, the incomprehensible shapes—all of it vanished, leaving me gasping for air.
I sat up with a start, the scream still caught in my throat as I found myself back in a bed. The stone walls, the cold air—it was Maria House, no doubt about it.
My breath came in ragged, huffing gasps as I tried to make sense of where I was, what had just happened.
A quick glance around the room confirmed it. I was in a stone chamber, one of the more isolated rooms of the house, far from the prying eyes of servants or nosy nobles.
The large window beside the bed was a stark contrast to the usual small, grimy ones that Maria House was so fond of.
Outside, the first light of dawn was just beginning to break over the horizon, painting the sky in shades of orange and pink.
My heart pounded in my chest, each beat sending a wave of pain through my body.
I leaned over the side of the bed and promptly threw up, blood splattering onto the cold stone floor. The taste was vile and metallic.
Ting!
[DRAGON HEART IS ADJUSTING TO THE OVERWORLD MANA]
[YOU MIGHT FEEL SOME DISCOMFORT THROUGH THE PROCESS]
"Discomfort," I muttered bitterly, wiping my mouth with the back of my hand. "That's one way to put it."
[STATUS WINDOW]
[NAME: KALTES HERZ VESPERTINE]
[AGE: 5]
[TRAIT: PSYCHOPATH (NEGATIVE)]
[TITLE: THE ONE WHOSE NAME IS 'COLD-HEART', OMNISCIENT DRAGON]
[SPEED: 198 (TRANSCENDENT)]
[STRENGTH: 200 (TRANSCENDENT)]
[INTELLIGENCE: 500 (TRANSCENDENT)]
[CHARM: 230 (TRANSCENDENT)]
[MANA: 10,000 MP (TRANSCENDENT)]
[POTENTIAL: ERROR]
[SKILL POINTS: 0 (CAN BE USED TO INCREASE STATS)]
[SKILLS]
[COLLECTOR OF NAMES (LEVEL:2)]
[WILL TAKER (LEVEL:2)]
[WORLD EYES (COMPLETE)]
[HIMMEL'S GUARDIAN (LEVEL:2)]
Transcendent.
Every stat, every measure of my abilities had been pushed to transcendent.
And then there was the title 'Omniscient Dragon.'
So it was true. I had been changed into a dragon, a being of myth and legend, of power so immense that it could reshape the very world.
The system, for all its glitches and errors, had made one thing very clear: I was no longer just Kaltes Herz Vespertine.
I looked out the window again, my thoughts a chaotic mix of disbelief and amusement.
The world outside looked the same, but I knew it wasn't.
Everything had changed.
The title, the stats, even the skill 'World Eyes' had completed itself.
And then I glanced down at the chair beside my bed, where Licht was curled up, fast asleep.
The boy's hair was a tangled mess, his face streaked with dried tears. He looked completely oblivious to the fact that he was sleeping beside a dragon. A small part of me found it hilarious.
He remains the same.
I nudged him lightly with my foot, and he stirred, rubbing his eyes as he woke up.
His gaze was bleary at first, but the moment he saw me, those wide, teary eyes of his filled up again. Without warning, he burst into sobs, big, round tears rolling down his cheeks as he tried to speak. Between the hiccups and sniffling, I could barely make out what he was saying, but it didn't take much to figure it out. He was crying out of relief—relief that I was awake, that I had survived.
How burdening.
"Kaltes!" Licht wailed, practically throwing himself onto the bed to hug me. "You're alive! I was so scared! I thought you—"
"—would die?" I finished for him. "Apparently, I'm not dead."
Licht sniffled and nodded, his sobs finally starting to quiet down.
"I'm so happy you're awake," he mumbled, his voice thick with emotion.
"Yes, now get off me before you smother me to death."
He pulled away reluctantly, rubbing his eyes with the back of his hand.
"Sorry... I just... I was so worried."
"You've made that abundantly clear," I replied, unable to keep the sarcasm out of my voice. "Now, if you're done crying all over me, why don't you go and tell the others that I'm awake?"
Licht nodded eagerly, his mood lifting almost immediately.
He jumped up from the chair and bolted out of the room, practically bouncing with joy as he ran down the halls, shouting for anyone who would listen.
I could hear his excited voice echoing through the corridors, spreading the news that Kaltes Herz Vespertine had finally woken up.
I took a deep breath, trying to steady myself. The pain was still there, a dull, throbbing ache in my chest, but it was bearable.
The agony I had felt when I first woke up was something beyond anything I had ever experienced. But it was also a sign—a sign that I had survived something that no human should have been able to. I had been turned into a dragon.
Before I could get too lost in thought, the door to my room swung open, and a group of people came rushing in.
Duke Einar was at the front, followed closely by a few of his trusted knights and servants. They all looked relieved, though some tried to hide it behind stern expressions.
"Kaltes," Duke Einar said, his voice gruff but warm. "You gave us quite a scare."
"I gave myself quite a scare."
He frowned, clearly not amused by my attempt at humor.
"You were unconscious for six months, Kaltes."
Six months.
The words hit me like a ton of bricks.
I had been out cold for half a year, lying in this bed, teetering on the edge of life and death. And yet, here I was, awake and alive, somehow stronger than ever.
I noticed Himmel standing awkwardly by the door, her eyes fixed on the floor as if she didn't dare to look at me.
I ignored her, as I always did.
Whatever guilt or shame she might be feeling wasn't my concern.
But there was one person missing.
"Where's the Crown Prince?" I asked though I could see the slight tension in Duke Einar's posture.
He hesitated for a moment before answering.
"The crown prince was sent back to Scadrial."
"And why is that?"
"There was an... assassination attempt," Duke Einar said carefully. "The poison was meant for the crown prince but because you ate the steak, you fell victim to it."
So that's how it turned out.
The assassination attempt, the poison, the fact that I had eaten the steak meant for Arthur—it all made perfect sense. I was never the intended target. But because I had taken the fall, Arthur had been sent back to Scadrial, presumably for his own safety.
I must Arthur got away with very nicely.
Duke Einar continued, his voice low and somber.
"The poison is called 'Dragon Slayer'. No human has ever survived Dragon Slayer. It's a poison made from the blood of slain dragons, designed to kill even the most resilient beings. The fact that you survived is... nothing short of a miracle."
"A miracle," I repeated.
The duke didn't reply, but his expression told me that he was puzzled.
"As your condition was so unstable, we couldn't risk sending you back to Vespertine," Duke Einar explained. "So we kept you here, at Maria House, where we could monitor your recovery."
"Your father gave his approval!" Licht shouted, concerned.
"He sent letters asking about you." The duke added.
I nodded absently. I never expected much from Ranke anyway.
As the others continued to ask me questions, their voices fading into the background, I found myself staring out the window again, my thoughts racing. The sun was rising higher in the sky, casting long shadows across the landscape.
The world outside looked so peaceful, so ordinary.
I was a dragon now.
For better or for worse, only time could tell.