–Ding!
{Status report:
Host stable…
2 minutes before full digestion.
Entity identified: Tier 5 Experimental Chimera - Wyvern × Wendigo - Affinity: Devour
Last message to Host: Though our time together was short. It was... fun. Farewell.}
The wyvern's head swung as the System's voice echoed through its skull.
It moved through the corridor of shattered trees it had created earlier, wings folded and trembling faintly.
Its pupils constricted to slits as it scanned the ruined clearing, but nothing around it explained the impossible voice echoing inside its thoughts.
The wyvern hissed sharply while steam gushed out from its nostrils.
And then-
–ROOOOAAAAAR!
Its roar tore through the forest, the resulting shockwave punching a ring of sonic crack.
And the forest answered in the only way it could: by going even quieter.
But the voice inside its mind did not stop.
–Ding!
{Digestion has begun.
Host destabilizing.
Infinity leaking…
INFINITY LEAKING!?!
Initializing containment protocols…
…
Containment failed!
Infinity is affecting Chimera's bloodline.}
The wyvern froze mid-step.
Then its body lurched as a violent tremor ran down its spine, and the muscles beneath its scales contracted like something alive was crawling under them.
The skin along its ribs began to bulge, first a twitch, then a swell, then a grotesque, pulsating pressure pushing outward as though new bones were twisting into existence.
There were no forelimbs on a wyvern.
But something inside it was trying to change that.
Heat poured off its body in thick waves while the air rippling so violently it looked like the entire forest was bending away from the creature.
The wyvern roared again, but the sound it let out was less a cry and more a distorted, tearing shriek, as if its voice was being pulled apart from the inside while the light between its scales intensified, leaking out in frantic pulses...
White at first, then gold. And the forest reacted instantly.
Surviving trees blackened while leaves atop them curled before disintegrating into drifting ash.
Soil liquefied into molten glass beneath the creature's feet.
Then the heat crescendoed.
And a sphere of blinding white swallowed the creature whole, expanding outward like a newborn star bursting into existence with heat wafting out hot enough to leave the shadows of the trees burned onto the ground like afterimages.
–Ding!
{Chimera evolving…
Evolution reached: Dragon.}
The ground buckled under the pressure as a sound like distant thunder rolled across the forest while the sphere continued to balloon, eating the world around it with every inch it grew.
–Ding!
{Chimera evolving further…
Evolution reached: Greater Dragon.
Further evolution imminent…
Complete Infinity assimilation imminent.
Overriding inhibitor: Morals.
Forcing bond type: Familiar.
Bonding…
Bond successful.
Host's assimilation halted.
Infinity reverting.
Situation stabilized. For now.
Initiating Chimera Containment…
Overriding inhibitor: Root.
Accessing Infinity…
Accessing Time
Erecting temporal barrier…
Successful.}
And the next moment reality cracked.
Fractures appeared in the air surrounding the blazing sphere as though a stone shattered the glass that was reality.
And a beat later, the fractures onto reality spread, each reflecting distorted versions of the burning forest.
Those cracks expanded outward in a perfect sphere, encasing the dragon's evolution in a shell of fractured space-time.
The barrier didn't contain the explosion; it exiled it from reality itself.
And just as the blistering sphere inside reached critical mass-
-BOOOOOOOOOOM-!
Within the barrier, a sun had detonated.
The shockwave slammed against the barrier so hard the fractures vibrated.
While the forest outside remained as though it didn't come this close to disintegrating.
And a few pulsing beats later, the white-hot star inside the temporal barrier began to shrink, pulling its furious glow inward like a dying sun exhaling its final breath.
Heat dropped from apocalyptic to merely unbearable.
And the shape inside began to surface.
At first, it was just a silhouette, a vast, hunched silhouette breathing in ragged tremors that made the ground beneath shiver.
Then, as the light peeled away from it fully, the forest finally saw what had been born inside that spatial sphere.
A Greater Dragon.
A true, colossal dragon, with a body stretching nearly a hundred meters from the horned crown to its tail.
Every inch of it was covered in deep black scales stained with a shifting, bruised violet sheen like galaxies trapped within obsidian.
Four wings unfurled behind it, each one large enough to blot out the sun if it chose.
The membrane webbing of its wings glowed faintly with purple lightning as veins of energy crackled like trapped storms.
Its each exhale shook the burnt clearing.
Then its massive throat convulsed once, twice… then with a wet, guttural sound, the dragon vomited.
A figure spilled out of its maw, wrapped in a tattered blue cloak as he tumbled downward, only for the cloak to flare open by itself, its enchantment catching the fall before the unconscious young man gently settled into one of the dragon's enormous hands.
Nico lay there unmoving. Pale, but still breathing.
The dragon looked down at him.
And for a moment, the world seemed to forget sound entirely. Even the smoke drifted more slowly, as though afraid.
Those monstrous reptilian pupils dilated, confused… recognizing.
And then…
Its massive maw opened, and from that cavernous throat came a word spoken like rolling thunder.
"Ma… ster…?"