Three months later
The library was a tomb of silence, save for the frantic scratching of quill on parchment and the rhythmic, heavy breathing of a woman nearing her breaking point. Cerci sat amidst towers of crumbling, ancient lore, her eyes bloodshot. Every page regarding draconic physiology—the scales, the horns, the mana-siphoning biology—only served to deepen the mystery.
Kyle was not a dragon. He was an anomaly.
She had spent three months acting as both mother and containment unit. Every time she infused her own essence into his, feeling the voracious hunger of his core, she felt the terrifying reality of his potential. He didn't eat; he consumed the world's mana. When she looked at his shifting, receding horns, she didn't see a child growing—she saw a predator adapting to a world that wasn't built to sustain it.
Six years later, the forest served as a crucible.
Kyle moved with a fluidity that was unnerving, his young frame a blurred synthesis of Cerci's surgical tutelage and an instinctual, latent violence that predated his memory.
His growth outstanding in all aspects. In the span of six years, Kyle achieved what grown men struggled to do.
He grinned, wiping the blood off his white garment with the owner's corpse and now ascending to a 4th circle mage.
Not about to give up until he has solidified his 4th core, Kyle dashed deep into the woods.
Was it pride or what that caused Kyle to be in this mess as he locked eyes with a penthria, he stumbled upon mistakenly.
Letting out a sigh, he steeled his mind. 'There's no use wallowing in my luck'.
A penthria known for its speed and the power beam of mana it shot out with it's tail, was terrifying in every way to a 4th circle mage. But unlucky for it, the penthria had encounter an anomaly it would leave to regret facing off against if it survives this encounter.
The Penthria stared at Kyle, turning into a nightmare of claws and shadow, its mana-infused strikes tearing through the humid air. When it vanished, moving at a speed that would have gutted a lesser mage.
Kyle didn't think; he reacted. He sidestepped, the beast's claws grazing his side. The skin tore, crimson arterial spray painting the bark, but before a second drop could hit the ground, the wound hissed, knit, and sealed.
He hit the branch, the wood groaning under his sudden shift in momentum. In a heartbeat, he manifested a bow of compressed wind—a feat of control that mocked the laws of natural physics —and unleashed a shaft of solidified gale.
The Penthria roared, its tail sparking with volatile energy. Kyle didn't give it room to breathe. He dove, his mana shifting instantly from the razor-sharp tension of the bow to the brittle, lethal cold of an ice blade. The impact sent a shockwave through the canopy, shattering leaves into confetti.
The beast was fast, but Kyle was a student of the Great Sage. He used the terrain like a chess master, conjuring slabs of earth to dictate the flow of the battle. Fire erupted, mist obscured, and stone pulverized. When he finally forced the Penthria down, his own hand was a ruin of fractured bone and torn muscle.
He didn't flinch. He didn't cry out. He simply clad the mangled mess in an earth gauntlet, his eyes—golden and cold—locking onto the beast.
"What's wrong?" Kyle's voice was steady, utterly devoid of the empathy of a child. "You've given up?"
The beast, wounded and desperate, sneered through a maw of blood. It sensed the anomaly in the boy, the terrifying lack of hesitation. It turned, retreating into the deepening gloom of the woods. It didn't flee to survive; it fled to lead.
Kyle followed, his boots silent on the forest floor, crossing the invisible, humming threshold where the human realm ended and the Demon Realm—a place of jagged spires and suffocating malice—began.
He didn't look back at the safety of the cottage. He simply followed the scent of blood, deeper into the trap.