The silence within the Gilded Palace was heavy, saturated with a Qi that felt older than the stars themselves. Rayn stood amidst the mountain of gold, his new Tier 8 Obsidian Body radiating a cold, oppressive aura. Within the recesses of his mind, memories that were not his own began to churn—shards of a ceremony from his awakening, where the Red Dragon of the First Bound had whispered titles of legend.
"The Fifth Bound... Vespera..." Rayn's thoughts raced. This wasn't just a dragon; she was a piece of the Heaven's Divine Rebellion, a name that sounded like a war cry against the heavens themselves.
Rayn looked at the woman before him. Despite her beauty, she was a primordial predator. However, Rayn knew that in the world of cultivators and monsters, showing a single shred of hesitation was an invitation to death. If he wanted to command the "Bound," he could not act like a child. He had to act like a Sovereign.
With a step that cracked the golden tiles beneath his boots, Rayn closed the distance. He reached out, his fingers—now reinforced with the hardness of black jade—hooking under Vespera's chin. He tilted her head up, forcing her molten-gold eyes to meet his gaze. His face was mere inches from hers, his breath smelling of the iron-rich water he had just drunk.
"Hello, Lady," Rayn said, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous register. "You call me Master. But do you truly know who I am? Or are you merely bowing to a ghost?"
Vespera's breath hitched. A faint, unbidden blush crept up her pale neck, clashing with the dark, lethal energy she radiated. She didn't pull away immediately; instead, she seemed to be searching his soul. Then, with a graceful motion, she stepped back, slipping out of his grip like smoke.
"I know who you are," she replied, her voice regaining its icy composure. "Master's face has changed. Your bones are different, and your height has increased. But your Origin Core... the vibration of your soul... and the Will of my Brother that lives in your blood... those things are unmistakable. You are you."
Rayn exhaled, a small, mocking smile playing on his lips. "Then tell me. What is my name?"
Vespera tilted her head, looking genuinely perplexed. "Your name is Master."
Rayn sighed, rubbing the bridge of his nose. The weight of his Tier 8 cultivation felt heavy for a moment. "No. 'Master' is a title of respect, a sign of acknowledgment for someone you serve or follow. It is not a name. I am asking for my identity."
The dragon woman frowned, her golden eyes flashing with a mix of confusion and ancient innocence. "When the First Master brought me here, I was but a hatchling. I only ever heard my brothers call you 'Master.' In our tongue, the name and the title are the same. To me, you have always been Master."
Rayn's heart skipped a beat at the phrase 'First Master.' "How long have you been in this cage, Vespera?"
"The seal was placed three hundred billion years ago," she said, her voice devoid of emotion, as if the passage of eons was nothing but a flickering candle.
Rayn's eyes widened. "Three hundred billion? Alone? In the dark?"
"My brothers were sealed in other corners of the multiverse," Vespera explained, her gaze drifting to the black pillars of the palace. "We were scattered like seeds in the wind, hidden away from the 'Great Erasure.' I was the youngest, only two hundred years old when the Master brought me here."
Rayn let out a sharp, mocking laugh. "Two hundred years old? In human terms, a person is born, lives three full lifetimes, and returns to the dust by then. And you call that 'small'?"
"Humans are like mayflies to a Supreme Dragon," Vespera countered, her face turning cold. "A human reaches a century and calls it a long life. To us, a century is a single breath. We take thousands of years just to reach our youth. When the Master placed me here, he looked at me with eyes full of a sorrow I did not understand. He told me, 'Wait here. I will come back and unseal you when the heavens are silent.' I have waited. And now, you have come."
Rayn's mind spun with the scale of it. "Why? Why seal the most powerful creatures in existence? Who was your Master trying to protect you from?"
Vespera's face suddenly shifted. The blushing girl disappeared, replaced by the Obsidian Sovereign. She moved with a speed that bypassed the laws of space, appearing inches from Rayn's throat. Her claws, sharp enough to cleave dimensions, hovered a hair's breadth from his carotid artery.
SHIIIII—
The Red Dragon Mark on Rayn's hand erupted with a blinding, protective light. An ethereal red claw manifested from Rayn's skin, catching Vespera's hand and holding it firmly in mid-air. The two powers—Red and Black—grinded against each other, creating a vortex of sparks.
"See?" Vespera whispered, her eyes glowing with a terrifying intensity. "My brother's Will protects you. He left two percent of his soul inside you because he knew. He knew that the 'Thing' is coming back. Something that feeds on universes. Something that wants to wipe out every dragon species until the word 'Dragon' is forgotten by time."
Rayn's blood ran cold. "And you think I am the one meant to stop it? A Tier 8 brat from a fallen kingdom?"
"My brother does not gamble with his soul, Rayn," she said, finally using his name, though it felt strange on her tongue. "He chose you because you are the anomaly. This teleportation... your arrival here... it wasn't luck. It was his final calculation."
Rayn looked down at the Black Ring on his finger. It felt heavier now, as if it were part of his own flesh. "And this? What is this treasury? This ring?"
"The Master killed twenty crore (200 million) warriors of the Outer Realms in a single day to claim the materials for this palace," Vespera said, her voice filled with pride. "He stood on a mountain of corpses that reached the clouds, yet he did not have a single scar. The gold you see is refined Solar-Steel, and the ring..."
She paused, her eyes softening. "The ring is a part of me. When I was young, I tore a fragment of my own dragon-flesh and infused it with my Void-Essence. I wanted to give it to the Master as a parting gift, but he told me to keep it until the 'Right One' arrived. By wearing it, you have already accepted my life-force."
Rayn felt a strange surge of emotion—a mix of burden and destiny. He didn't have time to process the weight of 200 million deaths or a dragon's flesh-gift. He needed to leave.
"How do we break out of this mountain?" Rayn asked. "The seal is too strong for my current Tier."
"The bond," Vespera replied. "If the Master and the Servant become one, the seal will recognize you as the owner of the tomb. But the process... it will not be kind to your human meridians."
They sat opposite each other on the golden mosaic floor. Vespera instructed Rayn on how to channel his essence. The air between them began to hum as Rayn gathered his Qi.
"On the count of three," Vespera commanded. "Exchange the Heart-Essence."
Rayn focused. He pulled a drop of his Sovereign Essence—the pure, refined energy of his Tier 8 core—and projected it toward Vespera. At the same time, Vespera released a needle-thin strand of Primordial Black Void-Qi.
When Rayn's essence hit Vespera's core, she didn't flinch. She absorbed it with the ease of an ocean swallowing a raindrop.
But when Vespera's essence entered Rayn's middle core (the Dantian)...
"ARGHHHHHHHH!"
Rayn's scream tore through the palace, shattering the obsidian mirrors. It felt as if a black hole had been planted inside his chest. The Void-Qi began to devour his other 18 powers, trying to "cleanse" them to make room for the Dragon's Will. His veins turned black, standing out against his skin like a map of a cursed world. For thirty minutes, Rayn hovered between life and death, his Obsidian Body cracking and reforming as it struggled to contain the power of a Supreme Dragon.
Finally, the pain subsided. A blinding black light enveloped them both. On their right hands, a new mark manifested.
Rayn looked at his hand. The Red Dragon Mark had changed. It was now perfectly split—50% a vibrant, fiery crimson, and 50% a deep, abyssal black. The two powers swirled around each other like a Yin-Yang symbol, finally reaching a precarious balance.
Rayn tried to stand, but his energy felt stagnant. He tried to use his King DD Footwork essence, but the marks remained dim. He tried his other 18 powers, but the seal on the cave didn't budge.
"It's not enough," Vespera whispered, her brow furrowed. "The seal requires a catalyst of 'Duality'—something that is both life and death, light and dark."
Rayn's mind flashed to his secret cultivation. He looked deep into his core and saw the tiny, swirling mix of Black and White essence—the primordial power he had discovered but never dared to use.
"If this kills me, at least I'll die in a pile of gold," Rayn thought grimly.
He reached into the deepest part of his soul and pulled out a single, microscopic drop of the Black and White Duality Essence. He poured it directly onto the split Red-Black mark on his hand.
BOOM!
The palace didn't just shake; it began to dissolve. A pillar of monochromatic light erupted from Rayn, slamming into Vespera. Her human form was lifted into the air, her black dress tearing away as her draconic wings erupted from her back—not as physical scales, but as wings of pure, shimmering void-energy. Her eyes turned into twin suns of golden fire, fiercer and more terrifying than ever before.
"The power..." Vespera gasped, her voice echoing with the resonance of a thousand dragons. "You really are... the Master of the Rebellion!"
She dove down, grabbing Rayn in her massive, shadow-clawed hands just as the mountain above them disintegrated. In an instant, they were no longer in the cave. They were thousands of feet in the air, soaring above a landscape that looked like a painting of the primordial world.
Rayn looked down at the disappearing mountain, then up at the dragon carrying him. One last question burned in his mind.
"Vespera," Rayn shouted over the roar of the wind. "The First Master... the one who killed 20 crore people to build that tomb... who was he trying to protect you from? Who is the enemy of the dragons?"
Vespera turned her massive head, her golden eyes reflecting a fear that spanned three hundred billion years.
"I don't know his name, Rayn," she whispered, her voice echoing in his mind. "But I know what he leaves behind. He is the one who hunts the 'Bound.' And now that the seal is broken... he knows you are here."