Inside the cave, three hours had passed.
Then—
A powerful light exploded outward.
It was not simply mana. It was balance itself.
The energy spread across the world like a pulse, drawing in the surrounding mana of the planet as if reality itself had acknowledged two new existences. The air trembled. Oceans shook. The sky distorted.
A consciousness was being born.
All because of them.
Kai's bloodline… and the bloodline of General Draven's daughter…
had awakened.
All that remained now was evolution.
Advancement.
The creation of something the world had never seen before.
But far away, buried beneath frozen ruins and endless darkness…
the Vampire Lord began to move.
Cracks spread across the ice imprisoning him.
His eyes slowly opened.
Around him stood the vampires he had personally turned—his most loyal servants. They had failed their mission. Ashley's mother still lived. Worse…
General Draven had survived.
The giant bloodline flowing through his body had displayed terrifying power during the battle, forcing even the vampires to retreat.
Now Draven was racing toward the source of the energy signature.
Toward his daughter.
Toward Kai.
By then, New York had already become an ice age.
No…
the entire continent had frozen.
Cities disappeared beneath endless snow. The sea itself had hardened into ice.
Yet strangely, the frost stopped there. Other countries remained untouched, as though the world itself had drawn a boundary.
Then—
for a single moment—
time stopped.
Not metaphorically.
Stopped.
The world froze as reality registered the existence of two beings born only thirty minutes ago.
But something was wrong.
The air was filled with rage.
Violent rage.
Inside the cave, Kai's eyes trembled with fury.
He could no longer sense Ashley.
His aura exploded uncontrollably.
"I can't feel her anymore…"
The cave shook.
"And this awakening is sealing me inside an egg…?"
Blood-colored energy wrapped around him like a living storm. His body began breaking apart and reconstructing at the same time.
A cocoon formed around him.
It pulsed with terrifying power.
Then slowly…
it hardened.
Black.
Cold.
Unbreakable.
An amniotic egg.
Just as the System had classified him—
A baby dragon.
Inside the cocoon, Kai finally lost consciousness.
Not far away, the Ice Fox Empress stared at the black egg in shock.
Even she could feel the monstrous life sleeping within it.
But she had no time to stay.
Her father had arrived.
Using massive wings of ice, she rose into the sky, carrying herself toward Africa. Beside her, her father walked through the air itself using the high-level skill:
Air Walk.
And behind them…
the frozen continent remained silent.
As if waiting for the dragon inside the black egg to awaken.