Halfway to the lab, the power went out again. Azotreh looked up as the voice of Nicholas whispered to Azotreh. System prompts filled their vision before the lights re-engaged, and they fizzled out again.
Apparently, the books in their Records of Existence ability granted small bonuses to different potens based on the content and length. Nicholas, armed with the collection of prompts and notifications, began to work at figuring out what determined different boosts.
The guards two looked to Azotreh, wondering if the child had managed something again. But Azotreh shrugged in response. This simple response, rather than screaming in pain on the floor, enforced that it wasn't Azotreh's fault.
The entire facility crackled with a voice, the voice of Commander, the only other gold ranked human on site. While Doctor conducted the experiments, Commander maintained the facility and kept the experiments locked inside.
"Some experiment has damaged the array in the deep western section. This is a notice to all guards, experiments, and guests. Do not enter the western side of the facility. Two patrol teams have already reported the appearance of an augmented superboss-class monster. The situation is under control."
Commander's voice crackled out as the speakers returned to their silence. Azotreh and their accompanying guards began to move again. Site-wide notices were rare and always required absolute attention. Azotreh looked at one of the guards with wide eyes. Even if speaking to them was frowned upon, Azotreh knew they could get away with it a couple of times.
"Superboss monster?" Azotreh asked, having only heard of the common five types of monster. One of the guards looked at them and spoke quietly.
"If a boss-class monster accumulates enough arcanum, it can advance to superboss, or category-5. They're very dangerous to most entities of their rank, but the facility wouldn't keep gold rank or higher monsters, right?" The guard actually sounded a little nervous as he turned to his fellow. She scoffed.
"The only experiment at gold rank is the thing on the bottom floor. The monster is likely emerald or lead rank. It won't take much to kill it." She said with utter certainty. Azotreh shuddered at her casual words. To speak of monsters one or two tiers above Azotreh so casually was horrifying to the child.
Luckily, they didn't have to stay with the guards for much longer. Unfortunately, they left Azotreh in the care of Doctor once more. Strapped to a table by tiny metal bands and with a bar of silver to bite in their mouth, Azotreh stared up at the nightmarish scientist.
His voice box crackled back to life with the sound of shattering glass and a sword pulling from flesh, "AZ-087. You adjusted very well to the eye implant and have shown aptitude for greater testing. After the announcement just moments ago, I decided to move up my timetable. I have several other things prepared to augment you."
Doctor leaned in close and latched onto Azotreh's other eye. Wires extended from clawed fingers once more and wrapped around their eye. The wires reached into Azotreh's skull and began to heat up.
The agony was unbearable. Even having experienced something similar once before, Azotreh was not at all prepared for the heat and pain of having their optic nerves cauterized. They were forced to stay awake as the wires kept digging.
Even as Nicholas began to desperately try and whisper to Azotreh, to keep them awake, Azotreh felt themself fading all over again. They kept forcing themselves to remain awake. Fighting against their own innate response to pass out.
Azotreh began to glow with a faint golden light. Their skin lit up, and it seemed like their very soul was shining from their body. They fought and fought, after mere seconds that felt like decades. They felt something pushing against the outside of their soul from within, but incapable of breaking through.
It hurt, hurt like nothing should. It hurt so much that they once again felt that splitting pain in their chest. The power in the room flickered again, and system windows appeared before them before flickering out. But Azotreh couldn't see them. Their one good eye was blinded by bloody tears.
Eye of the Black Dragon kept activating in a desperate attempt to pierce the sanguine blindness, but couldn't manage it. It could only pierce darkness, not blood.
The real problems truly began once something else approached their face. Something hot and wet. Something that touched their face with something bloody and stringy. The second that this something touched their face, Azotreh felt their draconic eye begin to twitch.
As the thing got closer and closer, Azotreh's eye began to bleed even more than it did before. Earlier, it was the pain and some kind of spiritual pressure that forced their eyes, nose, and even their ears to bleed. But this new something was forcing their eye to bleed through its sheer presence. As if their eye instinctively wanted to escape the object being placed into their empty socket.
Something was poured over their gag. It was thick, and they felt themselves trying to gag it back up. But the gag suddenly turned hot and produced something Azotreh couldn't understand, but could sense. Then the fluid began to be pushed down their throat.
Like a spontaneous whirlpool, the fluid was pulled down their throat. They felt their mind clearing, the headache slowly vanishing without any trace. While the pain remained, it no longer felt like they were dying. They could struggle again.
Azotreh's aura flared, though it didn't do anything. Even with the draconic fury of their eye. And as their vision slowly returned, their dark eye watched the last bits of the object sink into Azotreh's empty socket.
The pain returned, but it felt lesser. Just a little, not even a hundredth less, but there was a slight lessening yet. But as the nerves fused into their charred optic nerves, Azotreh felt something pulse deep within the very core of their being. Both eyes burst simultaneously, turning to nothing but mush and blood. Even so, they felt the fluid's power once more echo throughout their body.
Doctor watched impassively as Azotreh's face shattered and repaired itself. The overranked potion was designed for this kind of procedure. While it would never work on someone like Doctor himself, a freshly ascended tin ranker like AZ-087 was perfect. Just enough magic to regenerate their body, but not high enough rank that potions of a greater tier weren't too expensive.
He noted the sheer capacity of AZ-087 for pain. Every time their eyes shattered, they grew back a little faster. Doctor watched AZ-087's body glow repeatedly in varied colors. Crimson, a deep orange, marigold, and a couple of other colors. He took a second note to once again confirm that while close to death, growth is massively accelerated.
As he continued to watch, he felt another flicker in the arrays built into his walls. Doctor sighed, this one was site-wide again. It seemed like saboteurs were within. Unlike AZ-087, DR-36, and a few other experiments that could push their souls past their limits and destabilize small sections of the array, these were across entire sections of the site. They were coordinated and far more powerful than any experiment.
He sighed. He needed to expend more resources to accelerate the timetable again. The cardinals would not be happy with him. He continued to watch as scars grew around Azotreh's eyes. The constant damage of the conflicting draconic energies left a permanent mark as their eyes finally stopped breaking each other in rage.
AZ-087 glowed one more time with a rainbow light, surrounding a deep crimson glow. He didn't know what that meant, since rainbow light was only for Omega-Grades and Supreme-Grades. Even then, the rainbows were always constructed of conceptual representations, not the true rainbow shining from AZ-087. He noted it as Azotreh passed out.
Azotreh awoke in their soul once more and stepped into the courtyard. The purple night sky above, illuminated by golden stars, was just as beautiful as the first time they saw it, but that wasn't what caught their eye. Azotreh instead immediately noticed the new building on the edge of the courtyard. It was kind of hazy, but slowly coming into focus.
While the library was between Nicholas' home and the obelisk, this new structure was like Azotreh's room, placed right on the fence. In addition, a new solid structure existed outside the fence. It looked awfully like the obsidian draconic statue, but made from shaped flames. It wrapped around a spire of bright blue fire, while the scorching dragon was made from orange-red flames. Between its curved horns sat a flaming eye, one that seemed to follow Azotreh.
Nicholas approached, excited and scared simultaneously.
"Azotreh, do you have any idea what that is?" He asked, pointing at the cave-like structure within the fence.
Azotreh had no idea, but looking at Nicholas, they knew he had some idea. An idea he didn't like. So Azotreh responded with a question, "No, Nicholas, do you?"
Nicholas sighed before speaking, "I have a theory. Considering the placement of your cabin and my apartment, I have a feeling that that cave is the residence of something like us. Whatever we are."
The pair watched the cave flickering and waited. Nicholas kept staring, but Azotreh got bored rather fast. Luckily, while outside the system was locked, within, they could access any notifications given during their bursts of access.
[Ability: Eye of the Black Dragon has reached level 4! Density of Poten: Perception has increased by 0.4%]
[Ability: Records of Existence has obtained several new records. You have gained 9 points in VIT, VTR, VIG, VGR, VIB, VBR, VAT, VTR, VEH, VHR, VIV, and VVR.]
[Congratulations! Your resource potens and regeneration potens have all reached G-Grade! Reach G-Grade in all potens to allow for further growth.]
[Due to your actions, you have gained Resistance: Pain and Resistance: Heat, both at 0.01%.]
[Due to the forceful implantation of organ: Eye of the Red Dragon, you have gained Ability: Eye of the Red Dragon.]
[Your Black Dragon Bloodline has morphed into Rainbow Dragon Bloodline.]
[Gained Titles: Resistant II, Resourceful G-Grade (TinR), Regenerator G-Grade (TinR), Abomination of Dragonkind, Draconic Ancestry.]
Azotreh turned the screen to Nicholas, showing him the title [Abomination of Dragonkind]. Nicholas chuckled.
"Kid, I know it says that chromatic dragons will automatically hate us. But how many dragons would we actually meet? They're not common, are they?"
Azotreh thought it over. While half-dragons of many species were commonplace, true dragons and even the so-called 'lesser-dragons' were relatively rare. It was reassuring to know that, hopefully, the title wouldn't be too awful for them.
As they felt reassurance echo throughout their being, the cave finally solidified. A moment later, a figure stepped out. Black scales, golden eyes, and absolutely giant. While it had the goat-like horns of a black dragon, it also had the crown-like horns of a red dragon. Stretching from these horns, down the back of the dragon, was a line of red scales.
Smoke drifted from their mouth as they opened it, a combination of flames deep in their throat and the liquid darkness all black dragons used. They looked down at the other two before slowly altering their form.
The draconic form, 10-feet tall at the shoulders, shifted to a humanoid form barely taller than Nicholas. A blindfold covered their eyes, while dark hair streaked with red covered their head. Rising from their skull were the same horns as the draconic form. One set from just behind the ears, circling around to end near the mouth. The other set stretched above their head, and between the tips of those horns was a black and red flaming eye.
They took on much the same attire as Nicholas, a black suit with red trim around the cuffs and neckline. A golden tie and a silver brooch of an unknown symbol. None of them knew what it meant, not even the one who conjured it. Yet they all knew it was somehow tied to them.
"Very eye of Sauron." Nicholas chuckled, looking up at the flaming eye. The other two looked at him in confusion, causing him to roll his eyes in response.
"There's a library with all three books, and neither of you understands the reference? I thought all the information in the library was instinctive."
The new ego raised a scaled eyebrow, while Azotreh had to hold back a laugh. Azotreh did so by simply removing the mouth from their 'avatar.' The action didn't miss Nicholas. He simply sighed and returned to the newcomer.
"So, who are you number three? I assume you have a name, right?"
The flaming eye narrowed in thought. Azotreh was at least glad it wasn't hostile. Then the avatar's mouth opened. Sharp teeth reflected the golden stars of the high night sky.
"Errazorrus, at your service." The dragon spoke and bowed a little. Nicholas raised an eyebrow before looking at Azotreh.
"Your world really likes the letter z somewhere in their name, eh?"
Azotreh looked even more confused at that, which made Nicholas even more exasperated.
"Z. The sound z. It's in your name and Errazorrus's name. I swear, if the next member of our merry band has a Z in their name I'm gonna…" He stopped talking for a moment, staring up. Something slowly swam high above, through the endless purple sky, a grand whale swam. Even Errazorrus seemed entranced by it as they watched above.