"I am Queen Aurora."
The words had barely left her lips when it hit.
A wave of ether so vast, so monstrous, that it spread through the dragon kingdom like a tsunami of pure malevolence. Every dragon in the throne room felt it—a wrongness that made their scales bristle and their instincts scream.
Null stopped breathing.
The pressure was crushing, as if the entire world had suddenly decided to rest on his back. His new dragon body, powerful as it was, trembled under the weight of that alien ether. It felt wrong. Corrupted. Like someone had taken the very concept of what a dragon should be and twisted it into something else.
Just as quickly as it came, the pressure vanished.
Null looked up to see his mother standing, her hand outstretched toward him. She'd shielded him from the worst of it. Her golden eyes, warm just moments ago, had gone cold as arctic stars.
Aurora's gaze narrowed, and she turned toward the wall as if she could see through stone and distance.
"What is that abomination?"
The elders followed her lead, their ancient heads swiveling toward the source of the disturbance. Through some sense Null didn't yet understand, he could feel it too—something at the outskirts of the kingdom, pulsing with that twisted ether.
Then they all saw it.
A dragon rose beyond the castle walls, visible from the throne room's impossible distance. But calling it a dragon felt wrong. It was black, but not the noble black of Tenebris's shadows. This was the black of rot, of decay. Its body moved wrong, parts dripping and reforming like living tar. Goo and slime trailed from its wings with each beat.
The creature sensed their attention. Its head snapped toward the castle, eyes that weren't quite eyes locking onto them. Then it launched itself into the air, flying directly at them with unnatural speed.
Aurora's expression didn't change. She turned to Null, and for a moment, she was every inch a mother teaching her child.
"Watch closely, Null. I will show you how true dragons fight."
The throne room's ceiling split open like the eye of a god, revealing the stormy sky above. Aurora leapt, and in mid-air, her human form exploded into something magnificent.
Wings of pure golden fire erupted from her back, each feather a miniature sun. Her body grew, expanded, until she was a dragon of such radiance that looking at her was like staring into the heart of a star. She didn't just glow—she burned with the fury of solar flares.
They met halfway between the castle and the kingdom's edge.
Aurora threw a single punch.
The impact created a shockwave that shattered clouds. The corrupted dragon flew backward like a comet in reverse, cratering into the ground at the outskirts with enough force to create a new valley.
Aurora pursued, her wings leaving trails of golden fire across the sky.
But the abomination recovered faster than expected. It erupted from the crater, its roar a sound that shouldn't exist—part scream, part static, part the dying gasp of something that refused to die.
The roar became tangible, a wave of force that actually pushed Aurora back several hundred feet.
She steadied herself in mid-air, wings spread wide.
The creature opened its maw and released a torrent of black flames. It was not a normal fire; this was something else. The flames clung to the air, burning nothing and everything at once. Where they touched, reality seemed to char.
Aurora's response was instant. She breathed in, and when she exhaled, it was the concentrated fury of a solar storm. Golden-white flames met black in an explosion that turned night to day. The black flames tried to persist, cling, and corrupt, but Aurora's solar fire was absolute. It didn't just burn—it purified.
The abomination charged through its own flames, claws extended. Fast. Too fast for something that size.
Aurora met it head-on. They collided in a tangle of claws and teeth and wings. The creature's tar-like body tried to engulf her, to corrupt her light, but everywhere it touched, it burned away. Aurora's scales were like the sun's surface—nothing could touch them without being annihilated.
She grabbed the creature's throat, her claws sinking deep. Black ichor sprayed, but it was more of that living corruption instead of blood. The drops that hit the ground below didn't sink in—they writhed, trying to take shape, to become something.
The abomination's body regenerated instantly, flesh knitting back together around Aurora's claws.
Aurora's eyes narrowed. "Persistent."
She pulled the creature close and whispered something Null couldn't hear. Then her entire body went supernova.
The explosion was visible from every corner of the kingdom. A sphere of pure solar energy expanded outward, consuming everything within a mile radius. The abomination's scream cut off abruptly as its body was atomized, every cell burned away before it could regenerate.
When the light faded, Aurora hovered alone in the sky. Below her, where the creature had been, was only glass—sand turned to crystal by impossible heat.
She flew back to the castle with the casual grace of someone returning from a morning stroll.
Null could feel the tremors even from the throne room. The chaotic ether in the air made his scales tingle. He was so far away, but the power radiating from that battle was intoxicating. How long would it take him to get that strong?
This world was definitely more interesting than Earth—no question about it.
The throne room ceiling sealed itself as Aurora descended, her form shrinking back to her humanoid shape as she landed. Not a single golden hair was out of place, and her dress remained immaculate. It was as if the battle had never happened.
She turned to Igniscor, the Fire Elder, her voice carrying an edge that hadn't been there before.
"What was that?"
Igniscor's massive head lowered slightly, not quite a bow but close. "That, my queen, was a monster created by the Order of Ascension."
The temperature in the room seemed to drop. Several elders hissed at the name.
"Continue," Aurora commanded.
"They are a group of old dragons that started experimenting on our kin, seeking ways to grow stronger, faster. They believed the traditional ways were too slow, that evolution could be forced." Igniscor's voice carried disgust. "The last king exiled them for their crimes against nature. We haven't heard from them for a hundred years."
"And now?" Aurora's tone could have frozen suns.
"It seems they are still experimenting. And these new abominations are stronger than before. That creature's regeneration, its corrupted ether—these are new developments. They're learning."
Aurora sat back on her throne, her fingers drumming against the armrest. The sound echoed like distant thunder.
"How many?"
"Unknown, my queen. But if they sent one to test our defenses…"
"There are more." Aurora finished. She was quiet for a moment, and when she spoke again, her voice carried the weight of a royal decree.
"Igniscor, Tempestus, Draconis."
The three elders stepped forward.
"Find where they are hiding. I want every member of the Order in front of me by the end of the week. If they resist, reduce their laboratory to atoms. If they've created more abominations, destroy them all."
"It will be done, my queen," they said in unison.
Aurora stood, and the gesture carried finality. "This assembly is dismissed. Elders, prepare your clans. If the Order has grown bold enough to send their creatures here, they may attempt more."
The elders bowed and began filing out, each a mountain of scales and power moving with surprising grace. Null watched them go, noting how some whispered among themselves, voices too low for him to catch.
Geodeus paused at the door, his mountain-like form blocking the exit momentarily. "My queen, what of the young prince? Should he be—"
"The prince will begin his training tomorrow," Aurora cut him off. "The Order's appearance only makes it more urgent."
The Earth Elder nodded and departed, the floor trembling slightly with each step.
Soon, the vast throne room contained only two.
Null looked at his mother—really looked at her. She'd just atomized a creature that had made him struggle to breathe from its presence alone. She'd done it casually, like swatting a fly. And now she sat beside him, looking thoughtful rather than tired.
"You have questions," she said. It wasn't a question.
Null nodded. He had about a thousand.
"Good. A prince without curiosity is just a decoration."
The question caught him off guard. He'd expected her to explain, not quiz him.
"The creature was wrong," he said slowly, finding the words in his new dragon tongue. "It's ether felt corrupted. Like someone had broken the rules of what should exist."
"Perceptive. What else?"
"It could regenerate. Fast. But your flames stopped that."
"Not just any flames. Solar fire burns at the conceptual level. It doesn't just destroy the body—it destroys the very idea of the thing." Aurora's eyes glowed slightly. "The Order hasn't figured out how to counter that yet."
"Yet?"
"They've had a hundred years, Null. They may be abominations, but they're not stupid. That creature was a probe, testing our defenses, seeing what we could do." She stood, moving to one of the massive windows overlooking the dragon kingdom. "They wanted to see if I was still here. Still strong."
"And now they know."
"Yes. Which means whatever comes next will be worse." She glanced back at him. "Which is why your training cannot wait. You're special, Null. Even if we don't understand how yet."
She walked back to him, and for a moment, her hand rested on his scaled head. The touch was gentle, maternal.
"Your element is unknown, even to me. The egg you hatched from was unlike anything in our history. The cosmos itself seemed to announce your birth. You may be the key to stopping whatever the Order is planning."
"No pressure," Null muttered.
Aurora actually laughed—a sound like wind chimes made of starlight.
"Welcome to royalty, my son. It's nothing but pressure." She moved toward the door, then paused. "Rest tonight. Tomorrow, you will learn what it truly means to be a dragon. And Null?"
He looked at her.
"That tremor you felt during my battle? That fascination with power? Hold onto it. That hunger will drive you to heights even I cannot imagine."
With that, she left, leaving Null alone on his throne.
He sat in the vast, empty throne room, processing everything: the order, the abominations, his mysterious nature as a Primordial, and his mother's casual display of apocalyptic power.
This life, he thought, remembering bleeding out on a gas station floor, is definitely going to be more interesting than the last.
The throne room's enchanted windows showed the kingdom beyond—millions of dragons going about their lives, unaware of the danger lurking at their borders. Tomorrow, he'd start learning how to protect them.
Tonight, though, he just sat and marveled at the impossibility of it all.
Jordan the orphan was dead.
Null Azrythos Kaelthuun, Prince of Dragons, had been born.
And he couldn't wait to see what came next.