And then there was everything.
Consciousness returned not as a gradual awakening but as an instantaneous shift from non-existence to complete awareness. One moment she was dead, the next she was… not.
The first thing Virelya noticed was that she couldn't feel her body. The second thing she noticed was that she had a body, just not the one she remembered. The third thing she noticed was that she was encased in something smooth and confining.
An egg.
She was in an egg.
The realization should have provoked panic. Instead, it provoked a distant sense of surrealism, as if she were watching this happen to someone else. She couldn't feel legs or arms. She couldn't feel a face. What she could feel was… length. Considerable length. And scales. And something that might have been wings, folded tight against a serpentine body.
A dragon, she thought with perfect clarity. I've been reincarnated as a dragon.
The absurdity of it should have been overwhelming. Instead, her mind—her perfectly composed, unshakable mind—simply… adjusted. Death by betrayal? Acceptable. Reincarnation in a fantasy world? Acceptable. Being born as a dragon in an egg? Also acceptable.
She was Virelya Noctis. Reality bent to her will, not the other way around.
With that thought, information began flooding her consciousness. Not memories of this body's past—the body was new, barely formed—but something else. Knowledge. Understanding. Skills.
[Unique Skill: 「Regal Certainty」 has been acquired]
[Extra Skill: 「Cold Appraisal」 has been acquired]
[Unique Skill: 「Dominion Pressure」 has been acquired]
[Extra Skill: 「Sovereign Recognition」 has been acquired]
[Ultimate Skill: 「Lord of Quiet Dominion – Virelya」 has been acquired]
The words appeared in her mind like text written in light, each one carrying with it a complete understanding of what it meant, what it could do. She absorbed the information with the same calm she had maintained while dying, processing abilities that would have driven most beings mad with excitement or terror.
She was outerversal in potential. She could, theoretically, impose her will on reality itself if she understood how to properly wield these authorities.
Interesting, she thought. So reincarnation comes with benefits.
She tested her new senses carefully. Inside the egg, there was limited information to gather, but「Cold Appraisal」activated instinctively, analyzing her own state.
[Unhatched Dragon][Race: Serpentine Dragon (Divine Variant)][Status: Developing][Threat Level: Currently Minimal / Potential Maximum][Time Until Natural Hatching: 47 hours]
Forty-seven hours seemed excessive. She had things to do. Empires to build, probably. Betrayers to outlive and prove wrong, definitely.
With a thought, she activated「Dominion Pressure」.
The egg cracked.
It wasn't a violent rupture. The shell simply… yielded. As if it recognized that containing her any longer would be pointless. Pieces fell away in a perfect circle, and Virelya unfurled into her new existence.
The first thing she saw was a cave. Massive, cathedral-like, with walls of dark stone that glittered with veins of something luminescent. The second thing she saw was her reflection in a pool of water nearby.
She was beautiful.
Not in the conventional sense—she was a dragon, after all—but in the way that deadly things are beautiful. Her serpentine body stretched easily thirty feet even in this newborn state, covered in scales that were black as midnight with crimson undertones that caught the light like old blood on silk. Her head was elegant and wedge-shaped, with swept-back horns and eyes that glowed deep ruby red. Wings, currently folded against her sides, would span twice her body length when fully extended.
She looked exactly like she had always felt: dangerous, refined, and absolutely certain of her place in the hierarchy of existence.
"Well," she said aloud, and her voice was different—deeper, with a resonance that made the cave walls hum—but still unmistakably hers. "This will do."
She moved experimentally, testing this new body. The serpentine form felt natural almost immediately, as if some instinct from the dragon's nature was already integrating with her human consciousness. She could slither with surprising speed, coil with devastating strength, and when she unfurled her wings—
The sensation of flight, even just hovering a few feet above the ground, was intoxicating.
Power thrummed through her. Not just physical power, though she could feel that in every muscle and scale. But something else. Something vast and barely contained.
Her Ultimate Skill hummed in the background of her consciousness, a presence as natural as breathing.「Lord of Quiet Dominion」was not a tool she wielded. It was what she was.
She activated「Cold Appraisal」on herself, curious to see the full scope.
[Virelya Noctis][Race: Serpentine Dragon (Divine Variant)][Titles: Reincarnated One, Sovereign of Nothing (Yet)][Threat Level: Demon Lord Class (Restricted) / True Dragon Class (Full Power)][Unique Skills: Regal Certainty, Dominion Pressure][Extra Skills: Cold Appraisal, Sovereign Recognition][Ultimate Skill: Lord of Quiet Dominion – Virelya][Resistances: Mental Interference (Perfect), Physical Damage (High), Magic Damage (Extreme), Authority Domination (Perfect)][Note: Current power output restricted to approximately 40% until full physical maturity (Est. 30 days)]
Forty percent and she already felt like she could tear down mountains.
"Adequate," she said to the empty cave, and meant it.
The question now was: what came next?
In her previous life, she had inherited a crumbling kingdom and forged it into an empire through decades of careful planning and ruthless execution. In this life, she had been given overwhelming power and a blank slate.
The smart thing would be to explore carefully, gather information, understand this world's power structures before making any moves.
But Virelya had never been one for excessive caution. Caution was for people who doubted themselves.
She slithered toward the cave entrance, her scales whispering against stone. As she moved, she activated「Sovereign Recognition」, curious what it would reveal.
The skill pulsed outward like a silent wave, and information flooded back.
Within a five-mile radius: three hundred and forty-seven goblins, sixty-two dire wolves, eighteen lesser dragons, one greater demon, and several hundred smaller creatures. Each one registered on her consciousness like a point of light, their approximate threat levels automatically calculated.
Most were inconsequential. The greater demon was… interesting. Not a threat, but interesting.
But more importantly, her skill had detected something else: acknowledgment. Several of the lesser dragons had felt her presence, and their instinctive response was submission. They recognized, on a level deeper than conscious thought, that something more powerful had entered their territory.
Good.
Virelya emerged from the cave into moonlight. Three moons, she noted. Definitely not her old world. The landscape was primordial forest, ancient trees larger than buildings, and in the distance, mountains that scraped against a star-filled sky.
She spread her wings fully for the first time, feeling the wind catch beneath them. The sensation was glorious.
Then she launched herself into the air, and the world opened beneath her.
Flight was not just movement. It was freedom given form. She soared above the canopy, her serpentine body undulating through the air like she was swimming through an invisible ocean. The wind carried scents she'd never experienced—wild magic, untamed nature, the copper-taste of distant carnage.
As she flew, her「Cold Appraisal」automatically catalogued everything she passed over. A goblin village in a clearing (threat level: insignificant). A pack of dire wolves hunting (threat level: minor). A ruin of what might have once been a fortress (threat level: none, but potentially useful).
And then she felt it.
「Dominion Pressure」activated unconsciously, responding to a challenge she hadn't even consciously noticed. Below her, in a rocky outcropping, one of the lesser dragons was rising to intercept her.
She banked in the air, turning to face it. The dragon was perhaps half her size, with dull brown scales and an aggressive posture. It roared—a sound meant to intimidate, to establish dominance.
Virelya didn't roar back.
She simply looked at it, her ruby eyes calm and infinitely certain.
「Dominion Pressure」intensified, not as an attack but as a statement of fact: You are beneath me.
The brown dragon's roar choked off mid-sound. Its wings faltered. It tried to maintain its aggressive posture, but its body betrayed it, dipping in the air, head lowering instinctively.
She hadn't even tried. Her presence alone had established the hierarchy.
The dragon fled, diving back toward its cave with none of the grace it had displayed while rising.
"Disappointing," Virelya murmured, echoing her final thought from her previous life. But this time, the word carried no despair. Just… assessment.
This world had power, clearly. But so far, nothing here impressed her.
She needed to find civilization. Needed to understand this world's kingdoms, its power structures, its leaders. Needed to see if there was anything here worthy of her attention.
And if there wasn't?
Well. Building empires was what she did best.
Virelya turned in the air, orienting herself toward what her senses told her was west. In that direction, perhaps thirty miles distant, her「Sovereign Recognition」detected a dense cluster of presences. Thousands of them. A city, probably.
Perfect.
She began to fly toward it, her serpentine body cutting through the night sky like a blade through silk.
Behind her, across the five-mile radius that her presence had touched, creatures cowered in their dens, animals fled in instinctive panic, and lesser dragons pressed themselves flat against cave floors.
They didn't know what had passed over them.
They just knew they were no longer at the top of the food chain.