Kael sat in the heavy silence of Mount Shara, the black sword resting across his knees. The metal felt cold, but it pulsed against his palms like a living heart. As he stared into the silver glow of the moon, his vision started to blur. The wind stopped howling, and the mountain beneath him seemed to dissolve into nothingness.Suddenly...A FLASH OF MEMORY:He wasn't sitting on a plateau anymore.He was suspended in a sky that looked like it was bleeding. Everything was a deep, bruised purple and suffocating black. Below him, the world wasn't made of trees or cities; it was a wasteland of ash. He looked down at his hands, but they weren't the hands of a teenager in a hoodie. They were huge, covered in scales that shimmered like polished onyx, and his fingers ended in claws that could rend steel.In front of him stood a darkness so thick it felt like a wall. It wasn't just a monster; it was a void, a swirling mass of shadows that swallowed the very light around it. It had a thousand e

A massive pillar of golden fire shot straight up from the center of the plateau, punching a jagged hole through the clouds. Kael’s body didn't just "transform"—it exploded outward. His hoodie, his jeans, his boots—they all just turned to ash, unable to handle the sudden, violent heat. His skin hardened into heavy, shimmering gold plates. His spine lengthened, snapping and popping like a falling tree, as two massive, tattered wings unfurled and caught the moonlight.He wasn't a teenager anymore. He was a Golden Dragon, ancient and terrifying. When he opened his eyes, they weren't human—they were two burning suns that turned the midnight sky into high noon.Ash didn't run....... He didn't even try to stand his ground. The sheer weight of Kael’s presence—that "aura" Dravil had warned him about—was like a physical hand shoving him into the dirt. Ash’s knees hit the gravel with a hard thud. He bent his head low, his forehead almost touching the dusty ground, his small body shaking uncontr