MARKED BY DRACONIC OVERLORD

Chapter 4

Chapter 4: Reawakening

Running through the abandoned streets at a speed that shouldn't have been possible was Charles Valborg, cutting down every goblin and orc foolish enough to get in his way.

Forty minutes earlier, at the academy.

After Kael had left.

"I humbly accept the offer to become the Sword King's student," Bradon said with a deep bow.

"That settles it then, though we'll need to make it official later. My token's back at the capital, unfortunately," Charles said, looking mildly annoyed with himself.

Bradon could barely contain his excitement. The renowned Sword King had just taken him on as a student something he'd never dared believe would actually happen. A wide grin spread across his face as he thought about getting home to share the news, about the look on the faces of everyone who'd doubted him.

In your face, assholes, he thought.

Still riding the high of it, his phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out, glanced at the notification, and read it.

"WHAT?!" Bradon's pupils shrank in shock as the warning sirens started blaring across the entire area, expressions shifting instantly around him.

"A rift break," he said, stunned, staring at the emergency alert.

"On the day of your awakening, no less. A Red-Class one," Charles said, sounding almost relaxed about it.

Kael's out there with his sister. The thought hit Bradon like a blow, dread flooding through him the second he registered what Kael's fresh awakening meant for his odds out there.

"All students, to the underground shelter, now!" an instructor shouted, and panic rippled through the crowd.

"New student of mine, you'll need to follow—"

"Esteemed master, and honored Sword King, this humble student has a request." Bradon cut him off, already on his knees, forehead nearly touching the ground.

"Why are you on your knees, and what request?" Charles asked, caught off guard.

"I ask only that the Sword King save a dear friend of mine, who left a while ago and is out there in all this," Bradon pleaded, emotion cracking his voice.

"The boy who awakened the F-rank talent?" Charles asked.

"Yes."

"Why should I risk myself for him? Your safety matters more to me right now," Charles said, his expression unreadable. Bradon gritted his teeth.

"Because he's the only real friend I have. He was the only one who took me in when everyone else looked down on me and turned their backs. He got me through every hard moment I've faced.

"He picked me up when I was at my lowest. He always had my back, always pulled me out of trouble, always stood between me and anyone running their mouth. He believed in me when no one else did. And now fate decided to be cruel to him instead. So please all I'm asking is that you save him.

I don't want to lose the only friend I have.

Please," Bradon said, tears in his eyes.

This boy, so sincere, so devoted to his friend.

That kind of bond isn't built overnight; it's forged through real hardship. His humility tells me I made the right choice, Charles thought, watching him kneel there in tears.

"We haven't even sealed our arrangement as master and student, and you're already asking me for a favor. Bold. I hope he's worth it," Charles said.

Bradon's head snapped up, hope and disbelief flooding his expression as his tears stopped.

"Thank yo—" Before he could finish, Charles was already gone, vanished without so much as a sound, silent as the wind.

"That's the Sword King for you," Bradon muttered, stunned by the exit.

"Kael stay alive," he said quietly, his chest heavy.

Back to the present.

That brat, we haven't even officially become master and student, and he's already calling in favors. Well, let's just hope he's still alive, because from what I've seen so far, it'll take a miracle, Charles thought, unimpressed, cutting through five orcs in a single motion, his blade slicing through them like they were nothing.

"ROOORAH!"

A roar sounded from above, and Charles looked up to see a winged, serpentine creature diving toward him at incredible speed, fangs bared, an orc riding its back.

"Pest," he muttered, unfazed, watching it descend.

He raised his blade, and cyan energy began to wrap around it, pulsing, straining to be released.

"Sirius Slash, First Form: Arc Slice!" He swung the blade upward in a single fluid motion, and an arc of cyan energy shot forward at blinding speed, slamming into the creature. The orc's eyes went wide with terror at the speed of the attack.

BOOM.

The creature and its rider were obliterated on impact, blood and debris raining down.

"Tch. Annoying pests," Charles muttered, and then, several streets ahead, a pillar of red light shot into the sky, releasing a shockwave that rolled outward and washed over him.

"What!" His expression shifted to something close to fear, his legs trembling, his grip on his weapon unsteady.

"What is this presence? It's crushing. Like some ancient beast just woke up," Charles murmured, unable to move, sweat beading on his forehead. Every awakened fighter in the area froze the same way, and even the orcs and goblins stopped mid-attack, no one daring to move, as if the wrong step would get them killed on the spot.

Even the leader of the orc and goblin army wore an expression of dread, like he recognized this feeling from somewhere before.

Meanwhile.

Suspended in midair, wrapped in crimson smoke-like energy, was Kael, unconscious, floating. The orcs and goblins below stared up at him in shock. Even Elisa and Zoe were frozen, watching the scene unfold.

Kael, meanwhile, found himself adrift in a dark, empty space.

"Where am I? Is this... the road to heaven?" he asked, his voice the only thing echoing in the void.

"This isn't the road to heaven, boy, it's the path to unlocking your true destiny. You carry the blood of the Draconic Overlord," a deep voice thundered, and the entire void seemed to shudder with it.

"What are you talking about?" Kael asked, confused.

"You carry my bloodline. Now you must awaken, and protect what you hold dear," the voice said.

"The one I'm supposed to protect is going to die. What good is any of this now? If I'd awakened something worth having, maybe I could've protected her. Instead, I failed," Kael said, breaking down as the void fell silent around him.

"You still have a spark left, little one. Let this ancestor help you, just this once," the voice said, and a brilliant golden light flooded the space as an enormous golden dragon descended toward him.

"What the! is that a freaking dragon?!" Kael's eyes went wide with shock. He wanted to run, but his body wouldn't move.

The blinding light consumed his vision as the dragon closed the distance and merged with him, a burst of golden light exploding outward from his body.

At the same moment, in the real world, the crimson energy surrounding him shifted to gold, and a pillar of golden light brighter and more intense than before shot into the sky, visible from every corner of *Black Ridge City*. People everywhere stared upward in awe.

Even at the academy, students watched the golden pillar reach toward the atmosphere.

"Now that's something. Did someone just awaken in the middle of all this chaos?" Bradon said, staring up at it in wonder.

Kael's body was changing. His hair grew rapidly, reaching his waist. Draconic scales spread across his arms, his hands, parts of his face. His severed leg and arm regenerated instantly, every wound closing in the blink of an eye.

Slowly, he descended back to the ground, landing on two feet, and opened his eyes now golden, draconic, and cold with a fierce, intimidating edge.

The orcs and goblins stared in disbelief as his missing limbs regrew before their eyes, frozen in place, unable to look away from the pressure radiating off him.

"Bro... Kael?" Elisa stammered, staring at her brother's now-unrecognizable gaze. Even Zoe felt the weight of it pressing down on her, freezing her in place.

The orc that had been advancing on Elisa hesitated, staring at the human who, moments ago, had been a broken, bleeding mess and was now standing whole, transformed, radiating something far beyond human.

How could this puny human give off this kind of presence? This can't be real, the orc thought, refusing to believe a lowly human could carry this kind of power.

Gathering what courage it had left, it charged forward anyway, spear raised. Even the goblin commander looked on, stunned by the sheer stupidity of the move.

"Puny human, die!" the orc roared, swinging its spear at Kael, who barely seemed to register the attack before he was simply gone from where he'd been standing.

Splurt.

The orc's head separated from its body in a flash of light, blood fountaining from the stump of its neck as the corpse collapsed. The goblin commander stared, stunned.

Kael stood two meters from the body, the orc's severed head still in his hand, his eyes utterly cold. Elisa and Zoe stared, frozen, as did every other orc and goblin nearby.

The goblin commander felt real terror for the first time—something about Kael's presence dug into something primal and cold in his chest.

"How dare you!" another orc charged, swinging its blade with tremendous speed. Kael watched it come, unbothered.

Slash.

In less than a second, the orc was cut clean through at the waist, too fast for it to even register what had happened before its upper half hit the ground in a spreading pool of blood.

What had been Kael's fingers were now claws, his entire right arm reshaped into something draconic. The remaining orcs and goblins stared on in horror.

Kael's gaze shifted to the goblin still holding Elisa down. The goblin froze the moment their eyes met, the sensation of being prey under a predator's stare rooting it to the spot.

In an instant, Kael was in front of it. Before the goblin could so much as blink, Kael drove his claws into its chest, twisted, and tore its still-beating heart free in a spray of blood.

Elisa's eyes went wide with shock as she watched her brother kill the goblin right in front of her, blood misting the air around them.

The brutality of it sent a shiver through every remaining orc and goblin, the commander included, staring at Kael holding the still-beating heart in his hand.

"What are you all standing around for? get him!" the commander barked, forcing his soldiers into motion. They hesitated, clearly rattled by what they'd just seen, but pride won out, and they charged forward with a collective roar.

Kael moved like lightning, cutting through them in a blur, blood spraying with every pass of his claws.

When it was done, he stood surrounded by corpses, blood dripping from his claws, his gaze settling finally on the goblin commander.

The commander felt a chill rip down his spine the moment their eyes met, his legs refusing to obey him.

How is this possible wiping out my entire unit in one go? Wasn't he half-dead a minute ago? But now... this presence is something else entirely, the commander thought, disbelief giving way to something worse as a realization crept in.

He looked at Kael again, and his eyes widened in genuine horror.

Those features, it can't be. No, it can't be. He's dragon kin.

His fear curdled into pure terror. Sweat poured down his face, his legs refusing to move even as every instinct screamed at him to run.

Whoosh.

In the blink of an eye, Kael was standing in front of him, his gaze cold and merciless. The goblin commander's entire body locked up with fear.

Standing before Kael, the commander felt like an insect facing something ancient and unstoppable, like he was staring down a primal force capable of ending him without a second thought.

Faster than he could track, Kael grabbed him by the head and slammed his face into the ground hard enough to crack the pavement.

Pain exploded through the commander's skull like fire. Kael lifted his head and slammed it down again.

"Argh!!!"

The commander could barely process the pain anymore, his vision swimming with blood, his skull ringing like it had been struck with a slab of metal.

Kael pulled his head back up. The commander's face was a ruin his nose bent at an unnatural angle, several teeth missing.

Then Kael took hold of his right hand, gripped the index finger, and bent it back with a sharp snap.

"Arghhhh!" the commander screamed, his finger twisted into an impossible angle.

Kael didn't stop. He moved to the next finger.

SNAP.

Another scream. Then the next, and the next, until every finger on that hand had been broken.

Elisa and Zoe watched in horror, and for a moment, Elisa found herself wondering if this was still her brother at all. Kael moved to the left hand and repeated the process.

"Ki... kill me. Just kill me, damn it," the commander choked out through the pain.

"Kill you? Death's far too easy for something like you. This is just the start," Kael said, a cold grin curling across his face. The commander's eyes widened in dread.

Kael took hold of his right arm, and the 

coming.

With brutal, impossible force, Kael twisted the entire arm until bone snapped audibly.

"ARGHHHH!"

The commander's scream tore through the street as his arm bent in a direction no arm should bend, bone fragments visible through torn flesh.

Kael moved on, stomping down on the commander's legs again and again, the goblin's screams growing weaker and more ragged with every hit until they faded into muffled whimpers. Then Kael stopped.

What remained of the commander was barely recognizable broken bone, torn flesh, every limb bent at some grotesque angle, his breath coming in shallow, broken gasps.

Kael looked down at the wreck of him, grabbed his head, and with a single brutal motion, tore it from his body, the spine following, blood pouring from what was left.

The sight was too much for Zoe. She vomited on the spot, and when her eyes met Kael's, that flat, killing look in them made her pass out from sheer terror. Elisa stood frozen, shaken to her core, staring at someone who no longer felt entirely like her brother.

"ROARRRR!"

From above, winged creatures descended, most ridden by orcs, a handful of ground troops closing in behind them. Kael tossed the commander's head aside without a glance.

He looked up at the incoming creatures, his expression unimpressed, and as they bared their teeth and dove toward him, his claw began to glow. With a single upward swipe, three arcs of golden light shot from his hand, growing larger as they raced toward their targets.

The attack moved faster than the eye could follow one orc's pupils barely had time to shrink in surprise before

BANG.

The orcs and their mounts were shredded on impact, blood raining down, the top of a nearby high-rise sheared clean off in the blast.

Kael turned his gaze to the larger force of orcs and goblins charging down the street, flinging vehicles and debris aside as they came. He exhaled once, settling into a runner's stance.

WHOOSH.

He shot forward like a bullet, faster than Elisa could track, her jaw dropping at the sight of it.

When could he move like that?

Kael tore straight into

the heart of the charging army, orcs and goblins flung aside like ragdolls as he cut a path directly through their ranks.