Smoke curled off my shoulders.
My cloak was gone burned to ash. My knees hit the stone, my arms trembling under my own weight.
Everything hurt.
My bones... cracked.
My lungs... scorched.
My heart... still beating.
Barely.
But still beating.
The Trial was over.
Above , Azael lood in silence, his molten eyes narrowed, his tail curled around a broken obsidian pillar.
For a mont, neither of us spoke.
I coughed blood into my palm.
And then—
The dragon laughed.
A deep, thunderous laugh that rolled through the cavern like thunder.
"You are still alive."
"You—actually survived."
I couldn't stand. But I lifted my head, still defiant.
"I told you…" I rasped. "I'm not just so background extra…"
"I choose to live."
Azael's laughter died down into sothing deeper older. The tone shifted.
Reverence.
He lowered his head, so that his breath ward the air around without burning it.
"Then rise, Khael Corzedar," he said solemnly. "For now, you are no longer rely of man."
The runes on the walls shifted.
Fire gathered at the tips of Azael's claws not destructive fire, but inheritance fire. It danced around like ribbons of energy, flickering with every elent I had only read about in the manga.
Red. Blue. Gold. Silver. Jade. Obsidian.
And then it entered .
"From this mont forth," Azael declared, his voice echoing as if across history,
"You carry the blood of the Emberwrought."
"You are Half-Dragon—scion of fla, storm, stone, and sky."
"My final disciple."
My veins lit up.
My Shinrei roared. Not surged roared.
Power. Like nothing I'd ever felt.
Not just more energy, this was evolution.
My Affinity expanded.
Wind was no longer all I had.
Now, I could feel them all…
Fla. Stone. Storm. Wave. Bloom. Wind.
Every Affinity except for Shade.
That one remained sealed, unreachable. As it should be.
"A dragon does not touch the void," Azael said, reading my thoughts. "We burn too bright to be swallowed."
He stood fully now, massive wings spread wide, tail curling behind his spined back.
His form solid, but fading.
His Shinrei still fierce, but thinning.
"My ti ends here."
I stood on shaky feet, heart pounding.
"Wait—no. I still need to—"
"There is nothing more to teach, young one."
"The rest… is yours to forge."
Azael's scales began to fall like stardust.
"If you use this power—if you awaken the power that sleep within—
—then I promise you this: others will co to know."
"The world will see you."
"And they will call you what they once called my chosen in the First Era…"
Azael's eyes locked onto mine one last ti, glowing with ancient mory.
"They will call you… the Dragon Knight."
And then he was gone.
Nothing left but silence.
No bones. No ashes.
Only warmth.
Only power.
Only .
..
Azael was gone.
The cavern had gone quiet eerily so. No rumble. No crackling fire. Just the slow exhale of fading power.
And then—
Ding.
A soft chi echoed inside my ears clear, chanical.
My eyes snapped open.
Before hovering in the air, flickering softly like fla-born glass was a translucent window.
Glowing text ford in neat rows, written in a language I shouldn't have understood but sohow did.
….
〘 SYSTEM INITIATED〙
〘 Welco, Khael Corzedar 〙
〘 Bloodline Recognized: EMBERWROUGHT DESCENDANT 〙
〘 Title Unlocked: "DRAGON KNIGHT (INHERITOR)" 〙
A system…? Just like those ga nus in isekai stories…
No. Not a ga. This feels different. This feels… bound to the soul.
More flickers of data appeared.
[ Status Interface ]
Na: Khael Corzedar
Age: 13
Race: Human–Dragon Hybrid (Awakened)
Lineage: Emberwrought Decendant| Half-Dragon (Azael's Line)
Title: Dragon Knight (Inheritor)
Rank: Unranked
Affinity: Wind (Base) | Multi-Affinity Access Granted
Shinrei Capacity: 14,800 / 15,000 (Overflowing)
Vein Gates: 4 / 9 Open
Echo Arts Learned:
[Windflow Step]
[Draconic Pulse – Stage I] (Locked)
[Breath of the Ember Vein] (Locked)
[Drakeguard Skin] (Locked)
…
My jaw clenched.
"Four Vein Gates… open already?" I whispered. "That's months—no, years—of progress."
But it wasn't just power.
This system wasn't normal.
Azael said nothing about this… Did it co from him?
Or… from sothing even older?
Then, one last ssage appeared:
〘 Caution: Voidborn Presence Detected. 〙
〘 Suggestion: Return to Veyl Academy before Dawnfall. 〙
My heart froze.
They felt it.
The world felt the inheritance awaken.
And now… the Voidborn are moving.
No more ti.
No more theory.
I tightened the strap on my bag, letting the last of the flas settle beneath my skin.
The system pulsed once, then faded from view still there, just... watching.
I turned toward the exit of the cave.
Ti to run.
..
The cave was quiet again.
But not empty.
From the far shadows where light dared not reach, a shape erged humanoid in form, but wrong in every other way. Its edges shifted like smoke, and its voice echoed like it ca from behind glass.
A Voidborn.
Its hollow eyes flickered with faint violet cracks, its veins pulsing with dark Shinrei a corruption of emotion, made real.
It stepped into the center of the cavern.
Where Azael had vanished, only scorched stone and shimring ash remained.
The Voidborn crouched, claws brushing the dust.
Its voice rasped, low, like a whisper through bone.
"I felt it…"
"The burst of draconic Shinrei… That fire—raw, ancient… untethered."
Its claw closed around a handful of the ashes. They burned for a brief mont—hot, defiant then faded.
It stared at its palm.
"This… is that dragon's remains…"
"Gone."
"Tch… I was too late."
…
Khael Pov
The forest was colder than I rembered.
The once-silent path back to Veyl Academy now rustled with whispers. The trees no longer bent in the sa direction—the Echo around buzzed faintly, responding to sothing new inside .
My steps were faster than before. Lighter. The wind itself guided .
No... not guided.
Obeyed.
The dragon blood flowed under my skin, steady and warm like magma beneath a glacier. It pulsed with every heartbeat strong, but not loud. Not yet.
..
…
By the ti I reached the outer wall of the Academy, the moon had dipped low.
4:21 AM.
Just a few hours before the bells rang.
Before the manga's first panel played out.
Before the real story started.
I crouched behind a thistle wall near the Echo orchard—a shortcut used by delinquent students sneaking in from town. I'd seen the route in a manga bonus chapter once.
Right panel, top-right corner, page 143.
Thanks, old author.
You really filled this world with cheat routes, huh?
I slipped past the orchard, scaling the old guard rail just beside the South Tower.
No guards. No wards. Nothing but a slight shimr of Echo mist.
Still, my heart pounded.
You're trespassing into your own life, Khael.
You left a background character... and ca back sothing else.
I landed silently near the dormitories, breathing carefully.
The system blinked once in my peripheral vision:
〘 Shinrei Suppression Mode: ACTIVE 〙
〘 Output capped at 1% – Echo Signature hidden 〙
Good. Last thing I need is a flare of dragon energy tripping a thousand alarms.
Let Kaen shine tomorrow. I'm still a shadow.
I moved quickly, ducking behind columns, slipping through maintenance corridors until—
There it was.
Room 3-C.
My dorm room.
I opened it slowly.
Still empty.
I collapsed onto the bed.
Not because I was tired though I was but because this was the first ti I'd been
still since the Trial.
My hand trembled slightly as I lifted it.
A faint glimr of red-orange Shinrei flickered across my palm.
I survived the Trial of the Ninefold Fla.
I carry the blood of a dragon.
And I'm still just a kid in a bed, in a world that doesn't know yet.
A whisper of wind brushed my window.
Dawn was coming.
The manga was about to begin.
Kaen would awaken his cursed fla.
He would unlock the Shade.
He would stumble onto the hero's path.
And I'd be watching from the side just like before.
But this ti…
I'm not here to follow the story.
I'm here to bend it.
To be continue
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