When Aaryan opened his eyes, he was already standing.

The ground beneath him shimmered—not like stone, not quite. It looked like black glass—gleaming, smooth, and rippling with every step, as if the land still remembered being a sea, and even now refused to stay still. It was cold, not with temperature, but with silence—an eerie, expectant hush, as if the world were holding its breath.

Pillars rose all around him—colossal, obsidian things—like the bones of dead gods reaching endlessly toward the sky. He craned his neck, but their tops vanished into a fog that glowed faintly, giving no sense of a sun. No birds. No wind. Just silence and stone.

And far in the distance—so far it seemed like it belonged in another world entirely—stood a mountain. Not gray, nor brown, but bathed in colour that moved. Crimson bled into violet. Amber spilled into azure. A constant, living aurora wrapped around its peak, pulsing in rhythm with a beat he could almost feel in his chest. It was alive, that mountain. Dreaming, maybe. Calling.

Aaryan took a slow step forward. Then another. His feet obeyed before thought could catch up. That place… he had to reach it.

But the moment he moved with intent, the world shifted.

It didn't break apart. It folded. Like a page turning itself.

The obsidian underfoot blurred, melting into soil thick with roots. The towering pillars twisted and morphed, replaced by even more immense trees. These were no common oaks or pines. Their trunks glowed faintly with veins of silver and green, their bark etched with patterns that pulsed like breath. Their canopies spread like domes, blotting out a sky that hadn't changed. It wasn't a forest—it was a temple built by nature.

And something within it stirred.

A distant roar echoed, faint but impossibly deep—like the groan of mountains shifting in their sleep. Aaryan's spine went rigid. That sound didn't just reach his ears—it reached into his soul and gripped something primitive. Something small. He didn't understand it, but he feared it.

Aaryan had felt fear before—at blades, at betrayal—but this… this was something older. Something truer.

Another growl. This one closer.

And then came the crashing.

From ahead, trees snapped and flew like twigs. A hulking figure charged through the undergrowth with terrifying speed. Golden fur shone with metallic lustre, its massive frame radiating heat and power. Each footstep cracked the ground like thunder. The beast's face was ape-like but cruelly distorted, as though refined by spiritual qi. Eyes the colour of molten brass locked onto Aaryan for a breath, then past him—as if he were no more than a leaf.

A beat later, wind howled—and from the left, a blur of pale motion surged into the clearing.

A white leopard, its form sleek and elegant, but immense. Snowy fur shimmered like moonlight on frost. Ethereal mist clung to its paws as it dashed, weightless and deadly. Its claws glowed with faint silver runes, slashing the air with sharp arcs of light. It moved like a spirit beast refined over countless tribulations.

The golden ape roared, slamming both fists into the ground. Spikes of qi erupted like spears beneath the leopard's path. But the beast twisted mid-air, gliding over them with an acrobat's grace, retaliating with a swipe that carved a crescent of frost into the forest floor. Where the ice touched, the bark of nearby trees blackened and cracked.

Aaryan stumbled back into the brush, the clash shaking the very air. He could barely follow their movements—only the destruction they left behind. Trees split like paper. Roots were torn free. Stone shattered from the sheer pressure of their strikes. They weren't simply fighting—they were enacting some ancient enmity, born from instinct and reinforced by spiritual dominance.

Every blow of the ape cracked the earth. Every leap of the leopard distorted the wind.

It was a battle not of beasts, but of myth.

The air grew sharp. He could taste the tension. The next collision would be lethal.

The golden ape raised both arms, gathering golden flames along its forearms, its muscles bulging with spirit force. The leopard crouched low, eyes narrowing, body taut. Silver qi coiled around its frame like a second skin.

They roared as one—and lunged.

The forest shuddered. Aaryan flinched as the air cracked with incoming power.

But before they struck—

RRRRRAAAAAAOOOOOOOOHHHHHH!

The very heavens trembled.

The roar didn't just echo—it commanded. It washed through the trees like a wave through a brittle dam. Leaves fell. Wind stopped. The very spirit of the forest knelt.

Both beasts froze mid-motion.

The golden ape, turned its head. The white leopard hissed, its tail twitching once before it too backed away. Then, without hesitation, they both fled. Not from each other—but from the direction of the roar.

Aaryan stood frozen, breath hitched in his throat.

He turned his head slowly toward where the roar had come from.

In front of Aaryan hovered a dragon.

Not massive—but far from small. Its serpentine form floated with effortless grace, like silk carried by a divine wind. Each coil in the air spoke not of brute strength, but of mastery—every movement deliberate, as if the air itself bent in deference to its will. The dragon's scales shimmered like polished gemstone, three distinct hues blooming across its body in fluid gradients. A deep sapphire crowned its spine, rippling like moonlight on a midnight sea. Emerald surged down its flanks, alive with a forest's breath. Amber streaked along its limbs and chest, glowing faintly with every breath—like warm embers nestled beneath translucent skin.

Horns curved backward from its head in an elegant arc, jade-green and smooth, shaped less like weapons and more like a crown worn without pride. Its eyes, though not enormous, were arresting—pools of still light that held no judgment, only patience. Ancient patience. They gazed at Aaryan not with hunger, not with fear, not even with curiosity.

It watched him the way a mountain might watch a leaf.

Unmoving. Unconcerned.

Aaryan's breath caught.

The air around the dragon shimmered faintly, like heat rising from a summer road, though there was no warmth. No wind. No sound.

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Only stillness.

And then the world unravelled.

Like the surface of a still pond disturbed by a single drop, everything around him rippled outward. The forest fell away like ash in the breeze. The lake vanished, the ground dissolved. Even the dragon before him blinked out—no burst, no sound. Just… gone.

And suddenly, Aaryan stood in the sky.

There was no solid ground, no sense of gravity. Only clouds beneath his feet, softly churning like the breath of a sleeping titan. They supported him as if they had always known he would arrive. Above, below, all around—an endless, radiant dome. The sky itself glowed with gradients of rose, violet, silver, and gold, shifting and pulsing like a living mural painted by celestial hands.

And then they came.

Dragons.

First one. Then another. Then hundreds. Thousands.

They erupted from the horizonless sky like dreams manifesting. Some the size of houses, others larger than mountains. Their bodies shimmered in every colour imaginable—some clad in a single, pure hue, their forms streamlined and sharp. Others shimmered with dual tones, scales catching the light and splitting it like crystals. And still others bore three, four, even six colours in dazzling arrangements, wings wide enough to shade cities, their flight slower, like the turning of seasons.

A few were so colossal they moved not with speed, but inevitability. Their passing displaced the clouds themselves. When they breathed, the sky sighed.

But there was no voice. No chant. No whisper.

And yet Aaryan heard them.

Not through ears, but through something older. Deeper. The air vibrated with meaning, it wasn't sound. Emotions bled into him with every passing shape—Peace, deep and timeless, as if the sky itself had forgiven him. Power, not as domination, but as birthright. Wisdom, heavy and serene, like a mountain remembering its age. And Freedom, bright and vast, like wings spread against eternity.

His heart beat slower.

The presence of the dragons did not crush him. It enfolded him. Accepted him—not as one of them, but as one worthy to witness.

And then, the sky roared.

One after another, draconic cries split the air—not snarls of war, but proclamations. Some deep, some shrill, each one distinct. Not chaotic, but symphonic. Like the sky had opened its throat and sang in a tongue no mortal had ever earned.

Aaryan's bones vibrated.

Each roar twisted the clouds into spirals. Light pulsed. The heavens sang.

And far ahead—just beyond the veil of mist and brilliance—loomed the peak.

At least, what he had thought was a peak.

Aaryan's eyes widened.

It wasn't a mountain.

What he'd taken for ancient stone, for a sacred hill crowned in colour, was a body. A form coiled so many times around itself it created the illusion of shape. Palace-sized scales glimmered like stained glass beneath divine light. Its tail coiled far into the horizon. Its wings were folded somewhere above the clouds, and its head lay hidden within the heavens, its eyes shut in slumber.

A dragon.

But not just any dragon.

This one did not shimmer—it radiated. Its body bore nine colours: crimson like burning suns, sapphire like drowned stars, emerald like first spring, gold like sunfire, violet like twilight, silver like starlight, obsidian like the void, ivory like moonlight, and rose like memory.

The Nine-Coloured Mirage Dragon.

He had seen it before. The one that had left him the egg. The one that had chosen him.

And now, it was here.

Unmoving. Unbothered by the passage of time. It did not shift. It did not roar.

It simply was.

Aaryan stared in reverent awe. Even the largest dragons he had seen moments before now seemed like drifting insects around a sun. The Nine-Coloured Dragon was not just a creature—it was a concept. The embodiment of something that transcended beast and soul.

And then its eyes opened.

Twin orbs of shimmering cosmos, each colour swirling endlessly within them, galaxies within pupils, starlight for veins. They blinked once.

And looked straight at him.

Aaryan choked.

The moment their gazes met, his body locked. The world around him dimmed. The sky, the dragons, even his thoughts—all faded, like background noise swallowed by silence.

Pressure crashed down upon him.

It wasn't pain. Neither fear. But weight—the weight of eons. Of lifetimes lived and forgotten. It was like having a mountain lowered onto his chest, not to kill him, but to test whether he could still breathe beneath it.

His knees trembled. His spine bowed. His heart pounded like a drum against a cliff face.

He was seen.

Utterly. Completely.

His tricks, his thoughts, his flaws—laid bare in a single instant beneath that gaze.

He could not lie. He could not run.

The dragon's gaze passed through him—upward, as though sensing something clawing at the veil between worlds.

And then—

CRACK.

A sound tore through the sky.

It wasn't thunder.

It was older. Deeper. A command etched into the world's bones being reversed.

A seal unravelling not just time—but fate.

It didn't echo—it devoured.

The clouds split in all directions. Light fled. The sky twisted like it was about to collapse in on itself.

Aaryan gasped as the pressure intensified, his limbs locking up.

The Nine-Coloured Dragon was no longer calm.

Something had stirred.

And the world… began to tremble.

A deafening tear split the heavens.

Aaryan looked up.

The sky—once a divine dome of colour and serenity—fractured. A jagged rift split it wide, like a wound ripped open by the hands of gods. From within spilled chaos.

Beasts came first.

Chimeras twisted by war and strange alchemy. One had the wings of a moth, the face of a jackal, and claws made of volcanic stone. Another slithered through the air with hundreds of serpentine heads that shrieked in unison, each voice its own language of ruin. One brute—a horned lion wreathed in golden fire—roared once and turned a flock of lesser dragons to ash.

Then came the cultivators.

Figures cloaked in divine light and dripping with bloodlust. Armor of starlight. Weapons forged from law and legend. Eyes aglow with madness, purpose, salvation—or all three. They descended like a plague, not from above, but from a hole torn into the very concept of peace. Their presence did not belong to this sky. They reeked of trespass.

And the dragons responded.

They roared—not in fear, but in fury. Wings tore through clouds, claws shredded light itself, and they met the intruders head-on. The sky became a battlefield of myths. Fire clashed with blade. Illusions warped time. Space groaned under the pressure of too many truths colliding.

And then— The Nine-Coloured Dragon roared.

Not in pain. Not in warning.

In betrayal.

The sound didn't pass through Aaryan's ears—it etched itself into his soul. The world went white. A blinding wash of energy surged across the dreamscape. Shapes dissolved. Flesh tore. Souls screamed without mouths.

Dragons died.

So did men.

So did things that had no name.

Their bodies rained from the sky like broken promises. Wings shredded. Blades still twitching. Hearts still glowing with Qi and rage and regret as they fell. The clouds ran red. And red. And red. Blood didn't just fall—it poured, soaking the clouds and running over Aaryan's skin like warm ink.

And then—

CRASH.

The Nine-Coloured Dragon hit the cloudscape.

The impact knocked Aaryan to his knees.

It lay sprawled before him now, great body coiled in pain, colour dimming. Its once-pristine scales had been cracked and torn. One wing dangled in tatters. Its breath came ragged, heavy. But its eyes—

Its eyes still burned.

They locked onto him, blazing with ancient light.

"You… who carried our final hope."

The voice didn't speak—it resonated through his bones.

A commandment. A memory.

"Will you avenge… or repeat?"

The world seemed to hold its breath.

And within Aaryan's chest, something stirred.

A pulse.

The dragon egg.

Buried deep within him—forgotten, maybe ignored—now blazed. Brilliant and bright, as if it had waited lifetimes for that question. It wanted to break. To hatch. To become. As if the dream had unlocked something it could no longer contain.

Aaryan opened his mouth to speak—

Too slow.

A whistle cut the air.

THUNK.

A spear of crimson light slammed through the dragon's chest.

The Nine-Coloured Dragon reared back in a silent scream as the weapon erupted through its body like a second spine, glowing with hateful divinity. Chains of holy fire wrapped around the spear, binding more than flesh. They bound soul. Memory. Lineage.

At the rift's edge floated the figure who'd thrown it.

Humanoid in shape, but wrong in essence. Cloaked in white flame and celestial bindings. Its face hidden behind a mask too ancient for mortals to name, its hands crackling with judgment.

Aaryan reached out, uselessly. The dragon's eyes never left his.

"Will you avenge… or repeat?"

Everything turned dark.

And Aaryan—

woke.

He sat up, gasping.

Breath ragged. Skin cold with sweat. The darkness of his room pressed in, familiar but suffocating.

His heart pounded. His hands trembled. The sky was gone. The blood, the dragons, the voice…

Gone.

Yet—

Within his chest, the egg still pulsed.

A warmth. A promise.

A heartbeat not his own.

He clutched at his chest, breath shallow.

'That wasn't a dream.'

He knew it.

It had been a memory—and a promise.

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