Xavier stared in horror, as if he'd seen a ghost. His hands trembled. He turned to Alcmena once more, who was still bound in Percival's glowing rune circle, and choked out, "Master... tell me he's lying. Tell me this isn't true. Please..."
His voice cracked. Tears welled in his eyes. "Tell me it's all a lie. That he's just trying to gaslight me... like he always does."
Alcmena met Xavier's tearful gaze. Those innocent, desperate eyes—he couldn't bear to look. Shame weighed heavy on his chest. Slowly, he turned his head away.
That was all the answer Xavier needed.
His legs gave out. He dropped to the ground on all fours, Excalibur still planted in the dirt beside him. The light in his eyes—gone. A hollow emptiness took its place.
Percival let out a cackle that echoed off the crumbling walls. "Oh, how deliciously tragic!"
He laughed so hard he doubled over. "The bond between master and student—no, more like father and son—shattered by a single truth. You couldn't write better tragedy if you tried!"
His laughter still ringing in the air, he appeared before Xavier in a blink, crouched low to lift the boy's chin. Xavier's lifeless eyes didn't resist.
"Let this be a reminder," Percival said, his tone venomous. "As long as you bear the name Xavier... you are mine. My child. My tool. My puppet."
"You cannot run. You cannot hide. Your destiny is suffering—until the day I kill you myself. You won't live past the next four years. You will die. And that will be the only way you'll ever be free."
He leaned in, whispering. "Your master? Dead. Your adoptive father? Dead. Your real parents? Also dead."
He stood up, letting Xavier's chin drop. "But you knew, didn't you? Deep down. The way everyone you love... ends up the same."
"You are mine. Never forget that, Xavier Ashford."
With a snap of his fingers, the illusion cracked. The false world dissolved, and reality snapped back—the burned, broken shell of the bakery.
Alcmena, now in cat form, lay unbound, free of the rune's curse. But Xavier...
He still knelt. Broken. Empty. His hand summoned Excalibur once more and stabbed it into the ground, using it to brace himself. He tried to rise. Failed.
Flashes of memory clawed at his mind. Moments with Alcmena. Dreams of his real family. All drowned beneath the endless laughter of Percival—like a mad clown, like a devil.
Then, without warning, Xavier slammed his fist into the floor. A crater burst beneath it.
It shouldn't have been possible. Not with his weak body, the one Percival had sabotaged since birth. Not without RealmHeart.
The sound snapped Alcmena's attention to him. Even Percival paused, startled.
"X-Xavier..." Alcmena murmured, voice barely audible. Guilt pierced through him like a blade. "I'm so sorry—"
But Xavier cut him off.
"Why..."
A low, tremulous whisper.
"Why is it always you..."
A ripple of aura rose from him—his signature calm azure, now tainted by crimson threads. It licked off his skin like liquid flame.
His hair flickered gold for a heartbeat. His dragon-like irises glowed. Tears streamed down his face.
"You took... everything from me..."
"For what?" His voice cracked with pain. "For your own amusement?"
Alcmena stepped forward. "Xavier, please—"
"Over and over," Xavier shouted, slamming his fists into the ground again and again, "I tried to run. I tried to let go. I tried to move on—like Big Brother and Big Sis. But I failed."
"I have nightmares. Of your face. Of my father's blood. Every single night."
The air turned heavy. Suffocating. And then—it came.
The draconic presence.
It surged like a silent scream. Cold. Massive. Ancient.
Through gritted teeth, trembling with rage and tears, Xavier whispered:
"I'll make you pay."
He rose.
"I'll take from you what you took from me."
"I'LL MAKE YOU PAY!"
Power erupted from him like a tidal wave—blasting outward in a spiraling shock of red and blue energy. The ground shook. His pupils slit like a dragon's. Rings of black shadowed his eyes.
Alcmena and Percival stood frozen. Neither spoke.
Something inside Xavier... had awakened.
Xavier's body was swallowed whole by a searing gold and crimson aura, the once-calm azure light snuffed out like a candle in a storm. The golden blaze erupted upward in a blinding torrent, rending apart the very air. The earth cracked, buildings cracked, and the sky itself seemed to recoil from the sheer pressure.
The Dragon Seed—buried deep within him—responded not with grace, but with violence. It convulsed, pulsing in sync with the agony of his soul.
His cries of anguish warped into guttural, inhuman screeches—echoes of something ancient, something buried, now clawing its way out.
Alcmena's body, still in its cat form, began to disintegrate into motes of golden light. Each fragment drifted toward Xavier, merging with him, as if answering some primeval call.
"What the hell is going on?!" Alcmena gasped in a voice both distant and terrified. "Xavier! You have to stop! You're losing yourself! You must fight it—before it's too late!"
But the warning came too late.
A roar—deeper, darker, and more primal than anything natural—erupted from Xavier's chest. It wasn't just sound; it was force incarnate. The shockwave vaporized stone, uprooted nearby trees, and shattered what remained of the destroyed part of London.
His body twisted violently as it changed. Hair grew rapidly, wild, gold, and untamed. Gleaming draconic scales burst through his skin, coating him like living armor. Fangs lengthened into cruel weapons. His frame stretched, muscles warping as his height shot upward—matching Percival's, then surpassing it.
A tail emerged in grotesque detail—sinew, bone, muscle, and scales forming all at once, coiling behind him like a predator ready to strike. Then came the horns—one perfectly shaped like Alcmena's, while the other on the left was broken, jagged and incomplete, as if some divine force refused to let it fully manifest.
His skin turned a haunting silver hue, reminiscent of Alcmena's dragon form, but colder—less celestial, more apocalyptic. Both hands and feet were now claws—elongated and lethal, carved for destruction. Energy pulsed beneath his skin, flowing like molten gold and bloodfire through veins etched across his chest and under his translucent scales.
Runes shimmered across his back, etched down his spine like cursed scripture. More lined his face, beneath eyes now glowing a sharp, cosmic gold—terrifying and unblinking. Each detail, every flicker of movement, screamed of both divinity and monstrosity.
And yet, despite the terror it inspired, this form bore the unmistakable sorrow of a boy lost within it.
What stood before Percival now wasn't a student. It wasn't a prince. It wasn't even Xavier.
It was something else.
A hybrid of man and dragon. A weapon forged from despair. A soul drowned in rage.
Another roar ripped through the realm—louder than the last. Final. Terrifying.
RealmHeart... Stage III.