Light.
But not the soft light of a bedside lamp. Not even the clinical fluorescence of a hospital ceiling. This was something otherworldly. Purified. Vast.
It filled everything. Not with warmth, but with a kind of sacred emptiness. There was no ground beneath him. No sky above. No heartbeat. No breath. Yet Yuki existed. That alone was confusing. There was nothing to hold, nothing to see, yet he was aware.
Particles floated around him. Gold and violet. Each shimmered with an intelligence, like stardust caught between memory and dream. He felt himself drifting through them, weightless and untethered.
Something else moved.
It wasn't a voice, not in the way humans speak. But it filled him with undeniable meaning.
<< System Log >>
[ Booting System Core ]
[ Scanning For Host File ]
[ System Error! Host Not Found ]
[ Scanning For Nearest Compatible Host ]
[ System Error! Wrong Host File: Yuki Igarashi ]
[ Status: Alive (Not Compatible) ]
[ Soul and Body Integrity: Fragile ]
[ As An Emergency Protocol, System Will Be Installing On Host: Yuki Igarashi ]
[ Installing Divine Dragon God System.... ]
[ Installation Successful ]
Ding!
[ Host Can't Endure The System In Current State ]
[ System Will Be Inactive And Wait For Host's Death ]
Ding!
[ Host Had Died ]
[ Searching For A Suitable Vessel ]
[ Suitable Vessel Found ]
It wasn't terrifying. Not exactly. The words weren't words, but concepts that entered his mind directly. As if the laws of the universe were adjusting themselves around his soul. Even without a body, Yuki understood.
He had died.
And yet, something had claimed him before he goes to heaven or hell.
The next message came with a strange brightness, like a smile etched into sound.
[ Welcome to the Divine Dragon God System, Host ]
[ Adaptation In Progress ]
He wanted to speak, to ask what this meant. He wanted to cry or scream or laugh. But there was no mouth. No sound.
Then came the sensation of falling.
It wasn't like tumbling from a height. This was deeper, like plummeting through time, through fire, through layers of forgotten myths.
Images flooded his mind, not from his eyes, but from something more ancient.
He saw vast wings that could eclipse the sun. Mountain-sized beasts coiling around the bones of worlds. He felt storms of ice and hellfire rip through skies. Roars that shook reality. Endless hunger. Endless power.
And then, silence.
Darkness enveloped him once again.
---
Wet.
That was the first true sensation he recognized. Real. Physical.
Warm liquid surrounded him, thick and pulsing. His limbs felt strange, short and soft. His body was curled tightly, suspended in something flexible but firm. It beat like a second heart. Protective.
He could not see clearly, but the world around him throbbed with life.
His thoughts were foggy. Slow.
But he realised he was inside something. Some kind of shell probably.
"I have been Reincarnated?"
Memory flashed again: those last few chapters of the novel. The ones filled with systems, evolution menus, skills, ranks.
And then, a soft chime echoed.
Ding!
[ Host Is Currently In Embryonic Stage ]
[ Do You Want To See Your Status? ]
[ Yes / No ]
Without hesitation, Ren answered with a single mental push.
Yes.
The system responded instantly.
| DIVINE DRAGON GOD SYSTEM |
Status:
Name: Yuki Igarashi
Age: 5 Years (Physical)
Lifespan: 30 Years
Species: Frost Dragon
Level: 1
Strength: 7
Agility: 5
Defense: 5
Mana: 1
Skills: Shell Sense (F)
System Tabs:
Dragon God Codex: A vast, evolving archive. Allows the host to absorb and catalog the traits, species, bloodlines, and skills of dragons and other mythic beasts.
Fusion Lab: A unique domain within the system. It allows stored genetic or metaphysical data to be combined. To create Hybrid evolutions, multi-trait skill trees, and new bloodlines can be synthesized here.
Yuki blinked mentally, trying to comprehend it all.
He was now a dragon.
Not metaphorically. Not symbolically.
He had become something completely other than human.
An unknown species.
The words sent a strange chill through him, even in the warmth of the fluid surrounding his body. He wasn't even born yet, but his age was already 5. Maybe Dragons take that long to hatch.
Nevertheless, he felt fragile as if a wrong breath would tear him apart.
Level: 1…
Skills: Only one… Shell Sense.
He tried to activate it.
Instantly, a pulse of sensation traveled outward. Though he could not see, he could now feel the shape of the egg around him. The texture. The thickness. Faint vibrations from the outside world echoed inward like distant drums.
Somewhere beyond the shell, a strange voice moved.
From the silhouette, it appeared to be a small human girl.
He couldn't understand her language, but he could tell it was foreign and unknown to him.
"I am being carried? Where is this little girl taking me?"
Yuki swallowed down his fear, or tried to. He had dreamed of dragons his whole life. Fantasized about becoming one. Now that he had, the reality was much more terrifying.
He was not a born soaring apex predator.
He was a small egg.
A fragile life at the bottom of the hierarchy.
Thirty-year lifespan…
That part struck him as odd. Dragons in myths lived for centuries. Why was his number so low? Was it due to his species? Or the condition of his soul?
No answers came.
Only more silence.
He curled tighter inside the shell. Not because he was afraid, but because some part of him still longed for the blanket he died in. The warm voice of Maya. The flicker of a tablet screen. The warm, teasing laugh of someone who remembered his name when no one else did.
"I'm still Yuki," he whispered inside his mind. "Even if I'm something else now."
He didn't know if the girl outside would welcome or destroy him. But for the first time in so long, he had something precious.
A second chance.
And this time, he wouldn't be a forgotten character.