The throne room's morning light cast long shadows across the marble floor. Null stood in his dragon form, cosmic scales shifting with distant galaxies, while Aurora waited in her humanoid shape. Today marked a milestone—his first transformation.
"The process is simpler than most expect," Aurora said, golden eyes warm. "Close your eyes and imagine a human body. Your ether and your intent will do the rest."
That was it. There was no complex ritual, no detailed instructions, just visualization and will.
Null closed his eyes. He didn't overthink it or let Genius Mind analyze the process. He pictured a human form and let instinct guide him.
The transformation was instant.
Blinding light erupted from his body, filling the throne room with radiance that made Aurora shield her eyes. The energy release felt like a dam breaking—not painful, just sudden and overwhelming. One second, he was a dragon, the next, the light was fading.
Null opened his eyes from a different height. The throne room looked larger from this perspective. His claws were gone, replaced by hands. His wings, his tail—all transformed into something else entirely.
A polished shield hung on the wall, its surface reflective enough to serve as a mirror. Null walked toward it, noting how different movement felt on two legs instead of four.
The reflection stopped him cold.
He didn't look five years old. The boy staring back appeared to be eight, maybe nine. He was taller than a normal child, with proportions that suggested someone who'd grown naturally to that age rather than transformed into it.
His appearance was flawless in a way that felt unnatural. He was not just handsome—perfect. Every feature aligned with mathematical precision. Cheekbones that caught light at optimal angles. Skin without a single imperfection. Hair that fell in natural waves, black as the void between stars, with hints of cosmic light when it moved.
This wasn't vanity. The Cosmic Body had not just given him a human form but optimized it according to some primordial standard of biological perfection. Every cell, every structure, was built to an ideal that transcended normal human limits.
But his eyes made everything else secondary.
Where whites should have been, there was a void—black deeper than night, with distant stars twinkling in the depths. The iris and pupil had merged into something else entirely: a black hole. Not metaphorically, but visually accurate, it was a perfect circle of absolute darkness surrounded by a bright ring of light, the photon ring that marked the event horizon. The accretion disk cut horizontally across the center, a band of brilliant white against the darkness.
They were impossible eyes. Eyes that shouldn't exist in a human face. Yet there they were, staring back at him from a five-year-old's body.
"Remarkable," Aurora breathed. She'd moved closer, studying his new form. "Most first transformations are flawed. Proportions wrong, features blurred. But this…"
She trailed off, circling him slowly. "Your element is affecting the transformation. Those eyes, the way you carry yourself—it's not entirely human or dragon."
Before Null could respond, the throne room doors burst open. A wind dragon messenger stumbled in, panic written across every scale.
"My queen! The border—" The messenger gasped for breath. "The Order! They're here!"
Aurora's entire demeanor shifted. Warmth became cold command. "How many?"
"A thousand, my queen. But they're not normal dragons. They're… wrong. Black ink dripped from their bodies, moving like liquid and solid. The same as that scout from years ago, but an entire army of them."
The Order of Ascension. Four years of silence broken by an army of their corrupted abominations.
"Alert the elders," Aurora commanded. "Full deployment to the eastern border. Now."
The messenger flew off immediately. Aurora was already moving toward the door when Null spoke.
"I'm coming."
She stopped, turning to look at her son in his new human form.
"I didn't train these last four years just to sit around," Null said, his voice carrying absolute certainty.
Aurora studied him for a long moment. She saw something in those cosmic eyes—not childish eagerness for battle, but calm readiness. The confidence of someone who knew exactly what they were capable of.
"Stay close to me," she said finally.
"I'll meet you there," Null replied.
Before she could object, he was already moving—not running—flying. His human form lifted off the ground. There were no wings, no visible propulsion—just his spatial manipulation bending reality to carry him upward. He passed through the throne room's massive windows like they were air, space folding around him.
Aurora watched him go, her face a mixture of pride and concern. Then she transformed, golden scales erupting from her human form, and launched after him.
The eastern border was chaos waiting to happen.
A thousand abominations stood in rough formation, their bodies wrong in every way. Dragon-shaped but made of living tar, black ink constantly dripping and reforming. Eyes that weren't quite eyes. Mouths that opened too wide. The same wrongness Aurora had fought years ago, multiplied into an army.
The Order had spent four years creating this force—four years of experimenting on their own kind, twisting dragons into these monstrosities.
The dragon forces assembled rapidly—elders arriving in bursts of elemental power. Warriors taking positions. The tension thick enough to cut.
But before the armies could clash, a small figure descended from the sky.
Null landed gently between the two forces, his human form looking absurdly out of place on a battlefield. He stood alone between armies, hands in his pockets, expression completely calm.
A thousand corrupted dragons roared as one, the sound shaking the earth. Black ink sprayed from their mouths, their bodies writhing with anticipation for slaughter.
Null tilted his head slightly, cosmic eyes surveying the army before him. When he spoke, his voice carried across the field despite its casual tone.
"This is it? Four years of preparation, and you brought a thousand knock-offs?" He sounded genuinely disappointed. "I was hoping for something interesting. This is barely a warm-up."
The abominations roared louder, some already charging forward, unable to contain their corrupted rage.
Null didn't move. Didn't take a fighting stance. Just stood there, a small boy looking at an army of monsters like they were beneath notice.
Behind him, the dragon forces held their breath. In front of him, corruption incarnate rushed forward.
The battle for the border was about to begin