The atmosphere inside the localized barrier was no longer just tense; it was pressurized by the weight of a dying star. Vespera's obsidian wings beat against the air, each flap sounding like a crack of thunder in a confined space. Her golden eyes had bled into a slit-pupiled gold, the predatory gaze of a creature that had witnessed the birth and death of galaxies.
"I told you, Rayn," she whispered, her voice vibrating through his very marrow. "I'm not going easy on you. If you want to sit on a throne, you have to be made of something harder than the swords meant to kill you. I'm ramping up to twenty percent. If you die, I'll just find a way to drag your soul back from hell and kill you again."
Rayn didn't reply. He couldn't. His lungs were burning, and the copper tang of blood was thick in his throat. He stood in the center of the yard, his feet planted firmly in the blood-soaked grass. He wasn't moving. He wasn't attacking. He was a statue carved from spite.
"She's coming, kid," Silas hissed in the back of his mind. "Twenty percent speed for a Dragon is enough to outrun the perception of a God. Don't look with your eyes—they'll lie to you. Look with the Void."
Voom—!
The sound of the air breaking followed Vespera, meaning she was already moving faster than her own noise. Rayn felt a phantom pressure on his left, then his right, then above.
CRACK!
A kick shattered his collarbone. THUD! A palm strike caved in his chest. SHRED! Her talons raked across his torso, tearing his shirt into useless rags. His muscular, six-pack physique was now a canvas of jagged red lines and bruising purple. He looked like a piece of meat left in a cage with a tiger.
Vespera's laughter echoed from everywhere at once. "Rayn! Don't tell me you're already done! I'm not like that pathetic bitch Elza! You think you can wait for a gap? You think you can find a rhythm? My rhythm is the heartbeat of the abyss! There are no gaps here, only your impending funeral!"
Rayn remained silent. He endured the agony, the white-hot flashes of pain that threatened to shut down his brain. He refused to scream. He had learned that screaming was for the weak, a waste of oxygen that could be better used for breathing. He kept his eyes shut tight, focusing entirely on the Void Scourge energy within him.
He saw it. A streak of violent spiritual color. It was coming from the front.
"Now!" Rayn screamed internally.
He snapped his eyes open. He didn't reach for her hands—that was what she expected. He lunged forward, his fingers clawing like hooks, aiming directly for her head. He wanted to crush her skull, to end the momentum of her assault with one brutal, decisive grab.
But Vespera was a Sovereign for a reason.
She didn't dodge. She pivoted on a dime, her hand moving like a blur of silver light. She didn't block his strike; she intercepted his wrist.
SCREEE-CH!
The sound wasn't human. It was the sound of gristle being forced away from bone. With a casual, almost bored flick of her wrist, Vespera applied a torque that defied physics.
RIP.
Rayn's right arm was torn clean from his shoulder.
A fountain of thick, crimson blood sprayed into the air, drenching the grass in a steaming river of gore. Rayn stumbled back, his balance shattered. He looked down at the stump where his arm had been, then looked at his severed limb lying a few feet away on the ground—the silver bracelet and the black ring still shining on the dead hand.
He let out a sharp, ragged gasp, his vision swimming in a sea of gray. He fell to his knees, his remaining hand clutching the spurting wound.
"Hgh... hugh..." Rayn panted, the pain so intense it felt like his soul was being put through a meat grinder. "Silas... tell me... is there a fucking chance... can she stitch this back?"
"Rayn, listen to me," Silas said, his voice unusually calm. "Why would she rip it off if she couldn't fix it? But I'll be damned... you didn't scream. Most Sovereigns would have been begging for death after the first inch of skin tore."
"I've... I've felt worse," Rayn managed to grate out through clenched teeth. "When I put on that black ring... I screamed until my lungs gave out. I learned then... screaming doesn't do shit. It doesn't stop the pain. It doesn't win the fight. Being calm is the only way to stay alive.
As Rayn spoke, the silver bracelet on the severed hand began to glow with a malevolent, crimson light. The dragon-flesh within it pulsed. Suddenly, the hand on the ground twitched. It didn't just move—it levitated.
The severed arm flew through the air, snapping back onto Rayn's shoulder with a wet, sickening THWACK. Tendons reached out like tiny, hungry worms, weaving themselves back together. Bone fused to bone. Nerves reconnected in a flash of electrical agony. Within seconds, the wound was gone. Not even a scar remained.
Rayn stared at his right hand, flexing his fingers. "What the fuck... what was that?"
Vespera walked toward him, her wings retracting slightly, her expression shifting back to a dark, playful smirk. "You're wearing two of the greatest treasures in the history of the Nine Heavens, Rayn. That silver bracelet is made of my own flesh and blood—the flesh of a Supreme Dragon. It possesses a 'Primal Regenerative Core.' As long as you have the energy to fuel it, you can't be dismembered. It will always find its way back to the source."
Rayn frowned, looking at the black ring on his finger. "If these treasures are so great, why did I stay in a coma for three days after the first fight? Why didn't they just 'fix' me then?"
"They did fix you," Vespera replied, flicking a glob of his blood off her cheek. "If you hadn't been wearing that ring, you wouldn't have been in a coma for three days. You would have been a corpse in a box for eternity. The doctors were shocked you woke up at all. The ring accelerated a month-long recovery into seventy-two hours. Now that you've refined the bracelet, your healing factor is officially in the realm of the 'Undying.'"
Rayn nodded, a dark satisfaction blooming in his chest. "Good. Then I don't have to worry about breaking."
"Exactly," Vespera hissed, her golden eyes flashing. "Now, get up. The sun hasn't set yet, and I'm still bored."
The rest of the afternoon was a symphony of violence. Vespera was a relentless butcher. Over the next six hours, Rayn was "killed" dozens of times. She tore his legs off to teach him balance. She gouged his eyes to teach him spiritual sight. She crushed his ribs to teach him how to breathe through a collapsed lung.
The backyard became a swamp of blood and sweat. Because of the bracelet and the ring, Rayn healed instantly, but the pain remained. He felt every snap, every tear, and every puncture. By the time the sun finally dipped below the horizon and the ghost lilies began to bloom, Rayn was a hollow shell of a man, his mind pushed to the very brink of insanity.
But he hadn't lost one body part: his head and his private parts. Vespera, even in her bloodlust, seemed to have a sense of "utility" for those specific areas.
They finally staggered back into the house, drenched in gore. Rayn's body was physically whole, but his spirit was fraying at the edges.
"Go," Rayn muttered, leaning against the kitchen counter. "Go take a bath. You smell like a slaughterhouse. I'll make dinner. We need to eat before I pass out."
Vespera, seemingly energized by the violence, skipped toward the stairs. "Make it something heavy, Rayn! I used a lot of calories breaking your bones today!"
Rayn worked in a daze, his hands moving on autopilot. He made a massive pot of spicy beef stew and a mountain of steamed rice. By the time they sat down to eat, the house was filled with the savory scent of spices, masking the metallic tang of blood that still clung to their skin.
As they ate, Rayn looked at Vespera. She looked so human now—small, delicate, and beautiful. It was impossible to reconcile this girl with the monster that had just spent six hours ripping him apart.
"Hey, Vespera," Rayn said, his voice raspy. "When we were fighting... you mentioned you were a 'Supreme Dragon.' What the fuck does that actually mean? What's the hierarchy?"
Vespera stopped mid-bite, a spoonful of stew hovering near her lips. She laughed, a genuine, amused sound. "You have the soul of a dragon king, Rayn, and you still don't know your own family tree? Fine, listen well. This is the truth of the Dragon Race."
She leaned forward, her expression turning serious. "There are four main tiers of dragons in the multiverse.
Normal Dragons: These are the beasts of burden. They are huge, powerful, and can breathe fire or frost, but they lack high-level sapience. We use them for travel or to wipe out minor kingdoms. Even the 'weakest' of them could flatten this entire country in an afternoon, but in the grand scheme, they are just animals.
Xanthos (Shapeshifters): These are the elite. They can take human form, master complex magic, and lead armies. A single Xanthos dragon can bring a human empire to its knees.
Supreme Dragons: This is my tier. We are the Sovereigns. We can shapeshift, yes, but our raw power is cosmic. A Supreme Dragon at the peak of their power can turn an entire galaxy into ash in the time it takes to sneeze.
She paused, her eyes darkening. "We Supreme Dragons have three stages. I am currently in the Second Stage. I'm strong, but I'm not at my zenith. My brothers... they are all First Stage Supreme Dragons. They are the ones who kill Gods for sport. They are the ones who make the Heavens tremble."
Rayn's grip on his spoon tightened. "You said there were four types. What's the fourth?"
Vespera's smile vanished. She looked down at her bowl, her fingers trembling slightly. "I... I don't know, Rayn. My brothers only ever spoke of the three. Whenever the topic of the fourth type came up, they went silent. It was as if even speaking the name of the fourth tier was a curse that would bring the end of existence. It's a forbidden myth."
Rayn stared at her, the silence in the room growing heavy. "Then... what about me? You call me 'Master.' You say I'm a dragon. What tier am I?"
Vespera looked up, her golden eyes searching his. "I don't know that either. You're a human right now, Rayn. You're a vessel. We have to wait until you truly 'awaken' your dragon blood. Only then will we know if you're a King, a Sovereign... or something that even the Supreme Dragons fear."
Rayn nodded, the weight of the revelation sinking into his bones. He was a Tier 8 High Collector, a man who could heal from dismemberment, and yet he was still just a worm at the foot of a mountain he couldn't even see the top of.
He finished his meal in silence, his mind spinning with images of cosmic dragons and forbidden tiers. Exhaustion finally claimed him. He barely made it to his bed before his eyes slid shut, falling into a deep, dreamless sleep—the sleep of a man who was being forged into a god, one broken bone at a time.