Owen's body was intact. The dungeon had returned him safely.
But something felt different.
Owen stood and looked around the empty dimension. The same floating islands. The same dead gardens. The same silent palace. Yet the air itself carried a weight it hadn't held before.
The fragment.
He had absorbed it. Integrated it. The second piece of Dominus's power was now part of him.
Owen closed his eyes and reached inward. His system responded immediately, but beneath the familiar interface, something else stirred. A connection. A thread of mana leading from his core to the dimension around him.
He followed it and the thread led to the Hatchery.
Owen crossed the distance in seconds, landing before the massive structure. It had been offline since Dominus granted him ownership, a dead shell of crystallized stone and dormant magic.
But now it pulsed, a Faint light glowed through cracks in its walls. The rhythm matched his heartbeat. His breath. His existence.
