The cocoon of light pulsed in the void, a sphere of gold that had no right to exist in a place where nothing should live. It was the only warmth in the endless cold, the only motion in the stillness. For long moments that felt like hours, days, centuries: it simply floated, a seed waiting to break ground.
Then the first crack appeared.
Light bled through the fissure, not the soft gold of the cocoon's surface, but something deeper. Something that had been forged in the heart of a dragon who had walked through three dungeons, absorbed three fragments of a dead king's power, and torn a rift through reality to trap his brother.
The crack widened. Another joined it. Then another. The cocoon began to split along seams that had been waiting for this moment since the evolution began.
A silhouette moved within.
