Thankfully, that ordeal is behind me. I survived the war—barely, finally obtaining the one thing I’ve craved since my reincarnation: <Polymorph> magic.
"To think I had to endure so much for something so basic," I muttered, my voice echoing faintly in the cave.
I kneel by the pond, gazing at the reflection that stares back at me.
The reflection revealed a 4.5-foot-tall boy with striking blue hair, horns extending from the sides of his head towards the top, and a sleek blue-scaled tail swaying gently behind him. Small wings unfurl from his back.
Most striking of all are his eyes—one molten gold, shimmering with an inner fire; the other a fierce, burning red that seems to pierce the very darkness. Just above his left eye rests a third, pale green eye, slowly pulsing with mysterious energy, as though gazing from a deeper, hidden plane beyond the veil.
“Not bad,” I murmured, nodding slightly. Yet, a faint sense of disappointment lingered.
Three centuries of obsession—and now that I finally acquired it, I felt nothing. The obsession that had kept me alive all these years in this cruel world now felt meaningless. Perhaps it was my long life as a dragon, overshadowing the three decades I spent as a human, that has dulled my desire for a humanoid body.
For now, this would have to suffice.
I laid on my back, staring at the ceiling of my cave in darkness, my thoughts drifting to the countless struggles that have brought me here.
Barely surviving my hatching—a moment of chaos and savagery, where mothers, uni-sexual predators by nature, would devour their own offspring to cull the weak.
Many dreamt of reincarnating as a dragon. So did I— until the sad reality strikes in. Male dragons are rare, and when born, they're often defective in both body and mind unless they are born with unique magical attributes.
I still remember the terror of being picked up by one of my mothers, her claws gripping me as she inspected me—before opening her jaws to eat me. The realization that I was going to meet my end again blanked my mind, and in sheer desperation to survive—I spat into her mouth.
Disgusting, but effective.
She roared in fury and hurled me into the wild like a stone. That moment, tumbling through the air and landing hard on the unforgiving ground, burned into my soul to this day—a reminder of how lucky I was not to die there.
The wild proved no kinder. Monsters coveted a dragon’s meat by instinct, known as a potent elixir for boosting mana reserves. My mere existence made me a target. Worse still, I had emerged from the egg with broken inheritance; the ancestral knowledge meant to pass through bloodlines was fragmented within me.
Adding to that list of misfortunes was the physical defect—three oversized eyes of different size and color. The imbalance due to it made me slower, clumsier—an easy target for predators and nature.
I fought to survive against nature, beasts, and even my own kin, and over time, the imbalance slowly corrected itself, and my life began improving, as far as to owning my own land.
Now, I own this small oasis that I created in a faraway desert—a land deemed worthless by all and far away from the gaze of powerful beings.
It took me a couple of decades to reach this stage, but I suppose it's worth it.
I reach upward, my hand stretching toward the ceiling as I drift in thought about leading a peaceful quiet life.
"Mm?!"
A sudden pain jolts through me and warm blood splatters across my face. I freeze, staring at where my right arm should be—only to find it missing.
Instinct takes over. I roll to the side, scrambling to my feet.
“Too careless,” I mumbled as I reprimanded myself for dropping my guard.
Adjusting my vision, I spot the culprit: a pale yellow dragon standing a few paces away, teeth curled into a wild grin, golden blood dripping from the corners of its mouth.
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