I stand there for a long moment, breathing slowly, letting the last echoes of violence fade.

  My face is slick with blood.

  Not red.

  Dragonkin blood is wrong. Thick and viscous, bile-like, a greenish gold that clings to skin and scale alike. It drips from my jaw in slow, heavy strands, steaming faintly where it hits the stone floor. The smell is sharp and acrid, like hot metal and rot mixed together.

  I wipe at my mouth with the back of my forearm, smearing more of it across my skin instead of cleaning it away.

  As the bodies finally still, something else happens.

  Greenish-gold energy begins to leak out of them.

  It seeps from torn flesh and shattered scale like smoke drawn upward by an unseen current. It coils and twists in the air for a heartbeat before rushing toward me, slamming into my chest, and sinking beneath my skin.

  The sensation is subtle, but unmistakable.

  Pressure builds behind my eyes.

  My vision flickers.

  Level up! Level 1 to 2.

  Another line follows immediately.

  Increasing Primary statistics.

  I grunt softly as the change settles in.

  It isn’t dramatic. There’s no surge, no overwhelming rush of power. Instead, it feels like something being tightened by a fraction of a turn. Muscles drawing just a little firmer. Bones setting just a little denser. My balance shifts, imperceptibly improved.

  I can feel it.

  It’s real.

  It’s just… small.

  I frown, considering the sensation. In this body, already built for violence and endurance, the increase barely registers. I suspect that for someone smaller, weaker, and more fragile, it would feel enormous. A revelation.

  For me, it’s a reminder.

  Growth is coming.

  I look down at the Dragonkin corpses.

  They were strong. Disciplined. Purpose-built. And they still died quickly once I reached them.

  Good.

  I crouch and start working.

  The armor they wear isn’t decorative. It’s real gear, layered plates fitted carefully over their torsos and shoulders, reinforced at joints and strapped tight with thick leather and metal clasps. I take my time with it, undoing buckles, cutting straps where they resist. The work is methodical, almost calming.

  I peel the armor away piece by piece.

  The plates are heavy, built to take punishment. I test one in my hand, flexing it slightly. It doesn’t bend.

  Useful.

  I strip both bodies, stacking armor neatly against the wall. Breastplates. Pauldrons. Greaves sized for their strange anatomy. I don’t try to wear any of it. Not yet. This is about control, not convenience.

  When I’m done with the armor, I take their spears.

  Long hafts, solid construction, wicked leaf-shaped heads stained dark with my blood. I heft one, feeling the balance.

  Then I turn and hurl them back through the doorway.

  The spears fly end over end, clattering and skidding across the stone floor of the execution chamber beyond. They land near the throne, unmistakable markers of what has already happened out here.

  A message.

  A warning.

  I straighten and look down the corridor.

  It stretches away into shadow, lined with heavy doors set into stone walls. Each one is thick, reinforced, and built to contain something dangerous. The air feels different here than it did in the Death House. Less final. More tense. Like the place is holding its breath.

  I reach back and pick up my sword.

  The greatsword’s hilt settles into my grip naturally now, the weight familiar, almost comforting. I rest it against my shoulder again and start forward.

  My footsteps echo down the hall.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  Whatever is waiting ahead, it knows I’m coming.

  ***

  I move.

  There’s no ceremony to it. No pause to listen for footsteps or weigh options. I walk down the corridor like I own it, shoulders brushing stone, sword loose in my hand, my stride long and unhurried.

  The first Dragonkin rounds a corner ahead of me.

  He has time to see me.

  That’s all.

  The greatsword comes around in a flat, brutal arc and takes him from shoulder to hip. Scale and armor part like they were never meant to stop anything heavier than hope. He hits the wall in two pieces and slides down, already dead.

  Another one charges from a side passage, spear leveled, shield up.

  I let him hit me.

  The spear punches into my chest, driving deep enough that I feel the pressure in my spine. Pain flashes, sharp and bright, then dulls instantly. I grab the haft, yank him forward, and cave his skull in with the pommel.

  He crumples.

  The wound closes while I’m still standing over him.

  I can feel it happening now without looking. Flesh knitting. Muscle sealing. Bone settling. My body refuses to stay injured for more than a heartbeat at a time.

  Without it, this would be harder.

  Not impossible. Harder.

  I know that.

  I push on.

  The hallways branch and twist, heavy doors lining the walls at regular intervals. Some are open, some sealed tight. Behind a few, I hear movement. Breathing. Shifting. Watching.

  The Dragonkin don’t organize. They don’t fall back or regroup. They come at me as they encounter me, disciplined but not clever, relying on strength, armor, and numbers that don’t matter.

  One lunges from behind a doorway.

  I backhand him hard enough that his neck snaps with a wet crack.

  Another tries to pin me with a spear while a second circles.

  I let the spear stay buried in my side while I split the circling one from collarbone to groin, then tear the weapon free and drive it straight through the first guard’s eye.

  Greenish-gold energy bleeds out of each corpse as they fall, streaming into me in thin, eager ribbons. It feeds the heat in my chest, the constant low hum of strength that never quite fades.

  I don’t stop.

  I don’t slow.

  At one point, three of them rush me at once, spears and blades flashing. For a moment, the corridor is a tangle of steel and scale and impact, my body taking hit after hit. Cuts open my arms. A blade bites into my thigh. A spear scrapes ribs.

  It would have mattered.

  If I didn’t heal so fast.

  Instead, the damage vanishes almost as quickly as it’s inflicted. The Dragonkin start to hesitate when they see wounds closing in front of their eyes. When they see blows that should cripple me fail to slow me down.

  That hesitation kills them.

  I rip one apart with my hands, claws tearing through armor and flesh. I decapitate another with a short, brutal swing. The last one tries to run.

  I throw my sword.

  It punches through his back and pins him to the wall.

  I retrieve it without a word.

  The corridors grow quieter.

  Bodies litter the stone now, broken and twisted, their blood pooling and steaming faintly on the floor. The air smells like iron and heat and something faintly burned.

  I pause only once, leaning a shoulder against the wall for a moment, breathing deep.

  My regeneration hums, pushing me forward, stitching me together faster than fatigue can build. I’m aware of it now in a way I wasn’t before. A constant pressure, urging me onward.

  If that ever stops working.

  I push the thought aside.

  I reach a wider passage and follow it until it opens into a crossroads.

  A four-way intersection.

  The ceiling rises here, the stonework more deliberate, reinforced. Old markings are carved into the walls, worn smooth by time and use. This place feels different.

  Important.

  Something waits at the center.

  It is small.

  A black dragon, no larger than a horse, crouched low on powerful limbs. Its scales are glossy and dark, absorbing light instead of reflecting it. Smoke curls lazily from its nostrils as it watches me approach, eyes sharp and intelligent.

  It does not charge.

  It does not retreat.

  It simply waits.

  My vision flickers.

  Black Dragon Guard Commander: Threat: High.

  I tighten my grip on the sword.

  So.

  This one matters.

  ***

  The dragon’s head pulls back.

  The motion is small, almost lazy, but my body reacts before my mind does. Something cold and ancient spikes through me, a warning carried on instinct older than language.

  Move.

  I throw myself sideways just as the black dragon vomits.

  Acid splashes across the stone where I had been standing a heartbeat before, hissing and steaming as it eats into the floor. The sound crawls up my spine, a wet, hungry sizzle that promises finality.

  The memory slams into me.

  Weakness: Acid.

  My jaw tightens.

  That would not heal.

  I don’t need the System to explain it. I know it the same way I know how to breathe. Acid would chew through this body and keep going. It would not knit. It would not close. It would not forgive.

  It could have hurt me badly.

  It could have sent me limping back to the Death House, dragging myself to the throne to wait and mend what could still be mended.

  It could have killed me.

  The dragon whirls on me, fast as a striking viper, its body coiling and uncoiling with brutal grace. Its jaws snap forward, teeth bared, each one slick with fresh acid that drips in slow, lethal strands.

  I dodge.

  Barely.

  The bite whistles past my shoulder close enough that I feel heat and corrosion in its wake. I twist and stumble, claws scraping stone as I scramble to keep distance between my flesh and that shining wet death.

  My heart pounds.

  For the first time since I rose from the throne, fear is sharp and clear.

  This thing can kill me.

  I straighten just in time for the tail.

  It comes around in a wide, brutal arc, spiked and heavy, moving with far more speed than something that size has any right to. I bring my arms up on instinct, but it slams into my chest anyway.

  The impact drives the breath out of me in a harsh grunt.

  Pain explodes.

  It feels like being lashed with a barbed whip. The spikes rake across my torso, tearing through skin and muscle, opening my chest in ugly, ragged lines. Blood sprays, dark against the stone.

  I stagger back a step.

  Then the pain fades.

  Not slowly.

  Instantly.

  Heat floods the wounds, flesh pulling together, muscle sealing, skin crawling back into place as if it had never been torn. The blood stops flowing. The sting evaporates.

  The dragon freezes.

  Just for a fraction of a second.

  Its eyes widen, pupils flaring as it realizes I am not writhing. I am not screaming. I am not on the ground.

  I am still standing.

  Still advancing.

  That hesitation costs it.

  I step forward as it recoils, boots grinding on acid-scarred stone. My grip tightens on the greatsword, muscles coiling, power gathering.

  I ram the blade forward.

  Steel punches into the dragon’s neck with a wet, meaty resistance. The impact jars my arms as the sword buries itself deep, slicing through scale and muscle in a single brutal thrust.

  The dragon tries to roar.

  Tries to scream.

  Acid spills uselessly from its jaws as the sound dies in its throat. Its body thrashes, claws gouging furrows into the floor, wings flaring wide and scraping stone.

  I don’t give it space.

  I surge forward, closing the distance, teeth bared, blood roaring in my ears.

  I am upon it.