The dream arrived without thunder but with a whisper—the last hiss of the dying fire seeping gradually into silence. Minjae trod in a world blazing with scarlet clouds, heat held suspended in the air and smoke burning his senses. The sky contorted and churned around him as if the very fabric of existence trembled under a hidden pressure pressing down from all sides.
He blinked, trying to stir, but his arms and legs would not respond. His flesh shone gently, filled with pale gold light that seethed through under the spastic glare, a glow alien and yet somehow familiar. His body had shrunk, was less substantial, but his head bore the weight of memories millions of years older than any he might have dreamed up in this lifetime.
He was not Yoo Minjae in this place.
He was Valmyros.
Before him, quietly curled in slight but stubborn hands, lay a baby dragon. Not encased in scales or flame, but enveloped in cloth—the gentle start of a life that glowed dimly with burgeoning power. The woman who clasped him was clad in battered armor, etched and dented by innumerable wars—the silver plate dulled and blackened, a battered pauldron slung around one shoulder, a jagged scar across her brow. But despite all her suffering, her hold on the child was firm, unshakable, with a clamoring, loving will.
"Little one," she gasped, her voice shivering but soft, as if the words themselves had soft power, "your father is on the edge of the world, fighting back the darkness. Never recall this—never recall. It is not merely for dragons he battles… but for all of us."
The sky above them screamed in pain.
Dragons scourged the skies as living storms, sweeping their great wings before them to send thunder crashing into shrieking blasts. Fire blazed from their mouths, fierce light opposing a tide of darkness—twisted, misshapen forms that slithered between worlds like abominations animating. Men on the ground lived in lines of sheer despair, faces screwed up with fear and iron resolve, fighting a war which ate away the fine edge between life and death.
And squarely in the midst of this destruction, stood Valmyrr.
A beast with dragon claws, ablaze in molten gold plates that burned like the fiery sun, his huge wings crashing thunder and flames into the heavens. Ancient runes of power encircled his frame, giving off fiery light as he grasped a sword unlike any other—a sword made of crystallized flame, crackling and roaring with unbridled power. Every swing sliced across the cracks dividing the sky into two, each bellow called man and wyrm alike to fight their landscape.
Minjae's eyes focused, his heart racing as he watched it all unfold. It was not a dream. It was a memory—unspoken, unblinking, and burning with truth.
The woman—Queen Aeltheria—to wrapped up the baby Valmyros against her breast, away from the blistering light that raged above. Her voice fell to a gentle whisper, almost a prayer.
"Remember this," she sighed, her voice thick with sacrifice and hope, "this is what it means for people to be one."
A far-off horn sounded across the war, its dirge-like note thick with sorrow and defiance.
Valmyrr whipped around in midair, wings spread wide, and charged headlong into the chasmous maw out of which the invading horrors flowed. Fire burst out in a titanic, burning bubble of erasing force, shattering creatures of shadow and chasm. His dying scream tore the air—a raw, heart-tearing ululation that seemed to burn fire into the very fabric of the universe.
Then came stillness.
Ash lazily drifted, as snowflakes falling upon blood-soaked stone and charred earth. The field was still. The wound closed.
The queen knelt, armor clicking softly as she knelt, gazing fixedly upon the vacant space where Valmyrr had disappeared.
"Gone," she whispered, voice cracking as tears filled and streamed down her face. "He held the line… alone.".
Dragons and guards stood guard over her, their faces etched in grief and respect. The price of their triumph bore down on them all.
Days became indistinguishable. Deep within the depths of the final fortress, Queen Aeltheria and the few remaining elders—human and draconic both—engraved a name into newly laid stone.
**Elandryss.**
A sanctuary born not of blood or strength, but of unbreakable tie and sacrifice.
The baby Valmyros gazed with eyes hard but alight with a glimmer of hope. Enveloped in swaddling cloth embroidered with crest of flame and crown, he was more than one who followed in the line. He was heir to something bigger than he was.
The dream changed, warping time like the twist of smoke off a smoldering ember. Grand halls burst from stone and ash, banners unfurled to meet the wind, and oaths sworn beneath burning torches. Flames were lit—not for war, but to remember—shining lights to weigh past and future on thin strands.
Then the dream plunged into darkness.
From the darkness a cry—a cry made by a man.
Yoo Minjae woke.
His fingers shook as he rolled over in his little bed, eyes watering against the dim morning light coming in the window. Distant rumble of the refrigerator puffed softly from the kitchen. Outside the city stirred far away—buses growling, voices carried faintly on the breeze.
But the fire in him had not gone out.
He swallowed hard, air unlevel, clinging to the edge of his blanket while he struggled to maintain the echo of memory.
"That wasn't a dream," he whispered to himself in the hushed room. "It was a fragment of me… something I'd buried deep."
He shut his eyes once more, breathing slowly, the specter of salt and smoke still in his senses.
He was no longer merely a student in a strange world. He bore the burden of a kingdom he had never possessed, the blood of dead soldiers, and the unspoken vow of a cause revived.
Minjae allowed the suffocating stillness to envelop him, letting it seep into his marrow.
And on this world's blue skies that were familiar, in this borrowed body, he spoke once more.
"I am not lost. Just… unshaped."
Beyond, the tide rolled on eternally, timeless and long-suffering.
---
📢 Update Schedule Announcement
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Thank you so, so much for your patience and support!
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