The rain was still warm.
That was the last thing Luin remembered—warm rain, thick and sticky as sweat, pouring from a sky that shouldn't have been dark. It was mid-July in Manila. No clouds on the forecast. The heat index that day had hit something insane, like 42. He’d even cursed about forgetting his umbrella again, his mind half-numb from twelve hours of unpaid overtime and the sputtering groan of jeepneys choking the streets.
Then something hit him.
Not something—everything.
A flash of white light. A sound like a god splitting the earth in half. Pain. Every nerve in his body lit up at once, and then—
Black.
Endless, unbroken black.
No sound. No air. No cold. No heat. No time. Just nothing.
He couldn’t move. Couldn’t even think clearly. His thoughts drifted like leaves in a stream, sliding past before he could catch them.
Was I hit by a car?
Did I faint?
Am I dreaming?
Then came sensation.
Not all at once. Just... something.
A warmth. All around him, like a bath. But thicker. It clung to his skin—slippery, cloying. He shifted slightly—or thought he did—and the warm liquid sloshed. It bubbled faintly against his nose. He inhaled on instinct and immediately choked.
But he didn’t cough. Couldn’t. No lungs, maybe. Or no air to cough with.
Something was very wrong.
He tried to open his eyes. Nothing changed.
He reached out. Or... tried to. His limbs didn’t feel like limbs. Too short. Too stiff. Something scraped against a hard surface just inches from his face. Curved. Smooth.
Pressure built behind his eyes. Panic swelled.
Luin curled—or tried to—and felt his spine press against another wall behind him. The space was tiny. Spherical. He was folded inside it. Suspended in fluid. His breath came in bubbles. He opened his mouth to scream, and warm goop rushed in.
Then—
Crk.
A hairline fracture. The faintest sliver of light pierced the darkness, stabbing through the fluid like a spear.
Luin flinched. Pain spiked behind his eyes.
But that light meant something.
It meant out.
His hands—no, his claws—scraped against the curve. He didn’t know how he was moving them. Instinct took over. He pressed at the fracture, again. Again.
The crack widened.
Light spilled in. Not bright, but blinding after the pitch black. The fluid around him shifted, sliding downward. Cold air licked at his snout—snout?—and he shuddered.
It was like being born through panic.
He shoved again, hard, and the curved surface gave way with a wet snap. Liquid poured out, slapping against something soft and matted below. The pressure inside vanished. Air rushed in to fill the void.
He collapsed forward, half-blinded, gasping on reflex.
His body sprawled across damp, spongy ground. Every muscle trembled. His limbs—short, scaled, and unfamiliar—refused to obey. The air tasted like mildew and blood, thick with rot.
He stared down at his hand.
No. Not a hand.
Three claws. Black, curved. Too small to be threatening. His arm was lean, scaled, a slick, uneven shade of dark blue, streaked with faint silver veins that pulsed gently beneath the skin—like lightning trapped under glass. His whole body shimmered under the dim green glow of the fungus on the walls, still glossy with birth fluid and twitching from the shock of emergence.
“What the... hell,” he croaked.
But no words came out. Only a low rasp—wet, raw, and wrong.
Something skittered behind the bone pile near the wall. Watching.
Luin’s nostrils flared. The air reeked—blood, filth, decay. And something else. Alive.
His heart thundered.
The air clung to him—no, his scales—like damp cloth.
He grunted, dragging himself upright. His tail—a weighty, twitching appendage—trailed behind him like a leash. His legs bent wrong, knees reversed, toes ending in hooked claws. He tried to balance the way a person would—heels, straight spine—but that only made things worse. His new body was low to the ground, reptilian, but dense. Compact. Like someone had taken a racing engine and crammed it into a lizard.
And everything smelled.
Too much. Too strong. Earth. Mold. Wet fur. Blood. The half-dried liquid from the egg clung to his scales, sour and sticky. He wanted to vomit but wasn’t sure this body could.
The room—or rather, the burrow—was barely larger than a crawlspace. Soft dirt and jagged stone pressed in from every side. Faint bioluminescent fungi pulsed from crevices. The cracked remains of his egg sat behind him: a pale, split husk, lined with glimmering silver on the inside like spider silk.
He turned, half-expecting to see a human face reflected in the mess.
Instead, he saw a little monster.
Small. Slender. Deep blue scales, the color of midnight oil, shimmered wet under the glow. Silver veins ran like lightning beneath the skin. In a puddle nearby, two yellow eyes stared back at him—slitted, reptilian, and hollow with confusion.
He blinked. So did the creature in the water.
“…what the f—”
His throat seized. He tried again, and what came out was a low growl, buzzing faintly at the edges—like static behind a snarl.
Luin froze. So did the air.
A soft, tingling sensation sparked at his fingertips.
The puddle rippled.
The few hairs still clinging to his neck stood on end. His heartbeat spiked.
Something inside him coiled.
Crack.
A thin arc of light leapt from his shoulder to the dirt—just a spark—but enough to flash white-hot against the walls. The fungal glow dimmed for a moment, as if recoiling.
“What the hell was that?” he rasped, blinking.
The tingling spread. His chest began to hum—subtle at first, then stronger. Like a battery waking up beneath his ribs. His claws clicked involuntarily against the stone. His nerves twitched. Another arc of electricity jumped from his foot to a nearby femur, flashing with a sharp snap.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Pain crackled up his spine.
He hissed, recoiling.
His whole body was out of sync—nerves firing in wrong places, muscles overreacting. He couldn’t tell if what he was feeling was biological, magical, or both.
But underneath the pain… something else.
It felt… right.
Like a switch he hadn’t known was there had flipped on.
He flexed again. No spark. But the static still tingled, like it was waiting.
Then he heard it.
A scrabbling sound.
Close.
From the far wall of the chamber, beneath the bones.
Something was breathing.
Luin turned slowly, crouched low. His pupils dilated wide—unnaturally fast. The green glow sharpened into texture, giving him clarity in the dark.
He could see it now. Or them.
Just barely.
And they were moving.
The sound grew louder.
Wet breathing. A dragging shuffle across the dirt—sloppy and confident. It didn’t care to hide itself. Predators didn’t need to.
Luin backed toward the wall, dragging his awkward limbs across the uneven ground. His tail snagged on something—bones, soft and brittle. They clattered.
Too loud.
The thing paused.
Then kept coming.
He could hear it sniffing now. The slow inhale of something tracking by scent.
It smells me.
His heart thudded in his chest. But it wasn’t just fear. His body was changing again. Reacting. Tensing.
Every instinct screamed at once. But they weren’t his.
Not the instincts of a man.
Older.
Deeper.
He crouched low, ready to run—though he didn’t even know if he could run in this body. He bared his teeth, ready to snarl, but the sound that escaped his throat wasn’t human. Wasn’t a threat.
It was a surge.
Electricity erupted from his chest—not in a line, not a bolt, but a wave. Raw, unshaped, explosive. It felt like someone had crammed a storm cloud into his ribs and smashed the ignition.
CRACK-BOOM!
A jagged burst of lightning tore from his body, arcing from claw to ceiling to wall, branding a glowing seam into the chamber. The air ignited with ozone. The sound thundered against the walls.
Fungus shattered. Bones jumped. Heat slapped his face.
And something in the dark shrieked.
It wasn’t a roar.
It was fear.
The figure scrambled backward, claws scrabbling. Luin caught only a glimpse—a lurching silhouette, too short and knotted with sinew, vanishing back into the tunnel it had come from.
Then silence.
Only the hum of fading static.
Luin dropped to one knee. Sparks still danced along his spine. His breath came hard and ragged.
Then, without warning, his chest pulsed again.
Not with pain.
With sound.
A click. Then a low hiss. Then—
[...System Detected...]
[Soul Signature: Mismatch — Recalibrating Host Parameters...]
[Warning: Incarnation Instability — Core Link Unstable]
[Species: Stormdrake Hatchling (███ Rarity)]
[Initializing Traits...]
[Error: Language Matrix Corrupted]
[Error: Evolution Tree Incomplete]
[Memory Shard Not Found]
[...Welcome, Luin.]
The words weren’t spoken aloud.
They burned across his vision, flashing behind his eyelids—searing and impossible to look away from. Each message came with a sharp pulse at the base of his skull, like tiny needles of light driving into his brain.
He staggered back, chest heaving.
“What the hell was that?” he whispered.
Except… it wasn’t a whisper. His voice came out twisted—rough, low, distorted. Half-hiss. Half-snarl.
System. Interface. It said my name.
He blinked, and for a moment, the air shimmered again—an afterimage, faint blue lines flickering in front of his eyes. A broken HUD. Nothing solid. Just static-laced fragments.
But he’d seen it.
His name.
That word.
Stormdrake.
He looked at his claws again. At the veins of silver running beneath his scales. At the hum in the air that felt like it belonged to him.
“…Drake,” he whispered.
The word tasted like lightning.
From the far end of the tunnel, all was still.
The watcher was gone.
Silence didn’t last.
It never does in places where the walls are made of dirt and rot.
Luin sat motionless, spine pressed to the uneven curve of the burrow wall, chest still buzzing faintly from the surge. Sparks crackled softly in his blood, fading. His breath left thin vapor in the cold, damp air.
Then came a sound.
Not from the tunnel this time.
From inside the chamber.
A squelch.
Then another.
Luin turned his head slowly. His vision still flickered, still catching phantom lines of blue light from the system that had blinked in and out like a broken UI.
Something moved in the shadows.
Shapes.
Three—no, four.
The first dragged itself from a cluster of cracked, jelly-slick eggs, its skin wet and glistening. Another oozed from behind a collapsed nest of rotting fur and bone, limbs twitching. Their breathing was shallow and uneven, like they’d only just learned how.
They’re like me, Luin thought.
Newborns.
But not like him.
The first was goblinoid—long-limbed, gray-skinned, hunched forward with milky, unfocused eyes. It stumbled with each step, teeth already bared in mindless hunger. The next, leaner and red-skinned, had stubby horns and a twitching tail that moved like a whip sensing prey. The third was an insectoid, round-bodied with a dozen segmented legs and a jaw that clicked open and shut in no particular rhythm.
Luin tensed, instincts flaring.
Then his vision… shifted.
Not blurred. Changed.
Blue lines etched themselves across the air in front of him—frames locking over each creature’s body, flickering like old tech trying to boot.
[Race]: Goblin Whelp
[Level]: 2
[HP]: 27 / 27?[MP]: 2 / 2
STR: 6?DEX: 9?VIT: 5?INT: 3?INSTINCT: 11
State: Hungry
[Race]: Flame Imp Larva
[Level]: 1
[HP]: 15 / 15?[MP]: 12 / 12
STR: 3?DEX: 8?VIT: 4?INT: 6?INSTINCT: 9
State: Unstable Mana
[Race]: Carrion Nymph
[Level]: 3
[HP]: 40 / 40?[MP]: 0 / 0
STR: 9?DEX: 5?VIT: 7?INT: 2?INSTINCT: 10
State: Agitated
Lines of blue light pulsed and danced over their bodies, information slotting into place like floating HUDs.
Luin blinked hard. He didn’t activate anything—he just… knew.
[Appraisal Eye: Lv 1 – Inherited Trait]
Allows instinctive reading of nearby living entities. Active when alert or threatened.
He stared.
“Oh,” he muttered. “Great.”
One of the whelps turned toward him.
The goblin.
Its eyes sharpened. Focused. It sniffed once—then again.
Its lips peeled back in a slow, uneven hiss.
It took one step forward.
Then another.
Luin tried to rise. His legs trembled. His claws scraped the stone floor.
The goblin hissed again—louder this time. The bug-creature turned its twitching head in his direction.
And Luin knew.
They smell I’m different.
He wasn’t kin.
He wasn’t one of them.
He was something else.
And in a burrow full of newborn predators, "different" was just another word for meat.
The goblin snarled and lunged, limbs flailing, knuckles dragging like it didn’t quite know how to walk—but it was fast.
Too fast.
Luin scrambled backward, his tail slapping wet stone as he lost balance. His claws scrabbled for purchase. Bones cracked beneath him. He hit the dirt hard, the air punching from his lungs—if that’s what they even were now.
Do something. Lightning. Shock. Scream. Anything!
Nothing came.
The surge he’d used earlier had drained him. The pulse in his chest was flickering now, like a dying lightbulb. He could feel the spark inside him—but it wouldn’t answer. Not yet.
The goblin didn’t care. It shrieked again and kept coming.
Behind it, the bug-thing clacked its mandibles, watching hungrily.
The imp didn’t move. Just stared. Waiting.
“No no no no no—”
Luin slammed his claws into the ground, forcing himself to breathe, to think. Not as a beast. As a gamer. A planner. Someone who’d survived countless dungeons with worse odds.
The screen. The system. Come on. Show me something.
Status. Character Sheet. Window. Open sesame?!
Something clicked behind his eyes. A chime. A ripple in the air.
[STATUS OPENED]
A pale-blue window bloomed across his vision like static burned into the back of his skull—jagged and glitchy, but legible.
[Name]: Luin Mori
[Species]: Stormdrake Hatchling (Rarity: ███)
[Level]: 1
[HP]: 32 / 32??[MP]: 14 / 20
[STR]: 5?DEX: 7?VIT: 6?INT: 8?INSTINCT: 11
[Core Status]: STABILIZING... [ERROR]
[Skills]:
? Arcflash (Lv 1) – Short-range electrical burst
? Appraisal Eye (Lv 1) – Identifies nearby living entities
? Storm Core (Dormant) – Locked
? [???] – Skill corruption detected
He didn’t finish reading.
Just one word burned into him:
Stormdrake.
He looked down at his claws—thin, trembling. At the faint glow pulsing in his veins.
That goblin is going to kill me.
It snarled again. Only three feet away now. Teeth bared. Wild. Hungry.
Think fast. Arcflash is a close-range burst. Claws are light. No armor. I’ve got... maybe ten seconds.
Luin braced himself. Legs wobbling. Breath shaky.
And when the goblin leapt—he didn’t flinch.
The goblin lunged.
Its snarl tore through the air as it leapt with both arms stretched wide, baby teeth jagged and stained. Its claws aimed for Luin’s throat.
Luin didn’t back away this time.
Level 2. STR 6. Slightly above mine. DEX: 9. Faster. HP? Still low.
He tried to sidestep.
His tail got in the way. He stumbled, off-balance, and the goblin’s swipe grazed his shoulder. Pain seared through his side—raw and real. Not a red flash. Not a neat "-12" number. Just the throb of living flesh being cut open.
“Shit—!”
He twisted, half-falling, and lashed out with his claws.
Swipe. Miss.
Tail whip. Hit.
His tail slammed the goblin across its ribs. It staggered, screeched, and slid sideways.
Luin pushed back, sucking air through gritted teeth, forcing his mind into combat mode.
I’m smaller. More reach. He’s front-heavy. Low VIT. Aggro locked. Keep the angle—bait the charge.
The goblin howled and came at him again, faster now, falling into a desperate all-fours scramble. It bounded like an animal.
Now.
Luin dug his claws into the ground, lowered his head—and triggered it.
[Skill Activated: Arcflash (Lv 1)]
The air screamed.
A jagged blast of lightning exploded from his forelimbs, a point-blank detonation that painted the chamber in a flood of white-blue. It hit the goblin mid-leap.
The creature shrieked—its muscles locking midair. It twisted awkwardly, limbs flailing as the charge tore through its nervous system. It crashed to the ground in a convulsing heap and didn’t rise.
Smoke curled off its back.
Luin stared, panting, sparks crackling faintly off his skin.
Then the message hit.
[Enemy defeated.]
[Experience gained: 7]
[MP reduced: -10]
[Warning: Core Unstable. Mana Overdraw Imminent.]
His legs buckled. He collapsed next to the twitching corpse, every muscle trembling, breath shallow and fast. His claws twitched with leftover static.
The air reeked of ozone.
“I can’t believe that worked,” he gasped.
The body smoked beside him—its chest no longer rising.
Not a clean win, he thought. Not cinematic. Not even cool.
But I’m alive.
He looked down at himself—small, dirty, blood-slicked, and shaking.
And smiled.
“A tanky caster rogue build with electric burst damage,” he murmured, voice still broken and gravel-edged. “Not the worst roll I’ve ever had.”
From across the burrow, the flame imp stared with glowing eyes.
Still.
Silent.
Waiting.
