I wake up to a throbbing headache and a lot of fuzziness in my eyes. Ugh, everything hurts. I can tell that my left wing is broken. Why did they keep going for the same wing?! I manage to sit up and rub my eyes to see… nothing. The room is too full of smoke and dust to make anything out.

  {System update has been complete. View status?}

  Oh, right. The system thing. It was acting all wacky and strange the whole time. So… yes?

  Name:Abhor

  Level 1/50

  Age:16

  Titles:Timebreaker, Barterer, TIME

  Strength:20

  Durability:21

  Speed:20

  Stamina:22

  Intelligence:18

  Essence:20

  Juvenile time dragon[1/5]

  Skills: Night vision(low), enhanced stamina(medium), bartering(low), Heat resistance(low), Breath of time(low), Voice of the world[Species max], [LOCKED],

  Techniques:Mana manipulation(E), Time manipulation(F), Mana defence(E), Potential(???)

  Now that is new. Level? Techniques? And what's with that title? It hurts my head to read… What am I even thinking? Snowstorm!

  “Snowstorm! Can you hear me?” I shout into the smoke. I get no reply. Alright, what do I do? Figure out where I am. Lets feel around a bit… Oh, here is a wall. That's a good starting point… if the wall is here… Where was Snowstorm fighting compared to me? Kind of to my left a bit… so If i woke up a few steps to my left, then he should be directly forward from where I am. Alright, I can do this.

  I push off the wall and begin moving forward, all the while shouting for snowstorm. Im only 10 steps forward when I feel something under my talon and hear a yelp of pain. I look down and…

  “Snowstorm! You're alive!”

  “Barely…” He groans, sitting up and yanking what seems to be his wing out from under my talon. Then he freezes.

  “Uh… I'm hearing that weird voice in my head.”

  “The one from before the fight and during the fight? Yeah, I heard it too. Now I can see my techniques and have new skills. And a weird title.”

  Snowstorm pauses, his eyes going a little unfocused as he looks at the system window. He slowly gets back up.

  “I see it. But thats not important. Why are we alive?”

  “I have no idea.” I respond honestly. “I don't know why they came here, but they seemed to not care much about Darkness and… oh no.” I whip my head around. “Can you clear the smoke?” I ask Snowstorm urgently, and after a moment he nods.

  “Yes.” He opens his mouth.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Mana force

  A blast of pure kinetic energy blasts out from his mouth and clears all the smoke in one direction. As more smoke and dust try to cover the cleared area, he turns his head, wiping out more of the stuff and pushing away what isnt obliterated. Eventually the room is clear. What we see I didn't expect. The entire place is empty. Empty except for a large corpse, and a small corpse. The corpse of Smokewind next to the corpse of Evelyn. Slowly, me and Snowstorm move forward.

  “The human isn't dead.” Snowstorm says, and I turn to him with a confused expression.

  “How do you-”

  “Her body still gives off heat. that means she is alive.” I nod. But that brings us to the next question.

  “Why is she hurt at all? Wasn't she on the human's side?” I stop in front of the unconscious woman and look over her form. Her face is covered in bruises and her nose is broken, suggesting she got punched there very hard and knocked out. Her uniform is in tatters and her face is covered in dried blood from her nose. I reach down and pick her up.

  “Maybe they thought she turned traitor when they saw her with us?” Snowstorm offers. He stands over Smokewind's corpse, his snout nudging her side gently. If she were alive, her body heat would have burned him, but it didn't.

  “Probably.” I say absently. I pull a pebble out of Evelyn’s dirty hair. She twitches, and her body begins to move as she wakes up.

  “Snowstorm, get over here.” I say, setting Evelyn down on the only intact chair in the room. Her eyes open and she sees two dragons looming over her. She screams in terror, and passes out.

  <{(0)}>

  “Sorry for screaming…” Evelyn says, her hands on her lap as she looks up at us. She seems a lot less afraid of her, probably since we promised not to eat her. Well, because I promised not to eat her. She seemed a lot more scared of me than of her. Can't say I blame her. I was mad.

  “So… what are you going to do with me?” She asks nervously, and I take a second to think about that. Snowstorm, though, has an answer. Because of course he does.

  “Would you be willing to explain a few things?” Snowstorm asks. “I know you aren't the most informed out there, but anything is fine. Perhaps start with what happened after we were knocked unconscious?” Evelyn nods immediately. I’m surprised how willing the is to betray these people.

  “After you… Abhor, right? Alright, Abhor. After abhor was knocked out, and you, Snowstorm, were knocked out too, The MECHA's saw me behind them. They thought I had betrayed them and was on your side. They didn't listen to me. Commander Jensen had my neck in a vise grip in a moments notice. He said that I could… die a slow death by the lizards. Then they blasted a hole in the roof and left with the black dragon sedated in a cage. As I was sitting there just watching them leave me behind, the commander dropped me, then hr cocked his fist back and…”

  “Ouch. Talk about cruel.” I mutter. Evelyn nods.

  “Even my friends in the group didn't stand up for me.” She lets out a self-depreciating chuckle. “Not that I blame them. The commander is not to be argued with.”

  “Jensen was the man standing on Smokewinds… you know, right?” Snowstorm asks, not wanting to call Smokewind a corpse.

  “Yes. He's the strongest of all of us. He's level 95.”

  “Level?” I ask. Then I remember, I'm level 1 now.

  “Yes, level.” Snowstorm says, looking at me flatly.

  “When you turn 18, you unlock your level. Have you been paying attention in class at all?”

  “Class? You have school?” Evelyn asks, baffled.

  “Of course we have school. We need to learn somehow.” Snowstorm responds flatly. He turns to Evelyn.

  “What level are you?”

  “9” She responds. “I'm only 19, so that's a decent level for my age. I've put all my stats in durability, since I didn't need strength to use my MECHA, and I wanted to be able to survive a heavy hit.”

  “Oh?” I say, intrigued. “What is your defence stat then?”

  “30.” She responds.

  “Damn. Thats a lot!” I say.

  “I recommend putting some in stamina too.” Snowstorm tells her.

  “I was told that, yes. But I haven't gotten any levels in a while. Leveling without monsters to kill is difficult.” She scratches the back of her head. Im kind of just sitting there listening.

  “So, why do we have levels? We are 16.” I ask, confused.

  “No idea.” Snowstorm responds. Then I notice something on his shoulder.

  “Snowstorm, whats that thing on your shoulder?”

  I point, and he notices what i'm looking at.

  “Uh…” His brain pretty much flatlines in confusion. There is a square shaped blue gem embedded in his shoulder, the size of my eye.

  “That's a soul core!” Evelyn gasps. “Those things are super valuable, and only form in only incredibly powerful creatures who worship a god. But usually they form inside their bodies… So why did it form on the outside?”

  I raise my left talon up to touch it… and notice a purple 8-sided purple gem on the back of my talon.

  I recognize this shape.

  “The spire…”