Last Egg: Reincarnated as a Dragon in a Game

496  All for the power!

Vesuvius unfurled his wings, and with a singular, powerful thrust, he plunged from the abyss of the void straight into the heart of the black hole. With his mission accomplished, there was no longer any reason to stave off the inevitable.

As the aggressive caress of gravity brushed against the edges of his realm, Vesuvius clenched his jaws, resisting his primal instincts to reinforce it.

The protective bubble of his domain began to contract, the distorted fabric of time and space eagerly rushing in to fill the void left in its wake as he slowly retracted the only thing protecting him.

'For the sake of power,' he reminded himself, 'All of this is for greater power.'

The rite of elemental baptism was simple yet perilous: one must immerse oneself in the raw, unrefined essence of the elements. Survival meant a heightened affinity and a deeper bond with the elemental forces.

Yet, it wasn't enough for a dragon, like Vesuvius; the weak affinity he obtained through it was not even worthy of his effort.

'Mortals are weak and squishy, they must temper their bodies for countless years as they start as feeble and fragile, but I can hasten the process.'

Closing his eyes, Vesuvius summoned a magic circle, which hovered before him, glowing ominously. "Astral-walker spell," he murmured, channeling mana into the intricate circuit. Reality warped, the world around him blurring into obscurity.

The next moment, he observed his form in the third person, encased within the dwindling sanctuary of his domain. His body appeared distant, its details hazy, yet unmistakably his.

His vision did not come from his physical eyes but through the ethereal gaze of his soul.

'It's curious,' Vesuvius pondered, 'how a spell deemed nearly worthless holds the key to true elemental baptism.'

The spell's limitations were well known: it could not sustain life far from the body and left both flesh and spirit exposed to dangers. It was only ever used as a tool for espionage and eavesdropping.

Yet, as his domain's boundaries rapidly shrank, Vesuvius revisited his understanding of elemental baptism. 'The most profound transformation requires exposing not just the body but the soul itself.'

Unique among his kind, Vesuvius harbored two souls, each with distinct affinities, coexisting and yet separate. He could sense his secondary soul, its silent curiosity mirroring his own, as the encroaching, black, mayhem neared.

'How will this affect the final result?'

Cleansing his mind of fear, he focused solely on the impending transformation, the risks of a torturous end or eternal oblivion in the anomalies of space and time momentarily set aside.

'This is the only path to overwhelming might. To catch up with them, I must take this leap of faith.' He was too far behind the ancient monsters like Satanael that roamed the world for countless years.

Finally, as the last bit of his domain dissipated, darkness enveloped him, a consuming void that not only obscured his form but seemed to erase his very existence. As his consciousness melded with the chaotic energies swirling around him, Vesuvius experienced a surreal distortion of reality.

Time stretched into infinity, each moment elongating, while space itself twisted and bent in impossible ways. Part of his soul felt attached to his core, yet it also drifted, unanchored, in the far distance, seemingly present at two places at once.

Around him, dimensions convulsed into chaos, an invisible force pulling him deeper into the maelstrom of madness. Despite him moving, he remained stationary, ensnared in a moment where time seemed to stand still.

He saw his body, then his second body, then his third. He saw himself at once in the present, past, and future.

Vesuvius braced for agony, anticipating the unbearable pain that being stretched by space would inflict. Yet, to his astonishment, he felt nothing. Nôv(el)B\\jnn

'How am I even thinking? How? Mortals are weak and squishy, they must temper their bodies for countless years. All this power!' Then, the pain struck him through his entire soul as all his thoughts from multiple points and times flowed at once. A profound awareness settled within him—an intimate perception of the very fabric of time and space that held him captive. He tried to move his domain and control the energy around, yet nothing happened; the time and space were too broken for anything to happen.

He immediately realized that, without grasping the power that entrapped him, he would be trapped forever—at least if he didn't tap into the reality-breaking divine energy.

'There is nowhere to rush. I have all the time I could ever need.' Even in the madness around him, Vesuvius felt calm.

POV ???:

In the boundless expanse of light, where the very fabric of space seemed saturated with an unfathomable brilliance, a voice thundered. This voice, weaving wrath and contempt into the very air, resonated with the force of thunder: "This catastrophe, this unforgivable chaos, it is your doing! I was content with sharing my domain, but you and your greedy little leeches wanted everything for yourselves. You tried to exterminate dragons, as if not knowing the big old lizard wouldn't let it slide."

Then, a whisper, like a breeze that rustled through the leaves, spoke with heartrending sorrow: "My believers, the children of my essence, are perishing in this senseless conflict you have ignited. My forests, once teeming with life, are now ashes.

"My heart aches... Was what we had not enough? Your greed, your insatiable hunger for more, has brought us to this precipice."

From the void, a third voice emerged, commanding and powerful, reducing the others to mere echoes of dissent: "More? It was not mere greed; it was our right, our destiny! We, who have risen through the eons, who have ascended through our talent and effort—were we to remain subservient to those born into power?"

The voice grew, a relentless tide of conviction: "With the end of this war, no force shall dare claim dominion over our domains! We shall stand unchallenged, masters of this mana-rich world. This is all for the power we deserve!

"The faith of the multitudes will be ours to command. And with it, we shall cast the old crooks into the void."

The gentle female voice resounded again, softer and tinged with despair: "Madness, this is sheer madness. Even if we win, what then? Do you truly believe there will be no consequences?

"What we have done... it can only be called an armed rebellion. You have allowed this to escalate too far. This is no longer a minor scuffle; this is an open war, an outright rebellion against them."