Before Aragil’ sacrifice.

Myriad Races Domain.

Royal city.

It was a city filled with a myriad of creatures. Humanoid creatures, four legged ones and other weird ones were happily minding their business. The only noticeable thing was that all of them had at least one pair of horns no matter what they looked like.

A meter and a half long gray scaled humanoid with three pairs of horns on his forehead and wearing a luxurious blue attire was taking a stroll followed by two wolfmen, one on each side.

“I told the two of you to just let me go alone. Damnit, I am as old as your ancestor. I do not need babysitting.” Said the short humanoid.

“ Your majesty. It is not safe to be alone when there are still humans with the space element around.” The silver Wolfman on the left said after a short bow.

“I am as strong as you are and I know the future. Nothing will happen to me. Do I have to always sneak out of my own palace when I am the king of Myriad Races?” said the angry short humanoid. The king of the Myriad Races Domain.

“Apologies your majesty, but our Onera clan has sworn to protect you since the creation of the kingdom. It is our duty.” The silver Wolfman on the right said.

“Some King I am. They are only using me for my variant ability.” The King thought.

“What is happening with those kids I sent to eradicate the human settlement that the time traveler saved last time? Our window of action is limited it has to be done swiftly. I do not want another time traveler to come haunting me in my dreams. The other human alliances are getting restless as well. Kron must not find out about their location. If he does we can say goodbye to our peaceful times.” The king asked.

“Ahem… they are still preparing for the next clash. With Kron at the helm, there is little they can do unless they send an army of Cosmic gods to his front door and see who lasts the longest and who kills the fastest. If you send our Onera clan over, it would be a piece of cake. Those little kids who brazenly call themselves Imperials are just too cowardly to just launch a frontal assault.” One of the silver wolfmen said.

They were steadily walking as the Myriad of creatures made way and offered their greetings.

Their King was a loved one. He was of the Grayscale royal family. His name was Nedrik Grayscale.

There was only one common ancestor for all the Myriad Races of the Myriad Races Domain. The true dragon.

The true dragon was only ever seen only by the first-generation members until it disappeared just like it had appeared. The future generations only heard of their ancestor in stories. Only the last remaining four clans of the first-generation dragon races had ever seen him.

Of the twelve dragon clans of the first generation, only four survived the cataclysmic war against humanity. Both sides were brought to the brink of extinction but the Dragon races were more resilient and managed to keep the upper hand.

The four first generation dragon clans were now considered Royalty. After countless eons, generation after generation, more races appeared from the true dragon bloodline diluting or the numerous evolutions leading to other kinds of lifeforms. Those other races were called the Myriad races.

The four first generation royal clans were the Onera clan, the Alucard clan, the Fire dragon clan and the Grayscale clan ruled the Myriad races.

Each first-generation variant dragon was gifted with a special ability by the true dragon.

The members of the Onera clan were dragon wolves who were given the ability to control space. It was different from the humans who were considered as potential time travelers the moment they had the space element as their ability. The dragon wolves could not develop a polarity, they were exclusively made to interact with space only.

The members of the Alucard clan had no physical body. Only an ethereal one. They were the representation of the True Dragon's soul. It gave them the power to adapt to anything. They could forcefully fuse with anything and upgrade its properties. In the case of the Myriad races, they could help create as many Cosmic gods as possible in a short amount of time by separating a part of themselves and initiating the process of fusing body, soul and mana into a host. They could also destroy souls, eat them to strengthen themselves or even enslave them.

The Fire dragon clan had inherited a portion of the physical prowess of the true dragon. Their powerful bodies also allowed them to store a powerful fire just like their ancestor. The fire was never the same for each fire dragon. It was the same for their bodies. The colors and properties of their fire and bodies varied per evolution and inheritance.

The Grayscale clan was the least powerful of them all in terms of fighting prowess. They were all seers. They relied on a normal dragon’s body closer to those of the fire dragon clan to fight. Their only advantage against the other seers that had appeared in the Myriad races was that they were born seers and their evolutions served to enhance the range of their abilities to see into the future. The only ever recorded variant evolution in the clan, Nedrik.

He was born a variant. His ability was to be in his future self's shoes rather than seeing scattered visions of the future like the rest of his clan. His future was clearer than any seer could see so far.

They were born from a true dragon that had shared a few of its abilities between its twelve children. As the last four remaining clans, they had to let some of their descendants leave the main bloodline to allow for more variant abilities closer to the eight fallen clans to reappear. It resulted in the appearance of many different variant bloodlines. The Myriad races.

***

Space rippled in front of them and a Wolfman appeared in front of them saying: “An urgent message for the king.” He released a ball of light that appeared out of nowhere. The ball of light flew in front of the king who immediately caught it.

“Oh…It is from those little imperials. I have already seen it. There is no need to see it again.” Said the King as he crushed the little ball of light.

As the ball of light disappeared a strand of a weird element appeared out the dimming light. The strand flew into the forehead of the king before the three wolfmen could catch it.

“This is new. It never happened in the future.” Said the puzzled Nedrik.

A vision slowly appeared in his mind. It lasted a minute as an uncountable number of images were seen by Nedrik. It was the vision Bloodbane and Aragil had sent.

“No. This is impossible.” Said Nedrik as he saw the vision of Aragil. He kept muttering to himself.” Impossible… this cannot happen…We did everything we could to avoid such a thing… damn Markus… Damnit…”

The three wolfmen of the Onera clan were stunned for a moment before their expression turned serious.

One of them approached the King and said:” Your Majesty, is there anything alarming that is going to happen?” He wished he could see what this king of his saw to better understand the situation.

Usually, this happened as the King saw himself being killed in the future. If the King was killed in the future, there was a chance that the Myriad races were gone as well. The king would report to the four clans and they would devise a plan to avoid that future. As long as the Nedrik showed no signs of distress it was okay to assume that they were all safe from a future catastrophe.

But today a new element had appeared. Something was inserted into the message that was sent to Nedrik. Normally, it is something that is supposed to have happened already, but Nedrik did not see it coming. Such a thing was impossible. Nothing could happen to Nedrik in the future, such a close future, and Nedrik wouldn’t know about it.

Nedrik stopped musing to himself and turned to the messenger and asked: ” Who is Aragil?”

The messenger immediately replied: “He is a scion of the Grayscale clan. He is a powerful seer. His ability to see the future borders a variant evolution. He went to work with the green dragon clan's self-proclaimed Imperial Green dragon Bloodbane as a seer.”

Nedrik was slowly showing signs of madness as the messenger explained: “Bordering a variant evolution? You think?” Said Nedrik angrily. He added: “He erased himself from the future so I could not see him. I cannot fucking see him. You understand that? Everybody can know of him but I cannot because he chose it. What he can do is worse than a time traveler. It is already too late. Why did he choose to kill us all? That madman is planning to kill us all. Goddamnit, I can only see myself safe and sound forever after the humans are eradicated, but what he is going to do is real.”

It was always a headache to a seer narrate future events. The three wolfmen waited for a while before the messenger said: “Aragil is currently laying a trap for two singularities that appeared inside Kron’s alliance. The singularities have some similarities with the Alucard clan.”

“Mobilize all our forces including those stationed at every human alliance. Aragil must be captured. He must be kept alive at all costs. Forget about the humans for now. He is the first true traitor of the Myriad Races that actually has the power to kill us all.” The king sent mentally to all the generals under him.

No one asked for an explanation. Two of the three wolfmen teleported away.

The remaining wolfmen asked: ” What is going to happen in the future?”

“The future that I see is false. That Aragil is a variant that can control all the vision that the seers of the Myriad races see and can communicate with his other selves in other realities. He connected us all to a false reality that is closer to this one if not identical. It is a reality in which we eradicate humanity in the future for good. He just sent me a message that showed me the future that humanity will have in this reality. They will kill us all because of him. We have to hurry and capture him before he chooses to offer himself as a sacrifice. If that happens our fates will be sealed.” The frantic Nedrik said.

“It does not make sense. How can he be so strong even as a variant seer.”The Wolfman said.

“He is sick. His mind keeps expanding indefinitely. He found the other reality when Markus created it by saving those humans. In the other reality, Markus never appeared and that human alliance was exterminated. Markus arrival was like a window that opened and allowed him to see the other reality and interact with his other self that is living there.” Nedrik said as he teleported towards the palace. The Wolfman closely followed.

“Why send a message now?”The Wolfman asked.

“He is planning to leave this reality to the humans only. While we keep the other, but us in this reality will have to disappear. He is giving the humans the weapon to erase us in this reality forever. He will sacrifice himself for that singularity that will inherit his power. The singularity’ host will later become a time traveler as well. This new time traveler will be able to control his destination thanks to the singularity’s help.” Nedrik said.

"We are doomed, but I will not go down without a fight" said an insane Nedrik.