In the town of Lexigon, you could hear the cry and laughter of two people. One who cried for the loss of one he cared for, and another who laughed at the suffering of others.

The mixture of weeping and laughter filled the street for another ten seconds until the only sound left was a boy screaming, a scream that filled the air of both sadness and rage.

I scream as I continue my relentless charge at Lilith with my sword raised at her. I continue to blindly keep swinging my weapon as there is only one word left in my mind.

Kill.

I don’t know what I'm doing anymore. Why am I still fighting? Is there any purpose anymore? How much more of a failure can I be? Should I just give up? Should I... kill myself here?

Lilith's Perspective:

"Of course, this is what I expect Aden to think in his mind. He'll most likely regain his composure soon," I thought as I continued to dodge all his swings easily.

Unfortunately, this wasn't a part of my plan. I expected after doing all of this, I expected to trigger the orb within Aden, yet it didn’t seem to be enough, even when I laugh at someone’s death just to help its trigger. I didn’t find anything entertaining about a human’s death. Humans are nothing but insects to be squashed. That is all they are, simple things to play with until you get bored, Aden being an exception, of course.

I didn’t want to do all of this. All I wanted to do was cuddle with Aden and eternally sleep. However, I didn’t want to do that while he was still fragile.

The reason for that is that I am a devourer. A species that devours any ‘edible’ entities to become stronger.

The devourers are a shapeshifting species similar to many other shapeshifters, such as a doppelganger. However, the devourer species are different. They can level up and get stronger simply by eating. Not only that, they can shapeshift in a more precise manner, being able to recreate organs of a particular species’ body, allowing them to turn themselves into an actual human or something else. Compared to other shapeshifters, this is a rather tricky task. However, devourers can shapeshift perfectly, even when just a minute old. Of course, that’s not all of it. If a devourer, for example, devours a dragon, they can shapeshift themselves to have traits similar to a dragon. That would mean that they could shapeshift to have the scales of a dragon. There's a thing about it, though; for them to fully shapeshift into that one species, they would have to devour more than one of it to have all the traits.

Well, enough of all of that, the true purpose of why I can’t simply sleep or mate with Aden is because devourers… tend to kill their mating partner.

Their way of mating is intense to the point where they could accidentally suck up all the liquid of their partner’s body, turning them into a sort of mummy. Yes, they can do that similarly, like a succubus or incubus. The truth is the devourer is a hybrid of a succubus and a doppelganger.

How is it possible? I didn’t know either. Nobody cared to research it.

Anyways, that is why I wanted to use the orb. To turn Aden into a demi-human, or you can say, part monster. Doing this will help speed up the process of getting Aden stronger, which means that I didn’t have to wait long for it to allow me to mate with him.

However, the problem with this is that doing all of this would break Aden emotionally. Not only that, it might make him hate me for, possibly, forever.

I didn’t want either of these to happen. For one, I didn’t want to break Aden because it might change his personality completely; I liked his character simply because it made him hard to get, which I loved since I like a challenge. And two, if Aden finds out that I want him, he would commit suicide to spite me.

These are the two bad outcomes I simply want to avoid, which is why I am so cautious about making this plan work, but now, I'm in this little predicament. Should I go further on the process of triggering the orb? Or should I run off and come back when Aden either activates the orb himself or gets mentally stronger?

I have to decide on one, but immediately choose the former, why? Because when I told Drezzan to go to his next objective…

Main Perspective:

After the next two minutes of trying to kill Lilith, I finally stop, not simply because my anger is gone… only because from further down the road, I see a familiar giant dragging someone by the head. It didn’t take me long to realize who that same giant was dragging.

Like a frozen statue, I stand as the giant slowly walks towards us… while dragging Charles.

I struggled to talk as the giant stood near Lilith while holding up the wounded Charles by the head. There are many open wounds on Charles’s body that can be seen due to his clothing's multiple holes. Charles twitches as blood streams from wounds all over his beaten body.

Lilith's Perspective:

I didn’t believe I needed to go this far, but if it helps trigger the orb within Aden, I'll do it.

I make a wicked grin, “Oh? Is showing your nearly dead friend enough to stop you?” Aden doesn’t respond, as he's in total shock.

The giant, not paying attention to the situation, apologizes to Lilith, “My apologies, Princess. It took longer than anticipated,” He says, as there were many blackened marks on his body, “but this boy here is a rather persistent one.”

I sigh.

I put a limiter on Drezzan simply for safety measures. Like that time when I perfectly set up the situation for Aden saving Layli. If I hadn’t put that limiter on Drezzan, he would have wholly mistimed his swing and killed both of them.

It looks like I need to weaken the limiter. The timing of Drezzan’s arrival is a minute later than expected.

Well, enough of that, now it's time to finish this.

“Drezzan, drop him.” Drezzan did as ordered and dropped Charles.

Charles’s body lands on the ground, but his left arm flops at a weird angle as it did.

“...I didn’t expect you to break his arm.” Aden's body twitches to this.

“My apologies again, Princess. The boy continued struggling even when beaten to this state, so I had to break his arm in order to-” But his response is interrupted as Aden charges at us, in a fit of rage.

At that moment, Drezzan reacts on his own without my consent.

Main Perspective:

I blink, but the red giant known as Drezzan vanishes the moment I do. My anger is then replaced with confusion, as there is suddenly a shadow overlapping me. All of a sudden, before I knew it, I got slammed down to the ground, chest first.

I scream in pain as I feel my ribs almost completely shatter. However, another scream filled the streets the moment I did, but I wasn’t paying attention as I struggled to keep myself conscious.

Lilith's Perspective:

“DREZZAN!” Drezzan immediately stops what he's doing and turns to me, whose smile is nowhere in sight.

“...My apo-”

“NO!” The giant takes a step back, “You… How dare you harm something precious to me. Once this is over, I’ll make sure that all the hundreds of times I kill you… will be slow and painful.”

“I’m afraid that will violate-”

“I DON’T CARE!” My voice echoes, but a moment later, I sigh, “Don’t you dare do that again.”

Main Perspective:

After a few seconds, I became able to keep myself conscious.

I lay down in silence as I find myself in a situation that seems impossible to get out of. I can't get up since I'm being forced down by a giant. Not only that, I feel fragile and unarmed. After all that happened, all the anger within me quickly went away.

"Not only was I not able to protect Layli… I wasn’t able to protect Charles either," I think as I begin to fill with hopelessness.

"So, this is how it feels like to be forced down by someone stronger than you. I hate it; even when I feel completely hopeless, I still want to resist this feeling. Not being able to do anything, I despise the thought of it. I even hate myself at this point. I'm powerless to protect anyone I love. I… should've realized how dangerous this world was sooner. If I did, I… no… even if I did train at my hardest from the beginning, it will still come out with the same ending. I guess this is my fate. No matter what I did, my fate has already been decided. But…"

I try to look up to where Charles lay.

"If I could somehow get Charles away from here…"

I was expecting to see Charles lying on the ground, just like me, but when I look up, I instead meet with Lilith’s face, which is very close up to mine.

Lilith smiles as I stare at her, but I remain with my irritated gesture.

“You’re cute. You know that?” I didn’t reply, “Oh ~ ♡, don’t be like that. Besides…” Lilith stands up and begins walking towards Charles. “We still have one more to go.”

Of course, it didn’t take me long to realize what she’s about to do.

“W-what are you doing?”

“I’m going to ask you a question,” She answers as she is now standing next to Charles’s body. She raises one of her feet above his head. “What would happen if someone with a thousand strength points were to stomp on someone’s head?”

“NO! STOP!” I scream as I struggle. “YOU CAN’T DO THIS!”

“Oh, I can,” Lilith looks down at Charles with a smirk, “And I’ll be honest, it’s been a while since I last crushed someone’s head.” My face twisted in horror.

“NO! PLEASE! DON’T DO THIS!” Tears begin to crawl down my face. “HE’S THE ONLY FAMILY I HAVE LEFT! PLEASE!” I start to choke on my tears. “I DON’T WANT TO BE ALONE AGAIN! I DON’T WANT TO BE ABANDONED AGAIN!” I stop struggling as hopelessness fills me.

“Please… don’t take everything away from me…”

Lilith's Perspective:

“Is this not enough? Well, it looks like I'll have to do it. I prefer not to since it might affect Aden entirely, but if it is to trigger his orb.”

“Oh…?” I smirk as I look upon his teary face. I responded, “Since when did I say I was merciful?” At that exact moment, my feet went darting down to Charles’s head.

Main Perspective:

“NOOO-” I wanted to continue screaming, but… couldn’t, as I felt my heart burst into flames.

“What is your dream, human?” I didn’t answer, as I lost all hope of living.

I stand at the same place where I last met the dragon in my dream, who is now in front of me. I stand emotionlessly, as I know I have just lost everything, all because I'm weak.

The dragon stares down at me.

“Human, do you wish to live on?” I slowly looked up at the red dragon but still didn’t reply, “Human… Why do you fight?” I didn’t react for a few moments until finally…

“Because I wanted to be an adventurer. I wanted to do what an adventurer always does and protect everyone I loved.”

“Yet you failed, and now pay the consequences.”

“WHY?” I yell up at the dragon, “WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!?” I fall to my knees and place my hands on the ground as tears drip down to the floor. “Why…? All I wanted to do was live a life full of freedom. I wanted to protect everyone I loved and live a happy life…”

“There is no such thing.” I look up at the dragon, “You can’t protect everyone, no matter how hard you try, soon… you’ll end up losing everyone.”

“THEN TELL ME!” I slam my fists against the ground. Hiccups can be heard throughout the cave, “What… what should I do?”

“First, tell me…” The dragon puts its face closer to mine, “What is your dream, human?”

I stare into the dragon’s eyes as it questions me, then answer, “To be one of the greatest adventurers ever.” The dragon stares at me then raises its head while keeping eye contact.

“Erase it.” I widened my eyes in shock.

“W-what?”

“Erase that dream from your memory.”

“What... Do you mean? Why?”

“Dreams are nothing more but false hopes. They will soon lead you to your death, as it did to many others.”

“Then… what will happen once I do?”

“Then I’ll ask you…” The dragon slowly closes its eyes, “What do you desire?” I stare up at the dragon for a few moments until slowly closing my eyes as well.

“Power.”

A special action has been performed! +1 LUCK

Unseen Things:

Aden screams in pain as he feels his whole body pierced by a billion needles. His heart rapidly beats and is burning like hell at the same time.

Drezzan, holding him down, is pushed away by an unknown force. Lilith stares at what is happening while standing near the unharmed Charles.

"It hurts! My body is burning! It’s bleeding! It’s peeling! Please! Somebody help me!"

Those were the words Aden wanted to scream, but they didn’t come out, as his pained scream overlapped them.

The only thing he sees... is blood.

Lilith's Perspective:

After all that preparation and planning, I've finally triggered Aden's orb!

At this point, I have already done this to so many other humans. Thanks to that experience, I've managed to come this far.

I have done this to others since I have many of these orbs. How did I find out about these orbs? I stole them from a lab, which my family and I invaded.

Fortunately, I have found these orbs next to this dead scientist, who I regretted devouring since the Goddess of Magic already cleansed him.

These orbs are these balls of unknown energy that hardened to have a solid surface. I didn’t know how they worked until one of them happened to merge with one of my sleeping snacks. And when that one snack happened to wake up, she screamed as she saw me, but… not a scream of fright, but a scream of pain. She began rolling around the whole time and screamed painfully.

It got annoying at first, but I was immediately interested when I saw her skin begin to liquefy. It was only a few minutes later, and the human girl turned into a slime girl.

I had done the same thing to many others, but they did the usual thing and screamed when I scared them. It confused me at first, but later, they changed the same way. Some took longer to evolve than others. Not only that, I had to work with others differently for them to trigger.

So everything that I have done to this point was all planned out. Love, hate, fear, madness, sadness, all of these emotions are what I knew were the emotions needed to trigger these orbs.

And after all that happened so far, I had been lucky enough to guess that fear is what triggers Aden's orb; the fear of losing everything.

I'm happy that everything progressed smoothly, and as a bonus, I didn’t have to kill one of his best friends, which would mean that Aden might not despise me as much.

Of course, it's still unpleasant to hear Aden scream painfully. It shakes my heart, which is the first time I felt this way. But that didn’t matter. Right now, it is time to see what kind of species Aden ends up as.

But… the results are truly…

Unexpected.

Unseen Things:

Aden is on his knees, continuously screaming as he hugs himself with his forehead touching the ground. Visible steam begins to spew out of his body as red scales replace most of his skin, while black horns, similar to Drezzan's but shinier, start to grow out from both ends of his head.

Aden's scream begins to get louder and louder as his voice box, and every single thing within him is shifting and changing.

He continued to hug himself as his entire body suddenly felt cold. Aden looks up at the sunny skies, even when blinded by his own blood. He stares up, far in the distant sky, as blood slowly crawls down his face from his completely red eyes, like imaginary tears.

Then, his heart begins to beat harder than it ever had before. He grasps his chest with both his hands, trying to stop the pain… until…

Flaming wings burst out from his back. A massive gust of wind began to blow around him the moment they did, making it similar to that of a tornado. The fire from all the nearby buildings started flying towards it as it did. The swirling wind absorbs the fire, making it into a flaming whirlwind.

Aden is no longer in sight as Drezzan covers Lilith and Charles, protecting them from this violent, burning wind.

Lilith watches as the flaming tornado begins to expand every second.

“Drezzan, get us out of here,” Lilith orders, knowing that staying here isn’t a good idea, well, for Charles, that is.

Drezzan did as ordered. He picks up Lilith and puts her on his right shoulder while holding Charles with his left hand. He jumps back a great distance until they are equally half a mile away from Aden.

From there, they got the perfect view of the flaming chaos. It continues to grow bigger and bigger as it begins to look like it is touching the sky. But when it did, the tornado then began to condense, slowly turning itself into a massive ball of flame. It slowly condensed, turning brighter and brighter as it did—down to where the core was, Aden.

The ball of flame has stopped condensing a second later, as it is now overwhelmingly blinding, like the sun. Unbelievable enough, to make you think the moment you look at it, you’ll go blind.

That is why Drezzan is covering his eyes, trying to make sure he doesn’t go blind. However, that isn’t the case for Lilith, as she can simply sense to see what the ball of flame looks like.

Her eyes are closed, but she can still see it. It is simply… beautiful, like a shining jewel. She wants it. She wants this shiny orb of pure fire, the flaming sphere, and the person inside it. She wants everything.

Lilith's Perspective:

How long since I last felt this kind of desire? The desire and greed to take everything no matter the cost?

But, that doesn’t matter anymore, as it is now time to claim my prize.

Unseen Things:

The orb of fire has slowly vanished as Aden becomes visible again. He stands with both of his wings still bursting out like thrusters. The wings brilliantly burn until they extinguish immediately, and he begins to fall face first.

However, he stopped falling as Lilith suddenly appeared, holding him up. She smiles warmly and hugs him as a colossal shockwave created by her inhuman speed goes past them.

At that exact moment, notifications begin to pop up in Aden's head.

Congratulations! You have obtained the Dragon class!

Your Warrior class has merged with the Dragon class!

Congratulations! You have obtained the Draconic Warrior class! +40 All Attributes

Your race has been changed to Dragonborn!

Congratulations! You have gained the title: The First Dragonborn! +10 All Attributes

Congratulations! You have gained the title: Once Human! +1 All Attributes

Your Heavy Swing has been modified!

Congratulations! You have learned Draconic Heavy Swing!

Congratulations! You have learned Natural Armor! +3 End

Congratulations! You have learned Natural Senses! +3 Per

Congratulations! You have learned Morph! +2 End +1 Will

Congratulations! You have learned Morph Overtake! +1 All Attributes