Chapter 61: 61. A king’s Kingdom To be

Morning light spilled through the apartment window, it’s golden rays cutting across Yuki’s small living space, illuminating dust that drifted through the air.

She stood before her closet considering her limited wardrobe options.

Yuki dressed quickly and walked from the bedroom into the living room, and met Owen sittinh on on the couch in his humanoid form, perfectly still in a way that suggested he was in deep thought rather than relaxation.

His golden eyes were unfocused, staring at something only he could see. His wings were folded tight against his back, his tail coiled neatly around one leg to avoid taking up too much space. Even his normally expressive face was locked in an expression of serious contemplation.

He looked like someone carrying the weight of a terrible revelation and trying to figure out how to share it.

Yuki’s stomach tightened. This was it. Finally. Whatever Dominus and Chronara had told him up there in the sky, he was ready to talk about it.

“I need to show you something,” Owen said as his gaze met hers.

Yuki sat down on the couch beside him, Uru jiggling contentedly on the armrest. “Okay. Show me.”

Owen stood and moved to the center of the small living room. He raised one clawed hand and made a gesture.

Then reality tore open.

Space itself seemed to split along a seam, peeling back to reveal something else beneath. Light spilled from the opening.

The tear expanded, stretching from floor to ceiling, until a doorway stood in the middle of Yuki’s living room. Through it, she could see… clouds? Sky? The perspective was wrong, the colors slightly off, the whole view carrying that same sense of not-quite-reality that characterized dungeon environments.

“Dungeon?” The word came out as barely a whisper, Yuki’s mind trying to categorize what she was seeing.

“No,” Owen corrected quickly. “Not a dungeon. Actually—” He paused with his expression growing more complicated. “Dominus and Chronara told me a series of things up there. Some made sense. Some didn’t. I’m still trying to filter through them in my mind.”

He gestured toward the doorway hanging in the air. “This is one of the things I was told about. Or rather, given by Dominus.”

Without waiting for Yuki’s response, he stepped through the portal and disappeared.

Yuki sat frozen on the couch, her brain still catching up to what her eyes had witnessed.

But she trusted Owen. Completely. Whatever this was, wherever it led, if Owen wanted to show her, then she needed to see it.

She grabbed Uru from the armrest and stood. Three steps brought her to the portal’s threshold. Up close, she could see the edges shimmer and distort.

Then Yuki took a breath and walked through.

The transition was disorienting in a way that dungeon gates weren’t.

Then she was through.

She stood on a small island and Below was… nothing. Or rather, clouds. Thick, dense clouds that stretched in all directions like an ocean of vapor.

And ahead, suspended in the impossible sky like a mirage were familiar shapes.

“Get on.”

Owen’s voice pulled her attention back. He had already transformed into his juvenile dragon form, his massive black-scaled body almost dwarfing the small island. His wings were spread for balance, his neck lowered in invitation.

Yuki’s confusion was still processing, questions piling up faster than she could articulate them. But she complied with Owen’s request, climbing onto his back.

Owen’s wings flared, and he launched into the sky.

The perspective shift as they gained altitude made Yuki’s breath catch.

“Oh my God,” she gasped, the words inadequate for what she was seeing. “Drak’thar!? How!?”

Because it was. Unmistakably. The five floating islands arranged in their familiar pattern—the central island largest, the four surrounding ones positioned at cardinal points like satellites orbiting a planet. The architecture she’d walked through, the impossible bridges of crystallized mana, the structures that defied conventional physics.

All of it was there.

All of it was empty.

“I asked the same thing when I was given it,” Owen replied, his mental voice carrying the same stunned disbelief Yuki felt. “Dominus granted me ownership of this pocket dimension. But upon my first entry, I realized it was Drak’thar.”

A system notification appeared in Yuki’s vision, not hers, but Owen’s, shared through their bond:

[Personal Pocket Dimension: Drak’thar, Kingdom of Dragons]

[Status: Uninhabited]

[Structures: 2]

– Tower of Royals: OFFLINE

– Hatchery: OFFLINE

[Dragon Population: 1]

[Authority: Tier 1]

Owen circled the central island slowly, giving Yuki time to take in every detail. The palace where they had met the Greater Dragons stood silent and dark.

The platforms where dragons had once perched and conversed were bare. The gardens,which had bloomed with flowers when they had visited before, were now just dirt and dead roots.

It looked like Drak’thar. But it felt different. Dead. The sheer amount of mana that had saturated every inch of the dragon kingdom, making the air feel thick and charged with power was gone. What remained was just… space. Beautiful, impossible, but ultimately empty space.

“Where is…” Yuki started, then stopped, unsure how to even form the question. “What is… Oh God, Owen. I’m so confused.”

“I was too,” Owen admitted, banking in a gentle turn that brought them back toward the entry island. “I still am, honestly. The explanation was… complicated.”

He landed on the small island where they had started, transforming back to his humanoid form as Yuki slid from his back. They stood together, looking out at the floating kingdom that was somehow Owen’s now.

“Apparently,” Owen said slowly, choosing his words carefully, “with this, I can revive the extinct race of true dragons.”

They walked back toward the portal.

“So what are you saying?” Yuki asked as they stepped through the gateway, reality reasserting itself as Yuki’s shabby apartment materialized around them.

Owen closed the portal with another gesture, the space sealing itself like the tear had never existed. “You’re going to rebuild Drak’thar? Here, in the real world? How?”

Owen moved back to the couch and sat, his expression troubled. “I’m not completely sure yet. The explanation Dominus gave was… vague in places. Intentionally so, I think. He was limited in what he could tell me without violating certain rules I don’t fully understand.”

He leaned forward with his elbows on his knees, and his hands clasped together. “But basically, it comes down to this: there are going to be more Story Dungeons appearing. Soon. And these dungeons will contain things I need.”

“More Story Dungeons,” Yuki repeated. She thought about the Shadowgrave, about how difficult it had been, how many hunters had barely survived. “How many more?”

“Dominus didn’t give me an exact number. But he implied it would be… significant. And he said something else, something that changes our immediate plans.”

Owen’s golden eyes met hers. “The next Story Dungeons won’t be appearing in Nexus Prime. They won’t even be appearing on this continent. We’re going to need to travel. Extensively.”

“Travel out?” Yuki asked, the implications already spinning through her mind. “You mean leave the country? Go to other continents? Of the Non-humans?”

“Yes.”

Yuki sat down heavily on the couch beside him. Travel. International hunter work. Story Dungeons in foreign countries with different laws, Inhuman Races, different languages. The complexity was staggering.

“When?” she asked. “When do we need to leave?”

“Not immediately,” Owen said. “Dominus said the next Story Dungeon would manifest in approximately two to three weeks. That gives us time to prepare, to—”

Yuki’s phone buzzed, cutting off his explanation.

She pulled it from her pocket and glanced at the screen. A text message from Odessa Wayne, the timestamp showing it had just arrived.

’Hey Yuki! Finally recovered from all the battle damage lol. Want to grab lunch? I know this AMAZING place in District Seven—super expensive but totally worth it! My treat! Say yes! Please! I promise I won’t talk your ear off (okay I probably will but in a fun way!)’

The message was so perfectly Odessa,enthusiastic, slightly overwhelming, genuine, that Yuki found herself smiling despite the heavy conversation she had just been having.

“Odessa wants to meet for lunch,” she said, showing Owen the message.

He read it and raised an eyebrow. “hmm.”

“She said it’s her treat.” Yuki hesitated, her thumb hovering over the reply field. Part of her wanted to decline, to stay here and keep talking with Owen about dragon kingdoms and international travel and responsibilities she barely understood.

But another part, the part that had spent the last month in life-or-death situations and heavy revelations, wanted something normal. Lunch with a friend. Conversation that didn’t involve Outer-Divinities or extinct races or the fate of the world.

“You should go,” Owen said, reading her expression. “I need time to process everything anyway. And honestly…” He smiled slightly. “You could use a friend who isn’t a dragon or a primordial slime. Someone who can have normal human conversations about normal human things.”

“There’s nothing normal about Odessa,” Yuki pointed out, but she was already typing a response.

’Sounds great! When and where?’

The reply came back in seconds.

’YES!!! Noon at Celestia’s Garden! You’re going to LOVE it! See you there! ’

Yuki checked the time. 10:47 AM. That gave her just over an hour to figure out what one wore to an expensive District Seven restaurant when one’s wardrobe consisted entirely of hunter gear and worn casual clothes.

“I should probably change,” she said, looking down at her current outfit with new critical eyes.

Owen’s smile widened. “You have ten million credits in the bank and you’re worried about what to wear to lunch. Maybe stop at a clothing store on the way.”

“Maybe I will,” Yuki said, standing up with a sudden determination. “Maybe I’ll buy something completely impractical and ridiculously expensive just because I can.”

“That’s the spirit,” Owen encouraged. “Go have lunch with your friend. Enjoy being a normal person for a few hours. The dragon kingdom and Story Dungeons and everything else will still be here when you get back.”

Then Yuki ran back into the bedroom as Owen watched her with a smile on his face but his thoughts still reeling from the sheer stress of responsibility that had been thrusted upon him, the Rebuilding of the Dragon kingdom and Reviving the Race of True dragons.

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