Chapter 65: 65. The will’s True Nature

“I had maybe three minutes warning,” Dominus said, his voice carrying across the impossible distance between past and present. “Chronara saw it first. Her connection to time, to fate, to the branching possibilities of future events, she perceived the Will’s awakening before it fully manifested.”

Chronara fidgeted as if remembering a dark memory, but instead was actually just reliving a future in her time that was now a past.

“I saw the threads converging. Every possible future collapsing into a single outcome: extinction. The Will of the World deciding that beings of our power level were incompatible with its… purpose.”

“Purpose?” Owen asked.

*That’s the critical understanding,” Dominus said. “The Will of the World isn’t benevolent. It isn’t malevolent either. It’s something worse—it’s indifferent. It doesn’t care about mortal happiness, dragon nobility, or any of the values we project onto it. It has a single function, a single drive that motivates every action it takes.”

“What function?”

“Growth.” The word fell.

“The Will of the World exists to grow stronger. Everything else, maintaining balance, preventing apocalypse, creating dragons—these are just means to that end.”

Owen’s mind raced, trying to understand. “Grow stronger how? It’s literally the world. What could possibly threaten it?”

“I do not know” Chronara said simply. “The Universe is vast, so there might be something we don’t know. So the Will does everything it can to accumulate power.”

“And it gets that power from…” Owen trailed off as understanding dawned.

“From mortal life,” Dominus confirmed. “Specifically, from the life force released when mortals die. Every death of every creature within a certain power threshold feeds the Will, strengthens it, allows it to grow. But not instantly, which is a why a sudden loss of the population stirred it.”

“We’re livestock,” Owen said, his voice hollow. “Humanity, beast-folk, all the mortal races—we’re just cattle being raised to feed the Will when we die.”

“Not quite,” Chronara corrected gently. “Cattle don’t benefit from their situation. Mortals do gain real advantages from that system. Protection from complete annihilation by Celestials and Demons. Access to power that would otherwise take lifetimes to develop. A structured path to growth.”

“But ultimately, yes,” Dominus agreed. “The fundamental relationship is exploitative. The Will maintains mortals at a specific power level—strong enough to produce valuable life force when they die, but not so strong that they could threaten the Will itself.”

Owen thought about the system, about how it capped levels, required specific conditions for ranking up, imposed restrictions on growth.

“That’s why beings above a certain power level don’t feed the Will,” he realized. “Dragons, Celestials, Demons—we’re too powerful. Our existence doesn’t benefit it since our essence in death isn’t easily anchored, might even threaten it.”

“Exactly.” Dominus’s voice carried a grim satisfaction at Owen’s understanding. “We’re outside its system. Our deaths don’t feed it. Our lives don’t serve its purpose. From the Will’s perspective, we’re parasites at best, threats at worst.”

“So when the war with Vorthraxx killed ninety percent of all mortal life…”

“The Will lost ninety percent of its power source,” Chronara finished. “Billions of deaths that should have fed it were instead wasted, their life force dispersed instantly in a catastrophic violence rather than properly harvested.”

Dominus’s wings spread slightly, a gesture of fury as he remembered.

“That’s what truly enraged the Will. Not the destruction itself, destruction is natural, even useful if it’s controlled. But uncontrolled destruction that killed its livestock without allowing it to properly harvest their death energy? That was unforgivable.”

“So it eliminated the threats,” Owen said. “Deleted the Celestials who had started the whole mess. Sealed the Demons who kept fighting. And destroyed the Dragons who had proven they could cause catastrophic damage to mortal populations.”

“In three minutes,” Dominus said quietly. “… To unmake every dragon that existed.”

“Except you.”*

“Except me. Because I had one advantage the others didn’t.”

“What?”

“I was the Dragon King. And the First Dragon King—the one created directly by the Will during its first awakening—had prepared for this possibility.”

Owen leaned forward, his full attention focused on Dominus’s next words.

“The First King might have understood what the Will was,” Dominus explained. “Recognized its true nature long before the rest of us. And he created a contingency. A power that existed outside the Will’s structure, independent of its system, impossible for it to simply unmake.”

“Drak’thar,” Dominus confirmed. “A pocket dimension anchored to dragon essence but existing outside the world’s normal spatial structure. A place the Will could perceive but couldn’t directly access or control easily.”*

“And when you realized the Will was about to delete all dragons, you used that pocket dimension to…”

“To thrust my power and essence into the timestream continuum itself,” Dominus said. “I couldn’t save myself or the other dragons—the Will was too fast, too thorough. But I could take everything I was—my memories, my power, my very existence—and cast it forward through time to a point where I might manifest again.”

“As a dragon egg,” Owen said. “In a dungeon. One thousand years in your future.”

“Yes. Though the process was… imperfect. My power alone wasn’t sufficient to create a viable egg. It needed something else. A catalyst. A soul to anchor the physical form while my essence provided the draconic template.”

Dominus’s Golden eyes bore into Owen’s golden ones.

“It drew your soul. From whatever place or time or dimension you originated, pulled you across impossible distances to complete the equation. Human soul plus dragon essence equals a new existence that’s somehow both and neither.”

“I can see it,” Dominus continued. “Your original nature. You were human once. Lived a human life, died a human death. And then you were reborn as something else, something the will’s system will not access.”

“The Dragon King System,” Owen said. “It’s not part of the Will’s system at all, is it?”

“No. It’s my power, my knowledge, combined with the framework of the Will’s system in a way that makes it appear to be part of the same structure. A Trojan horse, hidden in plain sight.”

Chronara nodded with what might have been approval.

“The Will can see the Dragon King System. It shows up in your status panels, appears to follow the same rules as normal skills. But it can’t control it, can’t monitor what it’s actually doing, can’t understand its true nature.”

“Which means…” Owen thought through the implications. “By my soul, The Will thinks I’m just another mortal. A dragon-shaped mortal, but still within its system, still categorizable, still ultimately under its control.”

“For now,” Dominus agreed. “But as you grow stronger, as you inherit more of the Dragon King’s true power, that disguise will become harder to maintain. Eventually, the Will might recognize you as a threat.”

“When?” Owen asked. “When does it wake up? How long do I have?”

“That is Unknown even to me” Chronara said. “The Will’s awakening cycle is irregular. It sleeps until crisis threatens, and crisis is subjective. Could be decades. Could be centuries.”

“Or it could be tomorrow,” Dominus added grimly. “Especially if certain events occur that the Will would classify as existential threats.”

“Like what?”

“Like a dragon achieving sufficient power to exist outside its control. Like Drak’thar being fully restored as a pocket dimension populated with true dragons. Like someone discovering the truth about what the system really is and spreading that knowledge to enough mortals that faith in the system’s benevolence begins to crack.”

Owen felt the weight of it settling on his shoulders like a physical burden.

“So I’m supposed to do what? Hide? Stay weak to avoid triggering the Will’s defenses?”

“No,” Dominus said firmly. “You’re supposed to prepare. Because when the Will does awaken—and it will, eventually—the world is going to need defenders who exist outside its control. Dragons who can fight without being simply deleted. A kingdom that can shelter mortals when the Will decides their current populations are inconvenient.”

“You’re asking me to restart a war you lost.”

“I’m asking you to finish what we started,” Dominus corrected. “We fought to protect mortals from themselves and from external threats. You’ll fight to protect mortals from the very system they think protects them.”*

“And if I fail?”

“Then the Will continues unchecked. Continues farming mortal races for power. Continues eliminating anyone who grows strong enough to threaten its control. Continues until either it’s consumed by a stronger force that it fears or it’s consumed everything and everyone in its reach.”

Dominus’s voice softened slightly.

“But you won’t fail. Because you’re not doing this alone. There are others, mortals who’ve begun to suspect the truth.”

“And there are Story Dungeons,” Chronara added. “Specifically, two more that will manifest soon. Dungeons that contain fragments of the past, my past, Dominus’s past, other truths the Will tried to erase but couldn’t completely eliminate.”

“What’s in them?” Owen asked.

“Pieces of me,” Dominus said. “My power was too distributed to consolidate in a single egg. There are two more fragments, two more echoes of what I was, hidden in dungeons that haven’t manifested yet. You’ll need to find them, absorb them, integrate their power with your own.”*

“And then?”

“Then Drak’thar can fully activate. The pocket dimension can support true dragons again. The Hatchery can produce eggs outside of the will’s power. The Tower of Royals can train them. Everything the dragon kingdom was, can be reborn, and be made better..”

“Outside the Will’s control.”

“Exactly.”

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