Behind him, the sound of rushing water filled the space with a steady, endless roar.

A massive waterfall poured down from the sky itself, crashing onto a floating island of stone and crystal.

And on that island stood two titanic figures.

Alpha was there first.

His familiar shape was unmistakable, claws dug into the stone, aura bristling like a drawn blade.

But the creature facing him made Alpha look almost small by comparison.

A colossal dragon dominated the island.

Its body was forged of metallic scales that shimmered like polished armor.

Five massive necks rose from the same titanic torso, each crowned with a different head.

The red head spewed slow, rolling fire from between its teeth.

The blue head crackled with arcs of lightning that danced along its jaws.

Poisonous vapor leaked lazily from the nostrils of the green head.

The black head hung lower than the rest, eyes closed in what looked disturbingly like quiet sleep.

The white head sighed again and again, exhaling cold mist that spread across the air like breath in winter.

The three active heads snarled and growled at Alpha, their voices overlapping and colliding into a storm of sound. Sparks flashed between fire and lightning. Toxic mist curled around shifting shadows.

The peace of this place had been torn apart by their hostility.

Lin Fang stood frozen at the edge of the grassland, his heart pounding as the scale of the dragon finally sank in.

When his presence registered, both creatures stopped.

Alpha’s gaze snapped toward him first.

Then, slowly, all five of the dragon’s heads turned in perfect unison.

The redhead spoke first. “Welcome.”

The blue head followed. “Host.”

The green head continued. “I am.”

The black head lifted slightly, its eyes opening just enough to reveal an endless void. “Tiamat.”

The white head finished, its voice calm and heavy. “The Chaos Dragon.”

Each word landed one after another, as if they were being assembled in midair.

The red head leaned forward, flames dripping from its jaws. “With me”

Lightning snapped from the blue head. “on your side”

Poison hissed from the green. “you do not need”

The black head growled, “Any other…”

The white head’s voice came last, low and deep enough to shake the ground. “middling spirits.”

The five sets of eyes shifted back to Alpha.

The red head bared its teeth. “Give the order.”

The blue head exhaled slowly. “And”

The green head whispered. “I will”

The black head crackled. “devour.”

The white head finished, utterly calm. “This goat.”

The air itself vibrated at its speech.

However, Alpha did not flinch a bit.

Its voice instead burned with restrained fury, sharp and rigid like a blade drawn too tight. “I am not a goat,” The divine beast snarled, its divine light flaring across the grassland of the mindscape.

As the air bent around it, Alpha proudly raised its head. “I am the eldest spawn of Null. I am divine. I am worthy of respect. Unlike you…”

Five heads tilted slightly in different directions.

Alpha’s gaze never left the dragon as it continued. “Lin Fang, this thing is evil. It only knows chaos. The system sent it here to counter me and my influence. You know that the system has been displeased with me because I often bypass its will to help you. This is a scheme. Kiddo… you know it is.”

The divine light around Alpha brightened, pushing back against Tiamat’s shadow as it further said. “I have helped you. I have protected you while suppressing the system’s will. Help me now. With your will and mine together, we can suppress it. If you let this evil creature loose, your mind will rot from the inside. It will twist your thoughts. It will drown you in violence.”

At Alpha’s words, Tiamat’s five heads hissed in anger.

“Don’t listen to this goat’s nonsense, host. I’m the mighty dragon god, and I chose you. This goat just wants to use its influence to keep you under its control. Tell me, host. Do you wish for power? Just give a command and the world will be at your feet… You can use my power to save someone or destroy someone at your will…”

“Tiamat…” As Alpha roared in even more anger, Tiamat let out a draconic roar, cracking the entire mindscape as a result.

As Lin Fang began to feel intense pain in his chest, the grassland shattered into fragments of light. The five-headed dragon and Alpha both of them vanished.

Lin Fang’s consciousness slammed back into his body with violent force.

Cold, pressure, and water rushed in all at once.

His eyes fell on Nianxi, who began to sink again.

Her body drifted downward, limp, faint trails of air bubbling from her lips. Lin Fang did not think. He moved. His arms cut through the water with raw instinct, pulling her to his chest in one motion. His legs kicked hard as he drove them upward.

The surface exploded as they broke through.

Lin Fang sucked in a harsh breath while dragging Nianxi up with him. Water streamed down her face. Her eyes fluttered but did not open. He supported her chin, keeping her airway clear as he floated.

That was when the system screen slammed into his vision.

Three options hovered in front of his eyes, cold and precise.

*Ding!

[Due to two powerful guardian spirits, the system gives an option to the host. Pick an option.]

[Option One: Maintain the two guardian spirits as they are. Warning: The host will be responsible for keeping them in line, or else, the host will see the damage to his mindscape, and it costs from 100,000 to 1,000,000 coins for the repair.]

[Option Two: Fuse both guardian spirits into a single entity, combining abilities and personality. System recommended Option.]

[Option Three: Reconstruct the mana core into two separate cores. Each spirit gains one core. Warning: Total reserves will be halved. Mana refinement will become twice as hard.]

The words burned into his sight.

He barely had time to process before both presences inside him exploded at once.

“No.” Tiamat’s voices overlapped violently. “Do not choose.”

Alpha roared at the same time. “Reject all options. Let this be decided by force.”

The two forces slammed into each other inside his head again, giving him a slight headache.

“I will tear that goat apart myself,” Tiamat growled, fire and lightning surging through Lin Fang’s veins in violent pulses.

Alpha laughed coldly. “You? Stand against divinity? No matter how powerful an evil is, in the end, only good wins in the end. I have seen demonic beings greater than you fade like dust.”

Tiamat scoffed. “Good? Evil? They are just terms those celestials made for convenience. In the world, there is no such thing as good or evil. There is only desire and will to act.”

“Then explain this,” Alpha snapped. “How did your own twin, Bahamut, kill you? A being with divinity, just like me, and far weaker than you? It’s because he is good and you are bad. In the end, good always wins.”

Tiamat’s voice dropped into a sarcastic tone. “And you talk as if you were alive and doing well, O mighty divine one?”

The silence that followed was heavier than sound.

Inside the lake, Lin Fang’s grip on Nianxi tightened slightly as another wave of pressure tore through his chest. His heart hammered hard enough to hurt.

Because of their argument, his head throbbed as if something inside it wanted to split in half.

“Okay, that’s it. I want both of you to stop arguing…” He muttered under his breath.

The moment Lin Fang clicked the third option, the noise inside his head died all at once, as he wanted. The endless bickering stopped mid-sentence, as if someone had slammed a gate shut between two raging beasts. A brief, stunned silence followed. And it felt like peace…

“That works too, sensing the choice its host made,” Alpha said at last, his tone oddly calm. “I don’t need to share my home with an evil spirit.”

Tiamat let out a low, layered scoff that felt like metal grinding under fire. “You are only spared because the host trusts you more. If he had given me that trust first, this choice would not exist.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Alpha replied flatly. “Whatever helps you sleep in exile.”

Lin Fang did not hear the rest as pain exploded through his body without warning.

*Ding!

[Proceeding to create a second core and clone the mindscape.]

It felt like someone had shoved burning iron straight into his heart. The pain spread instantly through his spine, into his limbs, into his skull.

*Graaa*

His mouth opened, and a raw, broken roar tore out of his throat, loud enough to ripple the surface of the lake.

His body lifted from the water against his will.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep