“Zagon, come here.” The powerful voice commanded him, making his body shudder. He wondered if it was real.

“Don’t listen to it. What has the wretched thing done for you? He has made your life miserable, a living agony. I know what you should do. Go and kill that beloved rabbit pet of his. He can’t resummon that - it will hurt him deeply,” a low-pitched voice rang in his mind. It was always the loudest of the voices. It was the one that drove him to action.

Zagon stood up, brushing off his clothes. He wore a black robe he had stolen from a novice necromancer. It was the only thing that fully covered his body. A similarly black scarf was tied around his neck, further covering his body.

Underneath the thick layer of clothes was a body he didn’t recognise. His skin had turned pitch black, weird protrusions poking out of his body. They mutated, becoming more grotesque by the day, growing like tumours. He covered up the worst - a third eye that had grown on his cheek. It had no pupil, and staring at it was like staring into the abyss.

Zagon shuddered, pulling up the scarf even further, making sure the eye was closed. Sometimes, he forgot he had it. Sometimes, it would open. Even the memory of what he saw made him drop to his knees, smashing his head against the rock. It took a half-chewed finger for him to calm down.

“Open your eye. You’ll learn secrets that have been buried by time, that the ones above don’t want you to know. We’ll help you escape this cruel Demon Lord, just let us help.” A soft-spoken voice whispered to him, each word as sweet as a kiss. He kept going.

There was always something more to fear. First, he feared death and pain - the beatings he received every day were unbearable. Once he learned what death was, he momentarily forgot all emotions, apathetic to the world. That was when he began to consume demon blood. He was special. No other goblin could consume it and live, keeping their sanity. The thought made him alive once again. He only began to feel fear again when his mind started to twist, when the voices talked to him, enticed him with sweet promises of nothing.

He slowly marched to the first floor. He had struck a deal with the ifrit and found a home in the sweltering heat. He sweated and panted with exhaustion whenever he moved, but anything that distracted him from his thoughts was a good thing. When he finally arrived, he saw a black mound poking out of the ink pool and a half-mix kneeling nearby.

“Once upon a time, I gave you the name Zagon. It was the name of the strongest black dragon, someone who had almost destroyed the world. Its body was big enough to blot out the sun. Its fire drowned kingdoms in fire, turning them to ash. It ruled an empire that spanned half the world.” Zagon listened in silence, his head hung low.

“Now, I’m fulfilling my promise. Walk forward, Zagon. Receive your wings.” Zagon nodded, his eyes blank. The voices were silent, each listening intently to the Demon Lord’s words.

Walking closer, he stared at the black wings in the pool. Each wing was three times bigger than his body, each feather the size of his head. The wings looked closer to what a carrion bird would carry, lacking the majesty of a dragon. It was like someone had torn off the wings of an angel and torn them, tossing them in tar to soak for eternity.

“I need you to disrobe. I can’t attach the wings to your robes.” The voice startled him. He spun around, his eyes meeting the sunken eyes of a rabbit half-mix. For a moment, he saw the same apathy he had once had.

“Yes,” Zagon said, his words no louder than a whisper. Tamiel had taught him how to speak, but he spoke so rarely.

He heard a sharp inhale of air as he dropped his robes. Lyla’s eyes roamed his body, pity written all over her face. He was once again reminded why he wore the robe - he couldn’t let his brothers see him like this.

“I’ve done this before. I hope this doesn’t hurt you much, Zagon.” He glanced at her upon hearing his name but kept silent.

He had trouble imagining how he would carry the wings, even if they were sewn onto him. The pain of the needle came quickly, roaming across his back. The true pain came when her mana poured into his body. It was deathly cold, a chill that threatened to freeze him forever. His body desperately fought to reject it as his eye twitched, hoping to open itself.

“Lie down on your stomach. My magic isn’t working as well as I wanted it. It’s fine, all I have to do is to connect you two for just a moment.” Lyla said, sweat running down her brow in extreme focus.

He obliged, feeling the stitches tear as he moved. This was another form of torture devised to train his pain tolerance. The cold mana would freeze parts of his skin and the needle would rapidly heat it up, causing bone-crushing pain. Despite that, he kept quiet, not uttering a single word.

A final blast of mana wrecked his body, chilling even his soul. “There, done. Don’t move around. It can come undone at any moment.” The weight of the wings was crushing him. He wondered when he would die.

“Look at the wench. She’s torturing you, smiling underneath her deceitful face. Rip out her heart, take her away from your cursed master.” The voice reminded him that it could get worse. He was scared that he agreed with it.

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“Zagon, you possess the spirit of a dragon. Remember that.” Following that, the room dimmed as the water began to spin, creating a vortex around him. Lyla desperately fled as mana flooded into the room, creating waves that would engulf a person.

The voices screamed as one when the mana impacted him. They shrieked and howled in agony, experiencing a portion of what Zagon had felt. His body was absorbing the dark mana like a sponge. It was like he had never breathed before, and only now was he able to take a breath of fresh air.

His muscles spazzed uncontrollably. The once heavy wings were light on his back, and without any effort of his own, they covered him, embracing his shivering body. It was the comfort of death that made his body morph and twist, the same feathers that covered his wings now growing on his skin.

Just when he thought it was finally open, he noticed something that made his blood freeze. Despite his eyes being closed, he saw the outline of his wings. They were rotten and decayed, each feather carrying a hundred sins. Each line twisted to form creatures made of void, creatures whose existence threatened to shatter Zagon’s reality.

The eye blinked, the abyss within it becoming deeper. The heavy sins that weighed down the wings dripped down into his eye. The colour faded from the dragon’s wings, a soft white glow remaining in its place. Once again, the eye blinked of its own volition, Zagon’s vision flashing with a thousand scenes of death at once. Then, it closed itself, leaving Zagon reeling. He tried to move, but his muscles wouldn’t listen to him. His now grey wings wrapped around himself as he collapsed on the ground, unconscious.

Viv looked at the collapsed goblin in confusion. Zagon never ceased to shock Viv, his new eye being the latest surprise. His mana sight peered past the wings to the closed eye, but he didn’t notice anything unusual. He had seen it open and felt an eldritch presence for a few moments. Even if it was, the eldritch didn’t scare Viv. He had seen the secrets that corrupted the world, he knew what they wanted.

But still, he wondered about Zagon.

Zagon (B)

One of the five original goblins that received the Demon Lord’s blessing. Mutated from the demon blood, the goblin received a unique gift, a way to bring salvation to those in need. Not afraid of life or death, the wings shelter those worthy from the sin of death.

Abilities - Ruined Wings, Death’s Embrace, Life From Death, There Was Doom In His Eyes, But Those That Looked Saw Only Salvation.

The black box before him only caused more questions. Viv had only seen the interface be this cryptic once, and it was when it gave him the side quest of eradicating humanity. Was it because it was outside of Auberon’s authority? Perhaps the eldritch that Zagon had made contact with had an influence on the fairy king himself.

“Pecan, come here.”

“I’m already here, boss. I definitely wasn’t snooping, nuh huh. Just happened to coincidentally be in the area.” Pecan fluttered down the stairs, flying into the guardian room. He whistled, looking at anything but Zagon.

“Look at Zagon. Tell me what’s wrong with him.”

“Well, he’s quite gloomy for one. And he doesn’t talk much,” Pecan said, laughing at his own joke. The moment of silence after the fact made him hurry up, pulling up various screens. He focused on one of them and read through it. Then, he read through it again. Again and again and again.

“Well, frankly, I don’t have a clue. Normally I’d ask the big boss above, but that’s definitely a no-go. If I had to guess then I’d say that he’s unique in some way, even more so than your usual critters.” Pecan zipped back and forth in the air, nervously moving while Viv thought.

“Is that the reason why a new creature type wasn’t created?”

Pecan’s eyes lit up as he flapped his cicada wings faster. “I’ve got an answer for that one! It’s because he was named. As soon as you name a creature, its soul gets anchored to yours. So, as a result, it can’t be copied and used as a blueprint for other souls. After all, every soul is different and unique.” Pecan proudly crossed his arms, a smile on his face.

“Alright. You’re dismissed.” Pecan snuck a few more glances at Zagon before he flew away. As for Viv, he went on to prepare for his next plan - something to make the dungeon even stronger, a hunt to finally summon an A rank creature.

Zagon awoke a few hours later on the third floor. He didn’t remember how he got there, and it frankly didn’t matter. He made sure his third eye was closed and a scarf was tightly covering it before he did anything else. Only then did he let out a sigh of relief.

He went to stand up, but he was violently thrown in the air instead. By sheer instinct, he spread out his wings, gliding through the hot air. Zagon turned his head to the side, taking moments to admire the grey wings. They held more power than he did in his entire body. Landing on the ground, he slowly tried to control them, only to find it easier than anything he had ever done before.

In just a few moments, he was twisting his wings back and forth, seeing how far they would bend. A single flap and he was high in the air. Angling his body away from the volcano, he tensed his wings, letting power fully flow through them. Then, he shot through the air faster than an arrow. In the last moments, he brought his wings before him, smashing into the wall. Instead of the expected pain, he found himself snugly nested against his feathers, as comfortable as when he died.

“Are you done playing around? Do you even realise what you’ve done? No, I don’t think you do.” The low-pitched voice spoke to him first. There were a thousand vying to speak, but it was always the clearest. Zagon landed on the ground, listening intently for the first time in days.

“You had the chance to become anything, to learn anything. I would have taught you the darkest secrets if you let me in, but you were always so stubborn. Look at what you’ve done now. You’ve attracted It.” The other voices quieted down in respect.

“It?” Zagon whispered, clutching his head.

“No. You’re saying it wrong. It’s too early for you to know Its name. Trust me, you will know with time. And when that time comes, you better think long and hard about where your allegiances lie and who you want to become.” The voice became quiet. For the second time today, his mind was devoid of any voices. The silence was deafening.