A light flashes through the night sky, vanishing as fast as it came. Oddly enough, the light isn’t from a nearby visiting comet, but rather a feminine figure rushing through the darkness.
Just as though she might continue on this way forever, a little, inconspicuous dot appeared on the horizon, seemingly searching for a place to descend upon.
“Another one,” the feminine figure peacefully watch the dot flashes around the night sky, searching for a suitable host, “And, perhaps, the last one for me.”
“Eyes of the Oracle, open.” Her words ring out clearly in the empty sky, and her gaze pierced through all matters before her. She sees no longer the material world, but rather a world of intertwined strings. Strings of luck, strings of fate, strings of karma, all bare themselves before her gaze.
For a split second, a tear rolled down her pearl-white cheek, “Poor child, you do not deserve such fate.”
“Had you descended a thousand years, no one couldn’t have done anything. But now…” A hint of determination shines in her eyes, her resolution undeniable, “If heaven won’t have me, then I won’t let it have its way!”
She takes a deep breath, as if it is the last taste of the autumn air she will ever know, “Oracle’s Eyes, burn.”
Formless hands reached across the sky, across the uncrossable sea, reaching for not anything of the material world, but rather the strings of fate twining around the dot being drawn to the earth.
And on the woman, a phantom fire covered her withering body, instantly devouring what’s left of her life essence.
“God said, let there be light. And so there is light,” The light around the woman shines even stronger, carrying an stunning aura of holiness, “I said, let his fate be of his own choosing, heaven be damned!”
The inconceivable hands tightens, and with a might last tug, the strings of fate breaks into a million pieces, dust scattered in the night wind.
The woman could no longer speak, her energy spend, yet her eyes never left the dot of light once again flashing around the night sky, search for a host anew.
The woman finally succumbs to the phantom fire, her body blown away in the wind.
But her gaze never left the boy, not for a single moment.
Let him be my last gift to the world, the boy that will devour this imperfect world!
~Year 3972 of the Imperial Vers Calendar~
~Allusia Clan's Hatching Ground~
'My lady, your son will be hatching soon." The clan's in-house doctor inspects the madam's egg.
"I know," the woman softly replies.
Though the atmosphere should be a celebratory one at the birth of the new heir to the clan, the doctor could not help but be nervous. The madam is not to be messed with. One mistake, and it would cost him his elderly life.
The man standing behind the madam remains silent, his gaze transfixed on the egg. Not a single word in the air as the strange trio wait in the hatching ground.
An hour passed. Nobody moved.
Two hours. The doctor's starting to sweat.
Four hours. Even the man has his forehead knotted together. The doctor has already passed out from his nervousness, and servants called in to dispose of him on the madam's order.
Six hours. The man cannot sit still anymore, yet the woman remains unmoving in the damp, heated room.
Eight hours. "Dear, we can try again." The man finally speaks up.
"Don't give up so soon, Al. The longer the final hatching period, the greater his potential would be."
"I know, dear. But the greater the potential, the harder it is for him to break out of his shell." The man responses.
The world is fair. Stronger beings have lower fertility rates, and weaker beings have higher fertility rates. The rules of the world dictates that the more potential a unborn child has, the less likely they are to successfully break out of their shells. For some strong species, the purer the bloodline, the easier it is for the bloodline to die out of infertility. This is the woe of all powerful families, clans, noble houses, and empires. The ubiquitous rules of the world doesn't allow for any assistance from the outside when an unborn child tries to hatch, or the world itself would punish those who tried without an exception. Most of their children die in their shells during the final hatching period, unable to breakthrough the shells the imprison them. And those who breakthrough easily, are without a doubt not talented enough to inherit the positions as the heir to their own families.
Seventy-two hours has passed. Only the mother remains unmoving at her egg. The father has long since gave up on this egg. It's not that he don't care, it's just that a three day long hatching period is practically unheard of. Nobody lasts more than a day in their final hatching period, that's the common view.
Besides, they may not be immortals, but their lives are long enough to try again countless times-- Not that he would mind. If not for the infertility problem that plagues powerful species like his clan, he could most certainly have multiple generations of descendants already over the long period of time he has lived.
"What do you want to name him?" His wife's voice sound out behind him. Name who?
"What do you mean, dear?"
"What do you want to name our child?"
"Child?!" The man shooks. Is it possible? Hurriedly he turns around to face, half-heartedly expecting his wife to be playing a sick joke on him with empty hands.
A boy. A healthy, slumbering boy, clearly exhausted from breaking through his shell. Now come the important part, the man bears himself.
"Did he inherit anything?"
A gentle smile visits the madam's face, if only for a brief fraction of a second. "Why don't you look for yourself?"
The man hurriedly receives his newborn son and checks.
A pair of little lumps on his head, clear indication that the boy inherited his mother's horn.
A little vertical slit on the boy's forehead, showing that he inherited the Allusia clan's third eye.
Briefly opening his son's eyes, blood-red iris glows in the darkness of the room. A round iris like his father, but blood-red like his mother.
Two pairs of white nubs already in the boy's mouth, inherited from his mother's razor-sharp fangs.
Back covered with light scales, inherited from his mother's bloodline.
A pair of undeveloped, jet-black wings at the back-waist area, inherited from his father's bloodline.
And a little undeveloped yet scaled tail, inherited from his mother.
A near-perfect bloodline. The man excited thoughts. His son has a near-perfect bloodline. And as long as his son shows promise, the only trait his son is missing in order to be "perfect" could be fixed!
"Hahahahaha! Dear! We did it! Perfect bloodline! And they say its impossible!" A gleam of madness shines from the man's third eye.
"So what do you want to name him?" The wife asks for the third and last time. Her patience has already ran out. If they weren't married, the broken corpse of the man would be dissolving in her stomach right now.
The man breaks out in cold sweat. Excitement is certain at the thought of his son's bloodline. Indeed, the unheard of three day long final hatching period lives up to its name. At the moment, however, keeping his head intact to his body is even more important.
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"That um... let's go with the original planned name, dear. Er, let's name him 'Ryner'?" the man seeks his wife's approval, though she has already disappeared from the room after the first sentence. The man shudders. Blood will be spilled tonight, his instinct tells him, and his third eye confirms it.
Indeed, the madam has left for her dinner. The news of a child born after seventy-two hours of the final hatching period must not be leaked. That means everyone in the castle must be disposed of.
Preferably in her stomach.
~ Year 4872 of the Imperial Vers Calendar~
Nine-hundred years old. I thought as I stare at the ceiling of my room. I would be ancient back on Earth, yet here I am barely out of infancy.
Ever since I awoken a part of my previous life's memory four hundred years ago, I've been constantly trying to remember more of my old life. It wasn't until a century ago that I finally remembered everything from old Earth up to my fourteenth year. I don't think I died that early, since there's some scattered memory later on, but I finally remembered enough to realize my situation fully.
What can I say, I don't know how I got here, but life in this new world is sweet and unburdened. Fortunately I was not reborn into a poor, starving family, that would've sucked. Unfortunately i was born between a bloodthirsty Three-headed Blood Dragon of a mother and the current head of the Allusia Clan, the clan of foresight with our mystical third eye.
From what I gathered so far, I am most certainly not human. To be sure, humans exist in this world, but in the eyes of powerful clans like mine, they are nothing but uncrushable cockroaches scattered across the world.
Rather, I am a part of the Heteromorphic Race. Simply put, we are the ruling race of this planet and beyond. Yup, you heard me right. If you thought we would be uncivilized and still stuck on this planet just because we don't need to be technologically advanced to survive, you're dead wrong.
My clan alone has thousands of livable planets in two galaxies under its rule. True, our civilization didn't exactly developed the technologies we enjoy ourselves, but we have enough technology to populate and rule most of the known universe.
How did we get so far? At first only the strongest people of our race could survive and travel through space. That was the first exploratory era. Then we encountered the cockroaches of the universe. The humans. Through our vastly stronger personal strength, we broke through their feeble defenses and took their technology for our own. That was the beginning of the second exploratory era, when we started encountering more and more human civilizations throughout the universe. Of course, we conquered all of them with ease.
Anyways, I'm off topic.
If I have to quickly describe my race, I would say we are diverse, long-living, powerful by ourselves, and ruled by whoever has the biggest fist in the universe, with an emphasis on the word 'diverse'. Heteromorphic Race simply refers to all the races that originated from our mother planet, Terra, where I live at the moment. Thus, there is simply no physical similarities between each sub-species of the overall Heteromorphic Race.
Some of us are humanoid, some of us retains the beastly bodies of our ancestors, and some of us can shift between the two at will. As much as I want to be the third kind, I am unfortunately the humanoid kind like my father, damn him. Why can't I be like Mother? Her dragon form is so intimidating that Father always trembles before Mother's presence!
So beside that and my snail-pace growth, there's almost nothing to be unsatisfied about with my new life. Other than the fact that I am not allowed to take a step outside of the clan ground. My father's explicit order. I discovered it the hard way that he also meant I can't fly out of the clan territory. Bummer.
I guess I'll take a self-examination to kill some time. As anyone who is permitted to see me knows, I am perfectly developed, a little spoiled, and mentally lightyears beyond how mature I should be thanks to my previous life's memories.
My horns are developing well, though not completely developed yet. Unlike Mother's horns that are angled toward the back of her head, mine are angled forward toward my forehead. Mother said they have more uses than poking Father's eyes, but I'm not old enough to know them yet.
Incidentally, my forehead is exactly where my third eye is. Everyone said it can't be opened until adulthood, which is a thousand years old for my clan, but I never had any problem opening it from day one. Probably something to do with the ancestral ground I am imprisoned on that everyone else in the clan desperately want to get in. I heard they said this place helps you gain control over your third eye or open it fully if you can't before, but I'm sure the first part is a blatant lie.
After all, I've been here all my life, and I'm still not able to control my third eye. Everytime I try to peek a few seconds into the future, I feel nauseated, lose control, and my third eye bleeds.
Moving on, I have night vision! Courtesy of my mother's lineage, of course. Heat vision as well, if I focus enough. Mother can even perceive bloodthirst and emotions emitted from a person visually, but I haven't reached her level yet.
My fangs are fully developed, and I can certainly paralyze my prey at will now. Few more centuries and I might have venom strong enough to kill. From the perspective as a former Earthling, I definitely qualify as a proper vampire. No, I don't have forked tongues, and neither do my parents.
My pair wings-- which are connected to me at waist-level-- are almost fully developed now. At first when Mother told me I could fly with them, I thought they would be humongous, at least that's what my Earth-bound knowledge told me, but the inherent rune-like markings on the feathers somehow allow me to fly with their current lengths. And no, I don't have bat-like wings you might have imagined on a dragon. In fact, Mother and her entire clan have jet-black, feathered wings. At the moment, I only have one pair, but Mother said I would grow more as I become stronger. FYI, Mother has six pairs of wings.
And lastly my tail is developing well as well. I don't have Father's nine fox tails, just Mother's scaly tail. But there is hope yet. Father said with my genetics I should be able to grow tails just like the rest of the Allusia clan, just different looking ones.
Oh and did I mention Mother is from the Three-headed Blood Dragon clan? She actually have three heads, though only the middle one is capable of thinking, which makes it the main head. When in her dragon form, the three heads looks about the same size and shape, but that changes when she polymorphs into her humanoid form. Her main head becomes regular looking, but the other two heads move to the upper-back region, like someone connected two little dragons with the entire long neck intact to her back. Don't ask me why, its just how it is.
More importantly, that's the only missing part of my lineage.
But today, Mother's taking me to her clan's territory to get that fixed! Though I can't show myself at anytime during the three month long travel, I can finally get away from this accursed place! Hallelujah!
Apparently Mother's negotiation with her clan finally went through. I don't know how and I don't care. Anything to get away from this boring place.