Surrounded by a beautiful warmth, I struggled to remain in the wonderful land of dreams as obnoxious voices kept resounding from somewhere.
Annoyed to a great extent, my eyes finally snapped open. All around me as a red substance, like water but denser: Lava.
Rising up from the lava, I stared down at the people who woke me up. When they saw me, their jaws fell to the floor in shock, but I didn't even bother with that, as I was long since used to this sight.
"Who dares wake me up from my slumber!?" I roared at them. This was a scene that I repete thousands of times a day, and even in this very moment am doing in four other places at the same time.
Now, they had three main choices. One would be to immediately attack, the other would be negotiations and the last would be to flee. There have been some weirder cases of people with fetishes for dragons whom asked me strange things, but those guys died and didn't get the event ever again, so... they're not a problem.
"Oh mighty dragon Viasharakra, I am journeying through the world to gather the mighty overlords in order to defeat the evil that is enroaching upon this world! I beg of you, please help this world as it's overlord!" A man in shining golden armor asked with a humble expression.
Oh, I see. So this is the quest where they gather all the dragons and then use them to defeat the demon king, but after they defeat it the kings try trapping the dragons. Then the player has to choose wether to help the dragons or to help the kings, although it is very rare for the latter to happend.
"A great evil? Explain it, human...!" I suddently felt a jolt of electricity down my back, and suddently my mind felt much much clearer. Knowing what was happening, I kept acting my part as I installed temporary bots and commands for the tens of thousands of characters I act as before I opened my real eyes, in the real world.
As I got up from the bed I was sitting on, I removed the headset and the various needles poked into my brain. It sounds harsh, but it's not really that bad. Furthermore, I have over 3000 years of experience doing this, so the risk of actually injuring myself is minimum, and even then, I can heal it.
I sighed as I asked the AI in the room "AI, how long is my time off this time?"
It wasn't long before a soft voice robotically answered "This is a message from John: Yo, Mark. You know full well that if you asked for some time off, we'd give it to you. Why the hell are you overworking yourself like this? You might erode your own braincells, and don't go apeshit about how you have a masters in human syntethics and regeneration, I know. Boss herself decided to give you a whole week off this time, and don't you dare log back in for work until that timer is over, understood?"
Frowning, I ordered to the AI "AI, send a big 'fuck you' to John."
"Command received, a big 'fuck you' has been sent." Answered the AI without a sliver of emotion. Ignoring the stupid machine, I headed towards a small chair in a corner and grabbed some clothes put on top of it.
After I did that, I sat at my desk next to my bed and began going through the internet, searching for ways to kill time. What can you even do these days? Read books? I read all the good ones, and it takes a week to even find a good book ignoring all the shitty ones wrote by people out there who have the same problem as me, they're bored so they write equally boring books.
As I surfed the titanic monster that was the internet these days, a popup suddently appeared out of nowhere. Raising my eyebrow, I wondered who or what could ever manage to get through my firewall, but still opened it up since even if they did hack my computer and steal some data, my boss could probably know the moment the information leaked and send hundreds of Slaughterers after them.
as I opened the popup, and the moment I did a screen flashed into being on my screen.
[Are you bored? Y/N]
Snickering, I clicked yes. Then, another screen appeared.
[Do you wish for a better life? Y/N]
Again, better is, well, better, so of course I clicked yes again.
[Are you a hero, a villain, or a rogue? H/V/R]
Pondering for a second, I clicked rogue. Heroes are retarded, I have no idea how people still think that it's cool to be a hero these days. Those kids seriously need to grow up. Villains are funny, but only if done right, and I don't feel like a villain anyways. However, a rogue is a whole world to be explored.
The screen disappeared from my screen, and after a bit of waiting, so did my interest in it. I continued surfing the web and looking at crappy memes for another couple hours and then went to bed, tired and annoyed at not even being allowed to work. People these days only work because their bored, civilization is just that advanced...
As I slept for the first time in a long time without having to control many other bodies at the same time, dreams began to appear inside of my head.
Guns roaring, star-destroyers blasting ships into nothingness, Slaughterers teleporting everywhere and killing all enemies in sight, Technos whom operated titanic mechas falling from the sky, and in front of all of this force stood a mere army of lizard-like people weilding mere spears. Needless to say, the scene ended with blood strewn everywhere. Then, the dream shifted to show a view of a world brought to ruin, no life existed anymore.
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Then, the scene switched to another. This time, I could see myself as I walked forward, several subordinates strolling leasurely behind me. We reached a primitive village with mere stone walls. My companions cum subordinates began laughing and mocking the natives, but I roared at them to shut up and get to work.
Then, the dream sped forward and it switched to a scene of me standing in front of a young man. Behind this child stood a young woman, perhaps in her 20's.
"D-do not get close!" The kid shouted at me as he tried to steady his trembling knees. I looked at him with cold eyes, empty of emotions. No, perhaps saying empty of everything would be better.
The woman shouted in pain as suddently, a four-meter tall man burst into the room, hitting her and the kid and blasting both into the wall. Looking at him, I simply said "You can have her, but remember to grab keep the kid as a sample. We need at least half of this city alive for testing."
I then walked out of the building, the pleasured moans of the man, the wet sounds of mating and the screams of pain of the girl not even entering the scope of my ears. This had been a scene I had witnessed many times, so many in fact, that saying millions of times would be an underestimate.
Then, another scene appeared. This time, I was standing in front of a huge number of cages, and a man which back then was my boss stood besides me.
"Mhm. You've done well, Archdevil. The mission was nothing less then perfect, as expected of you..." The man said as he eyed the various people trapped in the cages. All of them had unfocused, hazy eyes, showing that the drugs injected into them had taken effect.
My mouth opened and I began explaining several discoveries, however, the details didn't show up. Instead, the scene sped forward until the man spoke again.
"Mmm... These people are weak phisically and have no particular powers so to speak of... So war slaves are out of the question... And whilst they're okay in terms of beauty, they aren't at the level of harem slaves... Have you tested everything already?" My boss asked without even looking at me, already knowing the answer but still asking as to abide by the protocol.
"Of course, sir."
"As expected. Any outstanding specimen?"
"There were some specimens who showed an increase in strenght by circulating their adrenaline 500% faster then normal. That would make them eligible to offer to the Researchers, however, we discovered that their life spans were reduced by as much as 25% for a single use, and furthermore, all of their cells and mental structures were weakened to an extreme..." The scene unfocused as it sped through over an hour of explanations of details.
"Damn it. I knew this planet was useless! Just put them into the Grinder and rid them from my sight immediately!" My boss shouted in anger. He was obviously very disappointed at these natives for their weakness and uselessness.
Obeying my boss, all the cages suddently floated up from the ground and lined up behind me. Then, I led said natives down into the core of the spaceship.
As we went further and further in, the heat began increasing and increasing. As we passed by, I could see many, many cages of other natives all around the edges of the core. Each person inside the cages had many cables stabbed into their bodies, and a strange liquid kept flowing in and out of their body.
When I finally reached a zone without any unneded cages, the natives behind me floated down together with their cages and were each put next to the wall, each one on top of each other.
"Beep! Authority to connect natives to central core required! Beep! Archdevil has ovverriden necessity! Connecting natives..."
A great many cables flowed out from the wall and stabbed into the natives. Then, they too had strange fluids flowing in and out of them.
This was the result of what happened when natives didn't satisfy the commander. They would be put into this place as essentially fuel, having their own body slowly transformed into part of the spaceship.
Yes, this was how all spaceships in our empire were made. The process took a long time, but thanks to the intermolecular transformation, even a small spaceship had enough firepower to bring a world to it's knees, it could even destroy one.
However, the truest of terrors laid inside of the Titans. Titans were a type of spaceship that were at least the size of 100 Earths, and they weilded enough power to lay waste to entire galaxies. Furthermore, each Titan had at least several tens of armies of Slaughterers on them.
The dream began to unfocus as I went back to my cabin to begin planning our next operation. Then, another set of scenes popped up.
This time, I was standing in front of a man that radiated an aura of absolute might. He had strange wings, purple wings that seemed to be made of the purest of energies, as well as a number of powerful orbs floating around him, looking like cannonballs ready to be blasted.
"Archdevil." The man simply said, and I raised a hand to where my heart should be, although I had no heart, both symbolically and physically. "Yes, my Emperor."
The man nodded and a strange light seemed to seep out from his body, before entering my own. I felt something inside of me shatter, and I looked at the Emperor in the eyes.
"Your time for service has come to a close. For serving the empire for five hundred thousand years, I officially bestow upon you the might of Ashakaban. Congratulations, you are now officially a free citizen of the mighty Holy Empire."
"Thank you, my Emperor." I said. A small tear streamed down from my face as strange feelings flooded into me. It had been a long time since I had such things like feelings inside of me. The Army Mark suppressed all emotions in order to achieve absolute loyalty, after all.
"From now on, your codename shall not be Archdevil, as that was a attributed due to your birth and race. Instead, you will be called Mark, in order to mark a new start..."
As many cheers and claps went off all around us, the dream began getting hazy again. However, this time, instead of switching to another scene, my mind somehow fully fell asleep, not dreaming of anything, not thinking of anything, simply sleeping. Nothing more, nothing less.
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I could feel a strange warmth surrounding me, as thought I was back to the old days. The very, very old days when my mother was still around. She too used to hold me with a warmth like this, a warmth I could never experience again in my very long life.
Opening up my eyes, all I could see was a reddish brown. I also had a strange sense of discomfort all around my body, which was weird since discomfort means something is wrong with my body, and since my body can literally adapt to any and all enviroments and damages, it means something is very, very wrong.
I tried to move around this strange place, confused. Several questions clouded my mind, questions like 'where am I?' 'Why am I here?' 'Where's the AI?'
However, all of these questions were blown away as my head suddently broke through a surface, and I was greeted with fresh air.
The biggest shock wasn''t that, however. Instead, this was the same exact surrounding as my character's home, Volcano's Residence.
Then, slowly, I looked down at my own body.
I turned into a dragon?