Starting out as a Dragon Slave-Chapter 86: Desire

In his cell perched above the arena, Mordred didn’t move. He sat motionless, arms resting on his knees, leaning slightly forward, eyes locked on the sand.

But his pupils... they weren’t still.

The orange tint within them was deepening slowly, almost imperceptibly, as if a smoldering heat simmered behind his gaze. A silent pulse. His mana core, even in this muted world, seemed to stir.

Down there, on the Colosseum’s sand, the old man was teaching death.Not through spectacle. Not through magic. But through absolute mastery.

The six-armed ogre, known for having gutted two minotaurs in a single fight, couldn’t land a single hit.Not once.

His attacks were raw, brutal. Six muscled limbs, each wielding jagged blades, rained down on the old man in a chaotic ballet of steel and roars. Blades slashed the air, struck the ground, erupting plumes of sand with every impact.

But the old man...

He slid.

He didn’t dodge.He slid.

A short step. A tilt of the torso. A turned leg. A single exhale.Each blow missed. Barely. Frustratingly so. fɾēewebnσveℓ.com

And with every missed strike... came a counter.Subtle. Swift. Surgical.

The edge of a hand to the elbow. Pressure to the kneecap. A finger between ribs.Only the truth of the body.

Mordred felt a shiver of desire run through him.A deep, powerful desire. The desire to learn. To have. To possess.

And as that craving rose, his eyes darkened. The orange hue grew denser, more metallic—like a flame trapped in a sheath of flesh.

He had never seen anything like this.

The old man made no sound. No grunt. No cry. His face remained still, calm, almost detached.Only his eyes gleamed—with no rage, but a total, razor-sharp clarity.

With each new strike, the ogre wore himself down.His arms trembled. His breath grew ragged. His rhythm broke.

And the old man... remained unchanged.As if he were dancing a pattern he already knew.As if he had read every muscle before the beast even moved.

Then... he broke him.

The moment was nearly invisible.A failed motion. A guard too open. A leg out of place.

The old man didn’t retreat.He stepped in, right into the heart of the storm.

One, two, three strikes—inhumanly fast.One to the sternum. One to the liver. One at the base of the skull.

The ogre staggered.He tried to scream. No breath came.All six arms flailed wildly.His head tilted...

And the body fell.Face-first into the sand.The Colosseum was petrified.

The ogre tried to rise.

And then... the old man simply raised his fist.Not high. Not with rage.Just... a closed palm. Calm.

He walked slowly to the ogre’s skull, stepped around it, placed a foot on the creature’s right shoulder blade, and in utter silence, he brought the fist down.

He struck. Once.

A dull sound. Flat. Heavy.

And the skull burst—shattered like an overripe melon under an anvil.Shards of bone. A geyser of brain matter. A twitch of the monstrous corpse.Then... nothing.

The old man straightened slowly, wiped his hand on his already dust-streaked tunic... and gave a small bow toward the royal box.

Mordred, in his cell, was no longer breathing.He no longer blinked.His pupils now glowed with an incandescent orange, like metal heated to white beneath the forge of his will.

I must have him.

The ogre’s skull still lay in fragments across the sand, its massive frame twitching in post-mortem spasms, when the old man slowly stepped back, his arm still extended, his fingers slightly curled.

A strange silence hung over the Colosseum. No cheers. No screams.Even the crowd seemed uncertain.

The old man bowed again, gaze lowered—but something within him had shifted.

He turned.And he stopped.

His face lifted slowly. His eyes—two old, narrow slits, lined by time—locked on the upper tiers of the arena. Toward the cells.Toward the shadows.Toward Mordred’s cell.

Mordred, crouched at the edge of the opening, his gaze still ablaze with that molten orange, felt a chilling tremor crawl down his spine.As if an invisible blade had settled between his shoulder blades.

The old man was looking at him.He couldn’t see him—not with his eyes.But he felt him.

Like one senses a predator.Or a rival.

A heartbeat. A breath.

Mordred reacted instantly. He jerked backward, pressing against the stone wall, eyes shut tight, forcing his mana core to slow.

Breathe. Control. Dim the light.

He inhaled deeply, slowly. His heart pounded like a war drum.He stretched his fingers, feeling the faint warmth under his skin—the hum of power ready to erupt.He clenched his eyes tighter. Focused.

Bit by bit... the orange glow faded. Became embers. Then ash.

He opened his eyes again. No more shine.

Slowly, cautiously, he returned to the cell’s slit and peeked.

The old man, still facing his direction, kept his eyes narrowed, as though the echo of something had slipped past him on a breath.

Then, finally, the announcer resumed his role, shouting:

— AND HERE IS THE THIRD VICTORY FOR THE NAMELESS MAN! THE INVISIBLE ASSASSIN! GIVE HIM THE REST HE DESERVES!

The old man turned his gaze away. Then turned his back to the arena without bowing, without posturing, and allowed himself to be led away by two guards as if nothing had happened.

Moments later, the new king, Maelor, rose.His voice thundered—unamplified, but resonant with sheer authority.

— Tonight, we have seen strength, cunning, speed, mastery.This Colosseum reminds us why we stand at the top of this world... and why the others still crawl beneath us.

A heavy silence. The words etched into the air.

— Keep entertaining us. Keep spilling blood. And above all... let the weak never sleep peacefully again.

Then he descended slowly, flanked by his royal guard, followed by his father silent and by the princess, whose gaze had already drifted... toward the shadows.

The stands began to empty, slowly, in a dull cacophony.Torches extinguished one by one, and night fell once more over the Colosseum.

Mordred sat back in his cell.Silence, at last.

His legs folded. His back pressed to the stone. He closed his eyes.

His heart had returned to a slow rhythm. Steady. Like a drum in the dark.

The breath tore from his lungs as if he’d been plunged into icy water.Isaac jolted awake in the darkness of his room.

The familiar ceiling. The quiet night.The echo of the world he had just left still etched into his flesh.

But he wasn’t granted a single moment of rest.

[Ding.][Pending Absorptions – Processing...]

A violent shiver seized his body. His forehead suddenly burned.He immediately clutched his head—but it was already too late.

The skin on his forehead began to throb, swell, as if something was carving its way out from within. The pain was instant, sharp, and focused. Not fire. A twist.

— Aaah...! he hissed through clenched teeth.

Beneath his fingers, he felt his skin distorting in two precise spots.Two hard, rough bumps, no larger than a pair of knuckles, slowly pushing up from under the surface of his flesh.

He fell backward onto his bed, back arched, groaning in pain as the transformation completed itself with a sound that was almost... bone-like.

Two small horns, black with bluish reflections, emerged permanently—barely half a centimeter above his eyebrows. Short, sharp. Pure extensions of a deeply embedded draconic code.

[Bloodline fusion in response to Moonstones: Phase 2 activated.]

He gasped. And then, suddenly, everything changed.

A wave of raw energy surged through him, from his horns down to his spine, like a reversed lightning strike. He felt every muscle in his body tighten, every fiber respond as if receiving a new command. His nerves lit up internally, reactive to a frequency he didn’t recognize.

His scales, hidden beneath his skin, activated. He didn’t manifest them—but he could feel them: ready, vibrating, denser. More reactive. A second living skin.

A new reflex. A defensive system under the flesh.

And above all... a core spinning in his chest like a turbine on the verge of overload. His mana flowed faster. Smoother. Denser.

He sat up slowly, still drenched in sweat, his breathing shallow. He stretched out his arms, mentally summoning his mana wings.

They materialized in a muffled burst of energy.

But this time... they weren’t the same.

The shape was identical, but their texture had changed: denser, sharper, almost solid at the base, as if some unknown energy had seeped into them. Small blue shards pulsed through the veins of mana, as if a new magic was mingling within.

He tested them. The beat was stronger. Quicker. Quieter.

- "...Twenty percent more powerful," he whispered to himself, noting the surge of strength it demanded. And yet, his body... absorbed it effortlessly.

[Ding.][Megamantis absorption complete.][+30 AGILITY / +45 DEXTERITY]

A smooth, cold surge climbed through his legs, his tendons, his arms, and all the way to his fingertips. His coordination sharpened instantly. His reflexes stabilized, as if each of his muscles now knew precisely when and how to move.

He crouched slowly to the floor.

His balance... was perfect.

He closed his eyes, straightened his back, then retracted his wings with a controlled exhale. They dissolved into a cascade of blue sparks.

His horns, still tender, responded to his will.

And slowly vanished beneath his skin.

Like the scales, they could be hidden.

Isaac remained still for a moment, seated on the floor of his room, his heart beating slowly—but heavily. He could feel the change. Not like a violent transformation... but like a gradual shift, a layering of new traits rewriting his very being.

- "I’m... faster. Sharper. More precise," he murmured into the silence. "Just one more skill, and I’ll have the arsenal I need."

His gaze turned toward the sky, hesitation still flickering in his eyes.