[TLD] Chapter 2 - Broken Inheritance

Chapter 2

Broken Inheritance

Consciousness returned like surfacing from deep water.

Azratheon became aware of his body first. Pain, dull and distant. Exhaustion weighing down his limbs. Warm earth beneath him. His eyes were closed.

But light filled his vision anyway.

It wasn’t real light. It was words and symbols. Draconic script floating in the darkness of his mind, glowing like golden embers against black. He understood intuitively that he could interact with them. Navigate through them. The knowledge of what it was came as naturally as breathing. An interface to aid cultivators in their development, their growth.

He searched through his fragmented memories. Three sources, broken and incomplete. The blade through fog. The roar full of heat. The crackling whisper. None of them contained knowledge of this.

He focused on the information, and it responded, just as he knew it would.

—

[System Quest: Survive, The Storm]

Status: Ongoing.

You have hatched against all odds. Now you must survive what is to come.

Reward: Calculation pending completion.

—

The words sharpened. He stared at them, confused, not knowing when it had appeared. He traced his own memories back and found it. At the beginning. In the egg. He’d been too focused on breaking free to notice.

He examined it again. The name of the quest was odd. He recalled the storm overhead when he exited the volcano. It had been no threat to him. And he’d survived. Yet the quest remained incomplete. The logic escaped him.

His attention shifted to the next window.

—

[System Notice: Realm Breakthrough]

You have reached the first realm of cultivation. Know that while there are many paths leading to Transcendence, the destination remains the same for all who cultivate.

First Realm Focus: Body Tempering.

Your cultivation method breakthrough requires the consumption of fresh heart’s blood from a realm above yours. In return, you receive an ability, technique, or knowledge from the devoured.

Reward (choose one): 

— Flowing Water Blade: Foundation Forms (1-3) —

Type: Incomplete Combat Technique (Earth Grade) | Aspect: Water

Description: Three foundational forms of a nine-form sword technique.

— Flowing Water Shield —

Type: Defensive Qi Technique (Earth Grade) | Aspect: Water

Description: Coats the body in Qi that hardens on impact.

— Quick Step —

Type: Movement Technique (Mortal Grade)

Description: Enhances leg strength through Qi circulation for short bursts of speed.

— Qi Sensitivity —

Type: Sensory Ability

Description: Enhanced ability to sense cultivation levels and Qi signatures in others.

—

More information. The terminology meant little, but something in the inherited memories stirred. Recognition without understanding from one of the fragmented sources.

The idea of a reward piqued his interest, but he pushed it aside for now. Patience. There was much he didn’t understand.

He focused on the last of the screens.

—

[Status Sheet]

| Name: Azratheon

| Race: Dragon (Primordial)

| Affinities: Fire, Earth, Blood

| Conditions: Weakened, Corrupted, Inherited Memories (Fragmented)

Cultivation

| Method: Heart’s Blood Devouring Technique (Divine)

| Realm: Body Tempering - Early Stage 1 (Realm 1)

Techniques

| None

Skills

| None

Innate Abilities

| Primordial Absorption (Passive)

| Fire Immunity (Absolute)

| Earth Resistance (High)

| Blood Resistance (Low)

| Shapeshifting

Quests

| Survive, The Storm

—

He examined the list carefully. Information about himself, laid out in words and symbols.

The words confirmed what the memories had already told him. He was dragon. A Primordial. One of the first and oldest species to form on the planet. His mother had been like a volcano incarnate, and he had inherited her fire and earth. With his memories fragmented as they were, he had no way of knowing what his father’s affinities were, or if he’d inherited them. But he knew it was rare to inherit all the parent’s affinities.

Most of the innate abilities made sense. Dragons were their affinities. He had clearly absorbed much fire Qi within the egg, and earth Qi as well, though less.

Primordial Absorption made sense too. Primordials gathered Qi from the world around them, constantly and without effort. It was the way of a Primordial, to grow stronger simply by existing. For centuries. Then millennia.

Which is what made the rest so confusing.

Primordials did not cultivate. The memories were certain about that, even fragmented as they were. Cultivation was something the other races—Spirit beasts, Mythicals, Humans, and Beastkin—did to mimic what Primordials did naturally. 

Yet he had a cultivation method. The contradiction made no sense.

His attention shifted to another oddity.

Shapeshifting.

He knew dragons could take a hybrid humanoid form. But only after transcending. After reaching the peak and condensing their power into something smaller. A convenience, not a necessity.

But never before transcendence. Certainly not as a newborn.

Because dragons, like all Primordials, did not like to change.

Which made his possession of such an ability beyond unusual. Unable to solve the problem, his focus moved back to the last affinity listed.

Blood.

He didn’t understand it. Fire and earth came from his mother. Those made sense. Dragons were elemental. Primordials embodied the fundamental elements of the world.

Dragons used blood to pass on their legacy. A Dragon’s Inheritance was made up of memories, knowledge, and affinities, all carried through blood infused with Qi and fed to the egg. 

Blood was the vessel of inheritance, not the inheritance itself.

Because blood wasn’t an element. It was... something else. A concept. Abstract. The kind of affinity humans cultivated alongside the elements. Things that existed but weren’t primal.

Primordials didn’t have those kinds of affinities. They couldn’t. They were of the world’s foundation, not its complexity.

Yet he had blood affinity. And the source remained unknown.

He reached for the answer in his inherited memories.

Pain lanced through his skull as fragments of three distinct memories danced across his mind.

The first was foggy. A mirror. A nearly faceless man with silver-blue hair. Scales running up his arms, shoulders, neck, face. Smirking.

The second showed the world from above the clouds. A volcanic peak far below, small and distant. Then overpowering rage from sensing someone within her lair.

The last. A red dragon’s claws rending flesh. An arm spinning through the air, rings glinting on human fingers.

The memory skipped.

The dragon begging. Not for themselves, but for their unborn.

Another skip. 

The dragon was dead. The man stood over a purple egg in an alcove, clutching his own severed arm. He placed it atop the egg. Drew his sword and stepped back. The blade flashed countless times in an instant, burying everything behind a cascade of rubble in an act of mercy.

The images shattered. Pain drove them back into darkness. He reached for them but they slipped away, fragmenting further with each attempt.

Understanding came with a weight he didn’t expect. Sadness. His mother had died protecting him. And the man who killed her had tried to save him by hiding the egg. But in doing so, he’d poisoned the inheritance.

A dragon’s egg absorbed blood to receive its parent’s legacy. But the human’s arm had been absorbed too. With it came human blood, memories, and cultivation.

Dragons were not meant to inherit from humans.

That was why everything was broken. Mercy had poisoned him.

With a thought, the light faded as the information panels receded. Azratheon opened his eyes, and the real world returned.

It was night, but his eyesight cut through the darkness with ease. Overhead, the tree canopies gave way to gleaming stars, but different from what his memories showed. The heavens had shifted since his mother’s time.

He turned his attention to his immediate surroundings. The cold air on his skin felt wrong. The smell of blood and ash. And something else. Fur. Smoke. Fear.

He tried to rise and stumbled.

His limbs bent strangely. They were the wrong length. Wrong thickness. His body responded to commands but the proportions were all wrong. He looked down at himself.

Clawed hands, not forelimbs. Arms covered in red scales along the backs, but the rest was... something else. Skin. His chest was bare except for the single golden scale at its center. A tail curled behind him, but his wings were gone.

It wasn’t his body.

Panic flared for an instant. Then logic pushed back. His mind processed the obvious. 

Shapeshifting. The strange humanoid form had to be part of his broken inheritance.

He pulled on his inherited memories, and something stirred from deep within. Two sets of understanding, one distant, barely a crackling whisper, and another, confident and certain, gave him some insight into how to use his humanoid form.

Cautious curiosity replaced panic.

Azratheon flexed his fingers. Tested his weight. The body differed from his true form, but it worked.

He could learn this.

With effort, he pushed himself upright slowly. His tail helped him balance. The world looked different from this height.

Movement caught his attention.

The small beastkin cub sat nearby. Kneeling, legs tucked beneath her. Supplies arranged in neat piles around her. Her head was bowed slightly, but her eyes were open, fixed on him.

She’d been watching him the entire time.

“Master.” The word was soft. Uncertain.

Azratheon looked at her. He knew what the word meant. One who owned. One who commanded. He didn’t understand why she was using it for him.

“You’re hurt,” she said. Her eyes fixed on the cuts along his arms.

He looked down at them. They had transferred from his dragon form, but they were shallow and already scabbing over. Dragons regenerated fast. “They’ll heal.”

She flinched as if he’d said something wrong.

Her hands moved to the sack beside her. She pulled out cloth scavenged from those he’d killed. “Please. Let me—”

“No.”

She froze. The cloth hung from her hands.

“I don’t need it.”

Her face went pale. She set the cloth down carefully, then bowed her head lower. “Yes, Master. Forgive me.”

There it was again. Master. But he hadn’t claimed her. Hadn’t demanded anything.

“Why do you call me that?” he demanded.

She looked up at him, confused. Her mouth opened. Closed. “Because... you are. The hunters are dead. You killed them. So now...”

“I’m your master?” 

He’d killed them. That shouldn’t make her his. 

“Yes, Master.” Her voice was barely a whisper.

He stared at her. She believed it. Completely. As if it were a law of nature rather than a choice.

Dragons didn’t own other beings. One could not own another. Many followed and served, but even that was a choice. That was how it worked.

“I didn’t claim you,” he said.

She trembled but didn’t respond. Just knelt there, staring at the ground.

He didn’t know what else to say. His body was wrong. She made no sense. And the world felt too large and too strange all at once.

Movement in the darkness caught his attention.

She tensed suddenly. Her nose lifted, sniffing at the air.

“Something’s coming,” she whispered.

He turned his focus outward. Extended his senses the way his memories suggested. There. Downwind. That was the reason they hadn’t noticed sooner.

“Not an animal,” she said. Her voice shook. “A beast.”

Azratheon felt it now. A presence moving through the trees. Hungry. Intent. The smell of blood had likely drawn it here.

He shifted his weight, tried to settle into a stance, but his body responded wrong. Too slow. He was still too clumsy with his humanoid form.

The beast emerged from the treeline.

A wolf, but larger than any normal wolf. Its eyes gleamed with unnatural light, reflecting the stars overhead. Qi rippled beneath its dark pelt like water disturbed by wind. The creature’s lips pulled back from teeth that were too long, too sharp.

It stared at him.

Azratheon assessed it quickly. Its Qi felt similar in strength to the first hunter he’d killed. The one whose heart had given him a breakthrough into the first realm.

But that had been in his true form. He had no idea how to fight in this one.