I Chose This Path, Now the Universe Will Know My Name

The first thing I noticed was the silence.

No wind. No rustling leaves. No distant echoes of danger.

Just… silence.

When the rift closed behind us, we were standing on soft, glowing grass that shimmered like stardust beneath our feet. Trees arched toward a lavender sky. Their leaves glowed with mana-rich light, and crystalline rivers whispered along flower-covered banks.

We weren't in the tournament arena anymore. This place felt older… sacred.

Freya stepped forward cautiously, her muscles tense. "This doesn't feel like part of the trial."

Lyssira's eyes darted around. "The air here… it's alive."

And then we heard it.

A voice — smooth, ageless, and warm like the end of a lullaby.

"Zavier… you've come so much earlier than I thought."

From beneath the roots of a colossal tree, a figure emerged. She stepped forward with a grace that defied time, robes flowing like liquid stars. Her eyes were pools of shifting color — silver, violet, cerulean, and something deeper — as if galaxies shimmered just beneath their surface. Her long, radiant hair trailed behind her like a comet's tail.

She looked human, but everything about her radiated ancient divinity.

"Who…?" I started.

She smiled — soft, kind, and almost motherly. "I am Seraphine. A dragon of time. I am one of four who dwell within the quadrants of this world."

Freya instinctively stepped in front of me. Lyssira reached for her weapon. But I… I couldn't move.

Not from fear.

But from the feeling that I was being seen for the first time.

"I saw you, Zavier," Seraphine said, walking closer. "Fragments of a boy with wings — a flicker of silver among a thousand futures. You were to become the heir to something forgotten. But the moment you entered this map… your thread changed."

My mouth was dry. "You saw me… before I got here?"

She nodded. "It's what we dragons of time do. But even I could not predict the Endless Evolution. That buff… it's not native to this multiverse. It should not exist."

Freya's eyes widened.

Seraphine continued, her tone still gentle. "You were meant to awaken slowly — to gain wings, to grow into your power through my essence blood. But when your soul cried out to survive… your desire shattered the pattern. Now, the wings I once saw will not simply grow — they will transform you. You will become something new, something the multiverse has never seen."

I blinked, struggling to process her words. "So I'm not becoming a dragon?"

"You can," she said. "But only if you choose it. The essence blood I left in the flow of time has already merged with your buff. If you accept it, it will cocoon you in metamorphosis. You'll emerge not as a replica of what I saw — but as what you truly are."

Her voice lowered, warm and awestruck.

"Silver eyes. Hair like refracted starlight. Skin white as void-silk. You will rise from an egg not laid, but forged — the dragon of endless change."

A shiver ran down my spine.

Freya finally broke the silence. "And if he doesn't choose it?"

Seraphine turned her head slightly. "Then he continues on the path he's already started. Powerful… but incomplete."

She stepped even closer now. Her presence, though calm, pressed against the air like a wave about to crash.

"I won't force your choice. But I've waited millennia for this moment. I still remember… when you first hatched."

Her words stunned me.

"You remember me?" I whispered.

Seraphine smiled, a faint tremble in her voice — like joy buried under centuries of patience.

"You were the one fragment I could never quite hold in time. And now, you're finally here. I can't wait to meet you properly… my child."

The moment she called me her child, something cracked in me.

I wasn't sure if it was disbelief or something deeper — a piece of myself I hadn't known was missing.

My throat tightened. My heart thundered.

She… remembered me? How? From where? I was just a kid from Earth — a nobody with no wings, no ancient bloodline, no legacy to claim.

And yet…

"I still remember when you first hatched."

What was I before this? What am I now?

Freya stayed quiet, but I caught the faint flicker in her eyes — a quiet storm behind her usual coldness. Confusion, maybe. Or fear. She didn't understand Seraphine, but more than that, she didn't understand me. Not anymore.

Lyssira stood stiffly beside me, her brows furrowed, lips slightly parted. Her hand brushed my elbow, hesitant — as if touching me might confirm I'd changed.

"Zavier…" she whispered, almost afraid of her own voice.

But I had no answers to give.

Only questions.

Seraphine didn't press. She just watched, letting the silence settle around us like a soft rain.

"You don't have to decide now," she said gently. "But you must know… when the time comes, the cocoon will form whether you're ready or not. Your soul will choose, even if your mind hesitates."

She stepped back, her robes flowing behind her like light on water. "Rest tonight. Tomorrow, we talk. The multiverse is far more vast than you've been told."

And with that, the Time Dragon disappeared into the glowing forest, leaving stardust in her wake.