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

Morning in the grove arrived not with brilliance, but with hush.

The golden sun spilled across the horizon like warm paint on ancient canvas, soaking the trees in a soft radiance. Above, petals from towering violet blossoms drifted through the air, slow and surreal, almost as if time had thinned around us.

We stood in the sacred grove—Seraphine's sanctuary.

My heart beat harder than it should have. I had faced monsters. I'd survived storms that tried to eat the sky. But this? This was something deeper. Something final.

Seraphine stood a few paces away, dressed in a flowing robe the color of starlight on water. It shimmered as she moved, each motion deliberate, graceful. Her long silver-white hair—laced with subtle streaks of gold and lavender—drifted like liquid silk. And her eyes… her eyes held galaxies.

"You are ready, Zavier," she said, her voice like a hymn across the clearing. "The transformation will begin. Not because it is time—but because you have chosen it."

My mouth felt dry. "What if I'm not ready?"

"You're never ready to evolve," she replied, smiling softly. "You only need to be willing."

Lyssira stood beside me. She looked up with worry etched into the softness of her face. Her green hair framed her features like ivy climbing a porcelain sculpture. "Are you sure about this?" she asked. "It feels too fast. Too sudden."

Freya stood on the other side, arms folded. Her long black coat swayed slightly in the breeze, and her intense gray-blue eyes narrowed. "He doesn't have a choice. The multiverse won't wait for any of us."

I glanced between them, grateful for their concern, but feeling the weight of something larger rising inside me. "It's not about being ready," I murmured. "It's about moving forward. No matter what."

Seraphine stepped closer. "This cocoon will become your crucible. Within it, your body, mind, and soul will bend—shift—and ultimately stabilize. Not into something I control, or even what you expect… but into what you are meant to be."

She touched her palm to my chest.

In an instant, the world dropped away.

Light exploded around me. Not blinding—just… infinite. Like standing inside a star and breathing in creation itself. I could feel something wrapping around me. Threads of raw, golden energy—thin as silk but heavy with meaning—formed a shell that floated just inches above my skin.

From the outside, I must've looked like I was encased in a transparent egg made of pure light. But from inside, I saw… everything.

Fragments of my life floated past—my mother humming while she cooked dinner. Me running through puddles during a Florida thunderstorm. That first time I said, "I want to enter."

And then came new images. Ones I didn't recognize. Me standing taller, eyes like molten metal. Wings—not dragon-like yet, but made of shifting cosmic energy—bursting from my back. Foes I hadn't met. A throne that looked like it was made from the roots of stars.

Was this my future?

Or just a possibility?

Pain began to build. My skin buzzed like it was being rewritten, cell by cell. My bones shifted. My heartbeat slowed and sped up at the same time. Inside the cocoon, I screamed—but no sound left my lips. The energy burned and healed in equal measure, like being melted and reforged.

Outside the cocoon, Lyssira took a shaky breath. "He's… he's glowing brighter."

"He's starting to fight it," Freya muttered, pacing slightly. "Typical."

Seraphine watched with a calm expression, but her eyes gleamed with something warmer. "He must not fight. He must surrender. That is the only way metamorphosis is complete."

Lyssira clenched her fists. "And if he doesn't?"

"Then he will remain half-formed. Alive, but incomplete. Forever chasing his own shadow."

Inside, I heard those words—not with my ears, but with my soul. Surrender. But to what? To who?

Then I saw it.

My reflection.

Not human. Not fully.

Eyes like shimmering silver, streaked with the colors of nebulae. Hair flowing in the cocoon like plasma. Skin no longer brown, but pale as moonstone—yet glowing faintly with the memory of its past color, like it had not forgotten where it came from. It was both me and not me.

And for the first time, I wasn't afraid of it.

I reached toward that reflection, and everything stilled.

A pulse echoed from my chest outward, sending cracks of light across the cocoon's surface—but unlike what we expected… it didn't shatter.

Instead, the egg of light sealed itself fully.

And it stayed sealed.

Hours passed. Then days.

Seraphine sat beneath the tree like a guardian, unmoving. Lyssira never strayed far from the shell, her hands pressed lightly against it when she slept. Freya stood watch like a silent sentinel, keeping the grove safe.

The egg pulsed softly—like a star breathing.

And then, on the fourth day, it cracked.

Not gently. Not quietly.

It ruptured with a thunderous echo that rippled across the grove and beyond. A shockwave of light burst from the split, shaking the roots of the world.

When the dust settled, I stood there.

Changed.

Wings—massive, ancient, and laced with color—unfurled from my back. Not dragon wings in the traditional sense, but something… more. Their membranes shimmered with endless patterns, like galaxies stitched across cosmic silk. My eyes held stardust. My skin was pale, but kissed with silver veins glowing faintly beneath the surface.

I was not just a dragon.

I was something beyond it.

Seraphine bowed her head.

"The Endless Evolution buff is gone," she whispered. "It has been etched into you—into your bloodline. You are no longer its bearer. You are its origin."