Episode 1. One Day, I Became a Hatchling.
Crunch!
The spear lodged in his heart shattered his soul.
At the same time, a vicious headache surged in, as if his skull were about to split.
At the pain tearing him apart from within, his brow furrowed on its own.
- Grrrgh……!
His flashing red pupils narrowed sharply into vertical slits. Like those of a beast, the bridge of his nose crumpled and twisted, and as his pointed teeth were bared, the black imugi growled ferociously.
[You, bastard…
……!]
The scent of blood spread thickly through his stinging breaths.
Blegh!
The imugi coughed up clotted blood and writhed in agony.
He had not exactly lived doing good deeds, but neither had he done anything to earn humanity’s grudge.
That was who he was.
And yet he had never imagined someone who harbored such intense killing intent would come for him.
[You…
bastard…… What exactly.]
When he opened his mouth to ask what the man was, sticky, dark-red blood welled up and flowed out.
Seeing that blood, the man laughed.
“I did it.”
‘Crazy bastard.’
The imugi lamented.
The man’s face had been charred black by the curse the imugi had cast, the flesh oozing, and blood vessels stood out in the one intact eye as he grinned.
He looked less like a human than a murderous ghost.
‘To be able to laugh in that state… is he truly human?’
A chill ran through him, and his scales bristled with a clatter.
Because the bastard had charged in like a mad dog, heedless of his own body, determined to kill him, the imugi’s body was also a wreck. The man, too, had his right arm torn open, and on the left side of his waist, white ribs were exposed.
They had traded blows on equal footing, so it was a dogfight in which it was impossible to say who had fared better or worse.
His blackened feet and thighs, too, had rotted to a dark, dead color.
The sight of that savage-looking man still refusing to die and lunging at him was enough to make him sick.
‘No matter how I look at him, he seems like he’ll drop dead any moment, but I’ll be the one to die first.’
The imugi ground his teeth inwardly. Then he roared.
[Why?! What in the world did you resent so much……!]
“……
Die.”
The moment he foresaw death while looking at the man gripping the blood-soaked spear shaft,
rage surged up in the imugi’s chest.
Just one year!
In one year, he could have become a dragon.
Though he had yet to ascend as a dragon, he had lived as a spiritual creature for 999 years until now.
Who could ever have imagined that such an imugi would die at the hands of a mere human?
He had lived quietly, regulating all things and not greatly harming the flow of cause and effect.
Yet a madman had entered a remote island so isolated it was not even on maps and would have been difficult to seek out deliberately, and had driven a spear capable of killing an imugi into his heart.
And so, in the end, he had killed an imugi with only one year left before ascension.
[Cough……! Khk. Damn it…….]
Tainted blood trickled down from the imugi’s mouth. Blood surged out as he spat, flowing over his torn flesh.
‘So vainly.’
Along with the sensation of life draining away, he felt a chill.
[You vicious bastard.]
Even beneath the imugi’s thickly exuded killing intent, the bastard’s momentum was ominous and fierce.
He could feel the man’s desire to finish off the imugi even if it meant burning away all his dying life to do so.
‘Damn it! Is this really the end? Am I going to die like this?’
Injustice and fury rose up and pounded against his chest.
He had been a black imugi, already considered ominous.
A life that had never been welcomed by anyone.
It was not that he regretted that.
The imugi, too, had lived without mingling with them, keeping out of sight.
He knew full well what humans thought of him, but he had never felt the need to improve it.
After all, they were not neighbors, and as long as they did not bother each other, it did not matter.
A revered spiritual creature.
Something wicked that harmed humans.
A being that ascended after a thousand years of cultivation.
Whatever the world babbled about, it was all merely an image imagined at will by those who had never even seen him properly.
He had not even felt the need to resist or be swayed by it, so naturally, he had paid it no attention at all.
Because, except in exceptional cases, there were no bastards who could properly see an existence called an imugi anyway.
But.
‘Is this the price of that……?’
To think he was dying like this within their prejudices.
‘Not that thinking such things now will do any good.’
The imugi let out a bitter laugh.
[What do you gain by doing this?]
It was half a sneer.
If the man took even the imugi’s corpse, then as the body of a spiritual creature, whether arm or scales, it could be passed down for generations. But this madman would die here as well.
In the end, it meant he had simply perished together with the imugi.
The blinded man let his unfocused gaze drift into the distance.
“I merely repaid a debt to my benefactor.”
The words mingled with his wheezing breath sounded as though he were vomiting up his entrails.
The man stood there, his hair turned white after using excessive power, and looked straight at the imugi.
Grudge? Desire?
It was neither.
What dwelled in those eyes was a belief purer and stronger than that.
“Is this enough now? ■■■.”
Before he could even ask, Who? the imugi began to lose consciousness.
The pain from his split heart and soul was excruciating.
Along with the sound of his body shattering to pieces, the sensation of being torn apart wrapped around the imugi’s entire body.
Kwaaaaaa!
At last, the explosion that erupted from the imugi’s body swallowed an entire island and erased even his existence from this world.
***
He could not tell how much time had passed.
For a while, a strange situation continued, in which he could not move his body as he wished, yet his consciousness remained.
‘It’s suffocating.’
The imugi furrowed his brow.
What he sensed in a place where he could not even open his eyes was the gurgling sound of liquid.
Thump……
Thump.
And then, the sound of a heartbeat that began to pulse softly once more.
The imugi listened to that sound.
‘My heart is beating.’
The sound of surging life.
He stopped trying to move his body and felt the pounding.
‘I’m alive…….’
The fact that his life had not ended moved him a little.
He gathered his strength and tried moving his hands and feet little by little.
A very faint twitch.
Just feeling that much was astonishing.
Straining with all his might, he gradually twisted and flailed his body, stiff as stone.
How long had he moved?
Tap.
The tip of his foot touched a hard wall.
There were walls at his fingertips and at the end of his tail as well.
‘Have I been trapped?’
The heart that had been pulsing softly began to beat more violently with anger.
‘How dare they! What bastard dares to imprison a divine beast!’
Trembling with rage, the imugi could not contain his deep fury and struck the wall with his hand.
Thud!
‘The wall is fine?’
He had naturally assumed the wall would break.
He, whose single sweep of the tail could gouge out the earth, was blocked by a mere wall, and his hand throbbed.
‘Those wicked things have weakened my power!’
He fumed and kicked.
‘This paltry thing!’
Thump!
‘This paltry wall!’
Thud! Thuung!
Inside the wall where he was trapped, he struck it with everything he could do.
‘Uaaah!’
Crack!
A hairline crack formed in the wall, and faint light seeped in.
‘! I can get out. Just a little more!’
He reached his arm toward the crack, placed his palm on it, and focused.
‘There’s only one chance.’
His body, in which he could not feel his dantian.
In order to gather and circulate the energy in his body, he had to stake everything on this one attempt.
He drew up as much energy as he could, to his very limit.
‘Break (破)!’
Bang! Crack!
Splashhh.
Broken fragments of the wall and liquid burst outward.
‘I did it! I did it!’
Pride swelled within him at the fact that he had opened a path to the outside with his own power.
‘Ugh, uuugh.’
Because he had drawn on his internal energy, he staggered, gripping the broken wall as he panted.
‘I can’t just sit here. I don’t know when the bastards who restrained me will come.’
He gripped hard with his hands, took deep breaths, and forced strength into his trembling legs.
Sweet air filled his lungs through his nose and mouth.
Inhale, exhale.
‘It’s full of clear energy.’
Where the fluid had fallen below his waist, he freely breathed in the energy dwelling in the dry air.
With his strength returning, he splashed through the water and came out beyond the wall.
Splash, splash.
‘There’s no strength in my body.’
As soon as he came out of the egg, all the strength drained from him, and he could not hold himself up.
In the end, he plodded along on all fours.