John knew one thing with absolute clarity: he had time, even though another in his situation might not have it. His current strength was likely not enough for the challenges ahead. Not yet. He needed to get stronger—strong enough that the idea of facing black tigers did not feel like suicide.

  He stepped to the edge of the house’s threshold and willed himself out of the shelter, expecting the familiar transition back into the underwater cave of the parallel world, the press of the ocean and the distant weight of the world pertaining to the alternate reality.

  Instead, the metaphorical door opened into… nothing.

  No water. No stone. No sky. Just an endless, pale emptiness stretching in all directions, not much different to what he could summon with his “Trial” skill at the expense of a lot of mana—a colorless void, soundless and still, with no up or down until he decided where his feet belonged. Behind him, the dome and house existed like an island of reality suspended in the void, its light a lone star in a blank world. This was strange, from within the dome, he could see the water outside but now he was somewhere else.

  John’s breath caught, then steadied. This wasn’t the ocean—but it wasn’t entirely bad either.

  “This…” He took a tentative step out, boots touching an invisible, solid surface that hadn’t been there a heartbeat before, simply because he believed it should be. “This might actually be perfect.”

  He had space. Limitless, indestructible space. No terrain to break, no forest to burn, no village to accidentally obliterate.

  He turned back toward the dome, where Archangela had followed him to the threshold. “Archangela,” he said, a spark of determination lighting his eyes, “help me train, let us spar.”

  She stepped out beside him, the void accepting her presence as easily as his. “Very well,” she replied softly. “Show me how far you have come.”

  They moved away from the dome until it was a distant glow behind them, hanging in the emptiness like a small moon.

  “Dragon form first,” John decided. “If I’m going to face black tigers, this is my best card.”

  Golden light flared around him, bursting outward in a swirling cascade. His body expanded, bones lengthening, muscles twisting, scales rippling into existence across his skin. Wings tore free from his back in a blaze of radiant gold, and his neck elongated, head reshaping into a draconic maw lined with jagged teeth. In moments, a massive golden dragon towered where the boy had stood—eyes burning with molten resolve.

  Archangela’s wings unfurled in answer, feathers gleaming with soft, holy light. She rose into the air, halo-bright energy gathering at her fingertips. In this empty realm, her presence was like a shard of the heavens themselves—luminous, serene, and deadly.

  “Come,” she said, voice echoing clearly despite the formless space. “Strike without holding back.”

  John answered with a roar that shook the non-existent air.

  He lunged first, golden wings beating once, propelling his vast body forward. His right claw swept in a wide arc, aimed to test her defenses with sheer mass.

  Archangela darted aside, her movement a graceful blur. Rather than try to block the blow head-on, she spun around his outstretched limb, her hand flicking out. A lance of condensed light shot from her palm, slamming into the side of his neck. It didn’t pierce his scales, but it stung sharply—a reminder of what a real angelic enemy could do.

  Good. He needed that.

  John twisted, tail whipping around in a horizontal sweep. Archangela dropped, folding her wings tight to her body and letting herself fall just beneath the arc, then snapped them open again to rise along his flank. As she ascended, a fan of shimmering blades made of pure light erupted around her, then streaked toward his chest and shoulders.

  Golden scales rang like metal under the onslaught. He grit his teeth, forced through the assault, and opened his jaws. A torrent of golden fire roared forth, a blazing beam that turned the emptiness ahead into a miniature sun.

  Archangela crossed her arms before her, a radiant barrier forming just in time. The dragonfire hammered against the shield, light clashing with light, shockwaves rippling outward into the void like invisible ripples in a still pond. Her barrier cracked, spiderweb lines of strain racing across its surface before the flames guttered out. She answered immediately, thrusting her hands forward.

  A column of descending radiance crashed down from above, slamming into his back like a divine hammer. Golden scales flared, some darkening at the edges from the impact. He roared again, part pain, part exhilaration.

  She hits harder than most beings I faced, he thought, banking sharply to the side.

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  They took to the “sky” of the void fully then—John circling as a blazing serpent of gold, Archangela weaving through the air like a spear of pure light. He dove, she ascended; he feinted with a claw and struck with his tail; she misdirected with glimmering afterimages and struck from blind angles with light bolts and radiant spears.

  At one point, he folded his wings and dropped, then flared them open at the last instant to sling himself upward with brutal force. The sudden change in direction brought him crashing into her guard. One claw finally connected, swiping across her midsection—not enough to maim, but enough to send her spinning back, hair and feathers scattering luminescent motes into the void.

  She recovered mid-spiral, wings snapping wide to arrest her movement. For a heartbeat, they faced each other at a distance—dragon and angel suspended in endless nothingness, power crackling faintly around both.

  “Better,” she called. “Your timing has improved. Again.”

  He obliged.

  This time, he mixed elemental magic into his physical onslaught. Water orbs condensed out of nowhere around his horns, spinning briefly before streaking toward her like liquid comets. She cut through them with slashes of light, each orb bursting into mist, but the distraction gave him the opening he wanted.

  He surged forward, jaws aglow. Instead of pure flame, a compressed bolt of radiant fire shot from his mouth—denser, faster, more concentrated. She twisted aside, but it grazed her wing, singeing feathers and jolting her flight pattern off-balance for a moment.

  In answer, she flared, her entire body outlined in blazing white-gold. Six luminous wings—not just the pair behind her back, but spectral echoes—unfolded in a sudden, awe-inspiring display. Light halos formed around her wrists and ankles.

  Then she moved.

  Her speed doubled, then tripled. One instant she was before him, the next she was above, then to his left, then right—a dance of afterimages. Blows landed in rapid succession: a strike to the jaw, a palm to the base of his wing, a heel kick to his ribs, each accompanied by a burst of searing light. John grunted, roared, and forced himself to adapt, trying to anticipate an opponent now faster and more precise than anything he’d faced.

  Bit by bit, his reactions sharpened. He caught one of her strikes on a raised claw, deflected another with a snap of his wing, and finally managed to clamp his jaws shut just shy of her, the hot wind of his breath ruffling her hair as she hovered, unflinching, inches from his teeth.

  They held there for a moment—dragon and angel locked in a perfect, perilous balance.

  Then both eased back, resetting their distance.

  Unseen by them, the door to the house inside the dome creaked open.

  Kana stepped out, bare feet touching the smooth floor inside the shelter. She looked around in confusion, silver hair falling over her shoulders. The fire still smoldered in the hearth, there were some pots with some sort of soup and some strange buildings, but John was nowhere to be seen.

  “John?” she called softly.

  No answer.

  Frowning, she walked toward the curved edge of the dome. The world beyond its translucent surface was strange—a hazy, pale expanse instead of water. She pressed her hand against the barrier, expecting resistance.

  Her fingers went straight through.

  She gasped, instinctively pulling back, then tried again—this time pushing carefully. Her whole arm passed, then her body, and she stepped through the dome as if crossing an invisible curtain.

  What she saw on the other side knocked the breath from her lungs.

  In the vast, empty expanse, a colossal golden dragon and a radiant, winged woman were locked in a titanic duel. The dragon’s scales blazed like molten metal, each beat of his wings sending invisible shockwaves through the void. The angelic figure shone with a fierce, holy light, wings spread wide as she darted and struck with impossible grace.

  Flame clashed with radiance, claws with luminous shields. The two beings moved with such speed and power that the air seemed to tremble around them, even though there was no true air to carry the sound but somehow, magically, it was still possible to breathe in this void and also sound was transmitted somehow… Maybe there was air? To Kana’s eyes, they looked like myths come alive—gods or legends battling in a world outside the world.

  Her heart pounded, eyes wide, unable to look away.

  “That… that’s…” she whispered.

  A golden dragon. An angel of light.

  And somewhere beneath that mountain of golden scales, inside that storm of claws and fire…

  Was John.

  Kana stood frozen at the edge of the void, eyes huge, as golden fire and radiant light clashed in front of her. The dragon’s roar vibrated through her bones, the angel’s glow searing itself into her vision. She had never seen beings like this outside of the oldest stories. This dragon was nothing like the one who had exited the totem.

  Then the dragon’s molten gaze shifted—and locked onto her.

  For a heartbeat, fear rooted her in place. The titanic head tilted slightly, as if weighing her presence. Then his eyes narrowed in recognition.

  “Archangela,” the dragon’s voice rumbled, a deep sound that carried thought as much as tone, “let’s stop here.”

  The angel halted mid-charge, light fading from her hands as her wings beat once, steadying her in the emptiness. She followed his gaze, noticing Kana for the first time, and her expression softened with quiet understanding.

  The golden dragon turned and glided toward Kana in a smooth arc, each beat of his wings stirring the formless space. As he descended, his massive body began to glow—scales dissolving into swirling light, claws retracting, wings folding inward until they were no more than streaks of gold.

  By the time he touched the invisible ground before her, the dragon was gone.

  In its place stood a teenage boy: wet straw-blond hair, familiar eyes, simple clothes—John.

  Kana’s mind stalled.

  Her lips parted, but no sound came out. The image of the dragon overlapped with the boy in front of her, refusing to align, as if the world itself were struggling to reconcile them.

  John gave her a small, almost apologetic smile, still catching his breath from the spar.

  “I am trying to prepare for the fight,” he said quietly.

  Kana just stared at him, then at Archangela hovering behind, wings spread in serene radiance, then back at him again. Whatever words tried to form tangled uselessly on her tongue.

  For the first time since she had known him, John was not just the strange boy from a human village, or the honorary member of the weretigress tribe who somehow managed to transform into a tiger even though he was male, a blue and not white tiger at that.

  He was the dragon.