Dracotitán

The first sensations that Joseph experienced upon regaining consciousness were suffocation, darkness, oppression, crowding, and constriction, as if he had been stuffed into a can filled with liquid.

Indeed, Joseph couldn't breathe even a bit of air; he was enveloped by a thick liquid. Initially, when he realized this, he was extremely panicked. Then, he discovered that not being able to breathe didn't seem to affect him at all.

The slightly viscous liquid did not make Joseph feel uncomfortable; on the contrary, soaking in the liquid felt as comfortable as taking a hot spring bath.

What truly made Joseph uncomfortable was the darkness before his eyes and the narrow, cramped space. His body couldn't stretch at all, and he could only curl up like an unborn baby.

Unborn baby! Joseph's body stiffened. In a flash, he suddenly remembered what had happened before he regained consciousness, then connected it to his current situation of soaking in an unknown liquid without needing to breathe.

"I probably, should, seem to, maybe have died! All for the sake of playing hero." Joseph thought somewhat sadly, but he wasn't very sad about his death.

Because "I must have been reborn!" Joseph thought joyfully. He had been given another life and would start a new journey with the memories of his past life.

"I can even pretend to be a child prodigy, become a top student, and then, with my excellent grades, hook up with the pretty girls at school..." Joseph fantasized about his life after birth.

"Um, wait a minute, hooking up with girls also requires physical conditions." Joseph thought sleazily, then struggled to move his little short arms to confirm his gender.

"Good." After touching what he wanted, Joseph became even happier. After all, after rebirth, there was a fifty percent chance of becoming a girl. Being reborn as a girl with the memory of a straight male was something he couldn't accept.

Just as Joseph confirmed this, his little hand accidentally touched a long, whip-like object.

"What is this?" Joseph started to panic, the tactile sensation on his hand and the feelings from his body all told him that this was part of his body.

"How come there are scales?" Joseph panicked even more. He kept touching the long, whip-like object growing behind his buttocks.

Then, Joseph very reluctantly and helplessly admitted: "This is my tail."

"I have been reborn, but I've become a tailed freak; I'm no longer human." Joseph began to feel depressed again. The scales on his tail shattered his last bit of hope.

If there were no scales, he could still delude himself into thinking he was experiencing atavism, but humans, no matter how much they revert, could not grow scales, at least not normal humans.

"What have I become?" This was Joseph's current confusion. So, he struggled to control his body in the narrow, cramped space, trying to move slightly to see what else was on his body, to confirm his identity.

Then, when his little hand touched his back, below the shoulder blades, "I also have a pair of wings." This time, Joseph accepted the fact that he had a pair of wings on his back without any emotional fluctuation.

Anyway, he was no longer human, no matter what extra parts his body had, he could accept it. Besides, what could he do if he didn't accept it? Try to kill himself and see if he could be reborn again?

Joseph wasn't that foolish. Only those who have died once know the value of life. The saying "better to live poorly than to die well" always seemed very reasonable to him.

"I have hands and feet, definitely a humanoid creature. So, what have I become?" Joseph was very puzzled. In his memory, there was no creature that matched this description.

"The only certainty is, I am definitely not on Earth anymore. A humanoid creature with wings and a tail can only be a fantasy creature." Joseph pondered silently.

His mood worsened again. Just now, he had fantasized about his life after birth for twenty years, pretending to be a prodigy, becoming a top student, hooking up with rich and beautiful girls, and reaching the pinnacle of life.

Now, everything he had fantasized about had become a mere fantasy, with no possibility of realization, because he was no longer human, and he wasn't even in the world he once knew.

Joseph's chubby palms touched the shell that restrained his body's movements, not feeling the softness he had imagined, but a slightly curved, metal-like hardness.

"Not the uterine wall." Joseph sighed slightly in disappointment and exhaled a few bubbles.

"This is an eggshell; I am not a viviparous creature but an oviparous one." Joseph was confused. He was supposed to be born from a humanoid creature's womb, so why was he in a hard eggshell instead?

"Hey!" When Joseph realized he was inside an egg, the desire to break out filled his mind. His hands and feet, including his wings and tail, all exerted force, trying to break the shell that confined his body.

"Not strong enough! It's not time for me to be born yet." When Joseph used all his strength but couldn't shake the hard shell that restrained his body, he realized his body wasn't developed enough.

"So tired, so sleepy, let's sleep first and try again later!" Exhausted and sleepy, Joseph yawned, becoming drowsy. The intense mental activity and the effort to break the shell drained him of a lot of energy, so his consciousness sank, and he fell into a deep sleep.

Joseph's attempt to break out failed, leaving not even a slight crack in his egg, but it did cause his long-silent egg to shake, successfully attracting the attention of the golden beast guarding next to his egg.

The beast raised its slender neck, and the head covered in fine golden scales, with dark golden vertical pupils, opened, staring at the now motionless egg.

"My child, are you finally going to be born? I have been waiting for a long time." The huge and majestic beast spoke in a gentle and warm female voice.

If one only heard the voice, one would imagine a dignified and gentle noblewoman, unable to connect it with the terrifying golden beast.

The already asleep Joseph, of course, didn't know his 'mother' had been guarding next to his egg, eagerly awaiting his emergence.

...In a daze, Joseph woke up again, to the same darkness as before. During this sleep, his body grew larger, making the space inside the eggshell even narrower and tighter, tightly binding his body.

Originally, he could move a bit, but now he could hardly move at all. With his body grown to this extent, Joseph knew it was time for him to break out of the shell.

"I must do it in one go. Although my eggshell is unusually sturdy, it should be within my capacity to break through."

Joseph habitually took a deep breath, but ended up inhaling a belly full of egg fluid, blocking his nasal passages. He twitched his mouth, no longer hesitating, using his familiar limbs to exert force, leaving his wings and tail motionless.

Instead of using his unfamiliar limbs to exert force, it was better to use his four limbs, which he had been using for fifteen years, to break the shell, concentrating his strength.

"Ugh!!!" Joseph's limbs pressed against the eggshell, and as he exerted force, his chubby body, with muscles slightly bulging, displayed a sense of powerful beauty.

A set of neat white teeth clenched tightly, Joseph felt like he was using all the strength he had from breastfeeding in his previous life, but the eggshell remained as solid as ever, without a sign of cracking.

As Joseph continued to exert force, he gradually felt powerless, nearing exhaustion, but he still stubbornly resisted, unwilling to give up.

He didn't know what the consequences of failing to break the shell this time would be, but Joseph knew his body had grown to the limit the egg could accommodate. He couldn't grow any further.

Moreover, Joseph also remembered the documentaries he had watched. No matter which oviparous creature laid eggs, not all of them had a 100% hatching rate. There were always some dead eggs, some of which were failures that couldn't break out of the shell. Without breaking the shell, they could only die.

"Live or die, it's one or the other." Joseph growled with indignation: "I was reborn not to experience life inside an eggshell."

Perhaps because of Joseph's anger, or maybe because of his persistence, "crack!" a crisp sound, like heavenly music to Joseph's ears, rang out, and the eggshell cracked.

Under the gaze of four eyes, two dark golden and two shining golden, the pale golden egg began to shake, and soon after, a fine crack appeared on the eggshell. Then, this fine crack began to spread and split, quickly covering the entire golden egg.

A "small" figure, along with transparent egg fluid, broke out of the shell. If one ignored the "small" baby's chubby, white body, the pair of drooping pale golden scale wings, the golden tail on the buttocks, and the small horns extending backward among the wet black hair on the head, then this newly arrived baby in the world would look no different from a normal human infant.

"This look is not bad." Looking at this unusual infant, the black-haired "man" with golden pupils standing next to the golden beast revealed a brilliant smile.

"Yes, indeed not bad. This appearance should perfectly combine your and my bloodlines." The golden beast showed its snow-white teeth, emitting a warm female voice that contrasted with its terrifying appearance.

Joseph lay on a blue-purple crystal stone with a concave center, surrounded by broken golden eggshells, with sticky egg fluid dripping from his body.

He blankly lifted his head, looking at the golden beast gazing at him with gentle eyes, then his gaze moved aimlessly, looking at the black-haired golden-eyed "man" next to the beast. His height and physique were not inferior to the huge beast.