NOVEL NEXT Chapter 194: Dragon
The door swung inward.
Light hit him first.
Not the harsh white glow of training circles. This was softer, almost silver, like it had passed through clouds and leaves before reaching the room.
Raizen stepped in.
The space was bigger than Atman's office, but it felt emptier. No trophies. No medals. No crowded shelves. Just clean wood, a plain desk pushed to one side, a few neat stacks of paper.
And the window.
It took the whole far wall.
Roots had grown into a frame, weaving and knotting together, forming an arch that opened straight into the sky.
The glass window was open, and whoever the black cloak was, stood on the window frame.
Not in front of it. On it.
Boots on the thick roots, cloak shifting lightly in the breeze. The hood was still hiding everything.
Raizen stopped just inside the door.
For a moment, no one said anything.
The wind did all the talking, slipping past him, pushing at his clothes, tugging his hair. From here, the Sky Domain really deserved the name - through that opening he could see nothing but sky and the faint tops of distant trees below.
"What were you doing down there?" he asked.
His voice sounded too normal in the quiet room.
The cloak didn't even react.
No shift of shoulders. No tilt of the head.
Raizen took a few steps forward, boots soft on the polished floor.
"You cut that beast" he said. "Not me. You finished it before my strike landed."
Still nothing.
He was close enough now to see the outlines under the cloth. Not much. Just the slope of shoulders.
No obvious weapon. No visible trap.
"Why help me if you are going to run?" he tried again.
Silence.
He could have backed off. Called for Atman. Waited. But Raizen being Raizen, he did none of those things.
His hand brushed his sword hilts once, a reflex more than a choice, fingers skimming the familiar shapes, without drawing either.
The air felt thin.
"At least do something when I talk!" he insisted.
That did something.
The figure shifted.
Slowly, without hurry, it turned its head to the side.
The hood never slipped back. He couldn't see a face. Not even a nose or jaw. Just darkness under the fabric.
Then Raizen heard it.
At first he thought it was the wind squeezing between roots. A sharp, thin sound.
It got louder. Higher. Not a roar. More like a shriek pressed closer and closer, cutting through the open sky and into the room.
The hairs on his arms rose.
The cloaked figure moved.
One foot stepped back, sole finding the top of the root frame behind it with the assurance of someone who had done this before. Arms spread a little, cloak catching the wind.
Raizen's muscles tensed.
"Wait -"
The figure leaned backward.
No flinch.
No grabbing for balance.
It just fell.
Cloak, boots, hood - all of it - tipping back and dropping out of the frame, falling.
Raizen reached the window in three strides.
Wind punched into his chest as he grabbed the roots and leaned out.
The ground was a long, long way down.
From here, Ukai looked like a carved nest more than a city. Platforms wrapped around enormous trunks. Bridges of living wood. Training rings like small circles on different levels. Smoke still curling up from Zone C, drones glinting as they flew.
Far below, the figure was falling.
The shriek came again, closer.
Wings tore past the edge of his vision.
Not two.
Four.
The beast rose under the falling figure in a blur of black and red. Four wings carved the air - two broad main wings, two smaller ones set farther back, all of them beating with tight, lethal power. Its body was sleek, built for speed, plates of black scale catching light in thin lines.
Along its ribs, thin streaks of dark red glowed faintly, like embers trapped under skin.
The tail stretched long behind it, ending in fins that flared out like a double blade.
The falling cloak dropped straight onto its back.
Perfect timing.
No scramble. No panic.
The figure hit the dragon's spine and stayed there, sliding a bit, then settling.
The dragon did not slow down.
It banked hard toward the outer edge of Ukai, four wings beating once, twice, gaining speed with every stroke.
Raizen's fingers dug into the wood.
That beast.
Those scales.
It was...
A dragon.
He didn't think through the rest.
Raizen just did what he did best.
His hand left the roots.
His boots left the floor.
He jumped.
For a moment, there was nothing under him.
Only open air, cold and thin, grabbing at his clothes. Wind filled his ears, erasing every other sound. The huge trunk of the Sky Domain curved down past him on one side. The world spread on the other - platforms, roofs, pathways, all suddenly small.
The dragon cut away from the tree, slipping into open sky, wings beating with clean, brutal efficiency. It was already moving fast.
Raizen didn't have much time.
His fingers brushed his sword hilts on instinct.
But again, he didn't draw either.
Muscles coiled.
Eon surged through his legs in a tight, sharp pulse.
He dashed in midair.
His vision blurred sideways for a single beat.
His body jerked toward the dragon faster than the fall would allow, like someone had yanked him on an invisible line.
He reached out to the beast's tail.
His hand slammed onto the scales just above the tail fins. The surface was smoother than he expected, but there were ridges, seams between the plates. His fingers clawed for something, nails scraping against hard armor.
For a heartbeat, he had it.
Then the dragon flicked its tail.
Not a violent move. Just an adjustment, turning away from the main cluster of platforms and out toward the open forest beyond.
The motion ripped at his grip.
His fingers slipped along slick scales, catching for half a second on a seam, then losing it.
His body swung, momentum dragging his legs out.
He tried to clamp both hands around the tail.
The wind tore at them, harder than any current he has ever felt. Palms burned. Skin scraped.
His hands slid off the dragon's tail completely.
The beast didn't even flinch.
It kept flying, four wings beating, carrying cloak and scale farther from Ukai with every beat.
Raizen hung in the air for the smallest fraction of a second, arms stretching toward the vanishing tail.
But there was nothing to hold.
The sky opened under him.
Raizen fell.