Before I went to sleep, I set my Gloss to analyze the spirit-beast egg Danatallion had given me. It pulsed faintly on the bedside table, strange and warm, wrapped in a series of sigils I still didn't fully understand. I didn't expect anything to come of it overnight. Maybe a few surface scans. A vague mana reading. Something ordinary.

The report that greeted me in the morning was anything but.

Egg Analysis: Complete Primary Mana Signature: Void Secondary Mana Signature: Twilight Tertiary Mana Signature: Dimensional

I stared at the results. Then read them again. Then gulped.

A Void egg.

Void mana. Pure destruction. Not metaphorically—literally. It wasn't absence, it wasn't darkness, it wasn't shadow or decay. It was unmaking. Entropy incarnate. Most scholars didn't even classify Void as "mana," because it didn't feed from miasma or ley lines like the others. It wasn't hunger. It didn't consume. It simply negated. The magic didn't exist when Void passed through.

They called it "Null" for a reason.

The egg sat silently, pulsing once, as if it knew I was thinking about it too hard.

Twilight as a secondary signature made sense in a deeply unsettling way. Transitional, unstable, neither light nor dark—always on the brink of becoming something else. Twilight mana was liminal by nature. Bridges between realities, thresholds in form. A substance caught in the act of changing.

And Dimension? That just added another layer of madness. Folding space, twisting distance, rewriting the concept of "here" and "now." A beast made of Void, Twilight, and Dimension shouldn't just be rare.

It should be impossible.

Then I read the rest of the report.

Spirit-Beast Classification: Diabolo Griffin Status: Dormant – Pre-Hatch

Summary: The Diabolo Griffin is a mythical creature of considerable rarity and power. It possesses the body of a lion, the head of an eagle, immense wings capable of planar travel, and a pair of long, spiraling horns that emerge from either side of its skull.

It is a creature known for its fierce independence and unwavering pride. It will allow only a single rider in its lifetime—the one it forms its bond with. Any attempt to tame or force a connection with a Diabolo Griffin ends in failure. Or worse.

Hatching one is considered a sacred act. Not only for the rarity, but for what the Griffin becomes once bonded. Diabolo Griffins are known to rival phoenixes in power, capable of creating micro-domains that bend natural law. Their tears, when shed in pain or joy, crystallize into miraculous elixirs—liquid miracles said to restore the near-dead, cleanse curses, or halt decay itself.

I stared at the egg again.

Its surface had changed. Faint lines of iridescent silver now shimmered beneath the shell, like constellations struggling to form. I didn't know if it had heard the Gloss report. I didn't even know if it could. But the air in the room felt...different now. Thinner. Heavy with potential.

Void. Twilight. Dimension.

A Diabolo Griffin.

It took everything inside me not to squeal.

The inner child—the one that used to read beast encyclopedias under the covers with a stolen lantern—was losing his mind. Rolling in bed, kicking his legs, screaming into a pillow. A Griffin. A Griffin. I got a Griffin!

By my own actions. Not inherited. Not granted. Not borrowed. Mine.

I was still grinning like an idiot when the realization hit me.

These things don't happen by accident. Someone like Danatallion doesn't hand out mythic eggs on a whim. If I was given a Diabolo Griffin, it meant the path had already been studied, the pieces already placed. He'd found the match. The only person suited to bond with this spirit-beast.

Which meant... it was me.

I laughed under my breath. Quiet. Breathless. A little terrified.

And then I did what instinct and memory told me to do.

I remembered how I bonded with Fractal. How I let the edges of myself unravel, just enough to touch something else and make it part of me. I didn't need a ritual. I didn't need a chant. I just needed intent.

I placed my palm gently on the surface of the egg. It was warmer now. Humming. Almost alive.

"Let's see if you agree," I whispered.

Then I opened the floodgates. I pushed out my mana—heavy with miasma and potential—and let it pour into the egg, slow at first, then deeper. In return, something in the egg reached back. Curious. Careful.

Then it gripped me.

My breath caught.

I felt it in my chest first. Then in my bones. Then, deeper. My cells. Dying. Not from heat or rot or poison. From absence. One by one, they blinked out like candles in the dark.

Void wasn't magic. Void wasn't hunger. Void was erasure.

My nerves screamed in protest as a thousand tiny threads of my being unraveled. It was like being unmade and made again in the same breath.

Agony.

But beneath it—something else. Something raw. A sensation older than fear or pain.

Recognition.

I was being judged.

Not by the Griffin. Not exactly. By the force within it. By Void itself. It didn't care about my titles, my bloodline, or the fact that I was technically a prince. Void cared about what I was when everything else was stripped away.

If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

So I gritted my teeth. And I held on.

Not because I wanted to prove anything. Not even because I wanted the Griffin anymore.

But because I refused to be erased.

I. Refuse. To. Be. Erased.

I repeated the words like a shield. Like a weapon. Like a prayer. Over and over, pounding them into the dark every time I felt myself slip further from reality.

I refuse to be erased.

I poured everything I had into the bond—every drop of mana, every thread of miasma, every flicker of will that hadn't already been scorched by Void's indifference. I burned through my reserves, then through what lay underneath. Even my soul felt like it was unraveling at the edges, patchworked and trembling.

Then, suddenly, the pressure stopped.

The connection snapped back like a broken line.

My body shuddered. A deep, instinctual spasm as it began the slow work of rebuilding what had been devoured. Regenerating. Stitching the cells back together. Reweaving the broken threads of my energy pathways.

I felt nauseous. Beyond nausea, really—like my stomach didn't remember how to exist. Like my blood had forgotten the rhythm of circulation. My vision blurred, my hands shook, and the air around me pulsed with something foreign. Lingering traces of Void. Cold. Still. Eternal.

And yet...

I smiled.

A weak, lopsided, utterly exhausted smirk spread across my face as I looked at the egg.

There, running diagonally across the curved shell, was a hairline crack. Faint. Delicate.

But it was there.

A sign.

The Griffin had heard me. It would hatch for me.

I stayed there by the egg, curled up on the edge of the bed like a tired sentinel. My head was foggy. My limbs ached. Every breath felt like a chore.

I was so unbelievably weak.

So. Very. Weak.

How many times had I pushed my mana channels too far in the last few days? First the stag, now this egg. My body had limits, and I had apparently decided to ignore all of them like they were polite suggestions instead of life-saving warnings.

Mana toxicity again. I could feel it building in my joints, in the dull pounding behind my eyes, in the slight twitch in my fingers that wouldn't go away.

"I'm not doing well," I muttered aloud to no one.

And yet, I smiled.

Because of course the solution was more training. Obviously. That would go great. Flawlessly. I'm sure vomiting arcane residue in the middle of a practice field is the mark of a truly enlightened mage.

Still… I waited.

And waited.

Hours passed. The egg sat in its place, quiet and unmoving. I didn't want to leave the room in case something happened. So I laid there, sprawled across the bed, flipping through my Gloss like a half-conscious noble with nothing better to do.

I read the news—mostly political gossip, rumors of new monster migrations, a surprisingly long article about three cats who ran for mayor in a rural town. I skimmed books on Griffin behavior, survival tactics, economic philosophy. I even started memorizing new board games to appease Fractal the next time she wanted to "train my decision-making."

Eventually, I found myself studying flower arrangement theory. Just in case it helped me get on Cordelia's good side. Soft hues for gentle emotions. White flowers for grace. Red flowers for respect or passion. Too risky. Maybe lavender?

I paused, frowning.

How do I even do that for Barbra or Ria?

I just realized I barely know the two of them.

Barbra was like an iron wall of quiet judgment and impossible skill. Ria was—well—complicated. I didn't know where I ended and she began half the time. They were both mysteries, and I was too exhausted to untangle either of them right now.

I sighed and opened my Gloss again, pulling up the message system. I typed half a message to Fallias, paused, frowned, and deleted it. Then started again. Then stopped.

Wait.

She doesn't have a Gloss yet. Right. We never registered her as a denizen. She's technically still a transient from another Otherrealm. Which means… did I just break an inter-realm law by letting her stay here?

Before I could spiral further, a voice popped up from the far corner of my room.

"Nope," Gin said cheerfully, materializing smile-first from a shadow that hadn't been there a moment ago. "Not yet, anyway."

I flinched, nearly dropping my Gloss.

"She hasn't committed a hostile action, therefore she's not classified as an Other. She's just a Visitor. You're fine." He walked in like he lived there, hands in his coat pockets, grinning like I was his favorite soap opera.

"I already notified DT for you, by the way," he added casually. "She gave the okay."

I stared at him. "How long have you been here?"

"Long enough to watch you read three articles about floral symbolism and analyze the term 'lavender integrity bouquet.'"

I groaned and dragged a pillow over my face.

"Let me tell you about how DT agreed to let her stay then…"

***

"Okay. So. You know that whole 'Manager' thing?" Gin's voice bounced like sunlight off water, bright and irritatingly cheerful. "Yeah, so—get this—he actually managed to pull a Half-Dragon from the Library of Last Night. You know, the one that does and doesn't exist inside Danatallion's Halls? Tricky place."

Gin reclined lazily on a floating cloud made of starlight and vapor, swinging his boyish legs while the silver bells stitched into his robes chimed with every sway. His grin stretched wide across his face—too wide, almost—but that was Gin. Always too much.

"Projections currently show he'll probably marry her," he added, eyes twinkling. "And the best part? They'll eventually have two cats. Two, Demeterra. You know how I feel about cats!"

He clapped once, soft and excited. "So! DT, my lovely, luminous, ever-so-serious Dominus of Earth and Order—how about we cut the red tape and just let the golden dragon girl live here in your domain? No incineration, exile, or divine smiting necessary. Pretty please?"

Demeterra exhaled slowly, the kind of breath that made trees in a thousand forests stir in unison. Her voice, when it came, was composed like the pressure beneath mountains—immense, calm, and dangerously close to cracking.

"Let me make sure I understand this."

Her eyes narrowed like a mother trying not to scold the child she couldn't discipline.

"One: he brought a sapient creature out of Danatallion's Halls. Into my realm. Is that correct?"

"Correct, DT!" Gin chirped, throwing a peace sign with one hand and spinning lazily on his cloud.

Demeterra's jaw tightened.

"And two," she continued, voice flat, "he thinks he's going to marry her. A dragon. Him. And her."

Gin gave a mock-thoughtful hum. "Mmm. That's what the threads are trending toward. Very romantic. Possibly tragic. Lots of potential."

Demeterra pinched the bridge of her nose, her composure wearing thin. "And you—you—the Archon of Catastrophe, the Conductor of Calamity, the Director of Disasters, are standing here telling me it won't end in fire and screaming?"

"For those two and the world at large?" Gin nodded. "Yeah. It won't."

She looked at him. Truly looked at him. The bells. The cloud. The childlike posture barely containing a being older than gods and disasters themselves.

"If it was anyone else saying this to me, Gin, I would have laughed in their face and then ordered their exile for wasting my time."

"And yet…" Gin sang, winking.

Demeterra sighed again, slower this time. "Fine. I'll allow her entry. As a Visitor, not a Citizen. I expect proper documentation filed before sunrise. And I'm only doing this as a favor to the boy."

Gin's smile softened—just a fraction. "He'll need a few more favors before he's done."

Demeterra tilted her head. "You're expecting him to succeed early?"

"Oh," Gin said, rising gently from his cloud, expression still light but voice suddenly far more ancient than his smile. "He will succeed. That's inevitable."

He turned.

"It just won't end well."

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.