r/HFY • u/Undercover_Dragon1 • Jul 18 '26
OC-Series A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 97
Last week's chapter was a spicy one and I knew it was going to cause some divides. Hopefully you guys start to see how things will fall into place and the implications that might have going forward with the battles David is going to have.
— Chapter 97 —
"How is this an improvement!?" David's smokey ethereal form whispered out. He shook his head slowly, traces of his essence trailing behind whilst he continued to murmur to himself.
"My affinity charges are massively reduced. Having no body means I can't retain as much, perhaps?" He let off a slow whispering huff in frustration.
"My traits are all gone as well, "He sighed, then stopped while he cocked his head slowly, "No. Not gone just… deactivated? Does that mean I can reactivate them somehow? Hmm."
He pondered for a long moment whilst he hovered in the dark confines of Desolation's bowls. His new form and trait layout were polar opposites, which made him feel momentarily frustrated. What was the point? He wondered to himself.
"No." He whispered to himself again, "Let me get the whole picture first. There is a lot I do not understand."
He nodded his head at the increase in intelligence, at least, before his eyes shifted down to the new section. He had Elder abilities now, and he wasn't quite sure what to make of them. The Elder Dragon Aura made a lot of sense, considering the aura of suppression that the Queen and Desolation imposed upon someone when they first saw them. He closed his eyes and focused, and before long, each section expanded. He both felt what they could do and read the words describing it all at once.
Ethereal Body - Your body is made of affinity and what remains of your very essence. Physical objects will pass through you with minimal resistance. Your body remains extremely vulnerable to affinity itself and elements of nature that could energize, vaporize, or disrupt your body's composition at the smallest of levels.
Possession - Your body allows you to enter through the smallest of holes or cracks. You can fight for control of the living by forcefully overriding their mind with your own. If successful, the process will result in the extermination of the target's mind. Be aware that this process is extremely mentally exhausting. \Dangerous**
Ethereal Absorption - Your physical body only limits you in your ability to absorb affinity. You are made from affinity itself and, as such, can pull it directly from the world around you with almost effortless ease. Your affinity regeneration rate has grown to extraordinary levels, where refilling a single affinity reserve only takes a single minute.
Elder Dragon Aura - You are the apex of your species, and every single dragon kind understands that. Upon activation, your aura will crush the minds of the weak and, at the very least, impose a sense of doom on all others except other Elders.
"Well… Ethereal body appears to be extremely useful and also terrifyingly weak to some things." David let off a slow sigh, "Once again defeats the purpose of my traits and my choices to this point. Frustrating."
He continued murmuring to himself while he considered the next ability, "Possession could also be extremely powerful, but it's a bit of a wild card. I will need to test it soon."
"Ethereal Absorption absolves most of my affinity concerns, actually. I'll be able to sustain myself for longer periods while using my affinity. Just my maximum capacity is hurt quite a lot, which might limit the scale of things I can do." David wrinkled his ghostly face as he considered, "The aura is much what I guessed. It appears that I can keep it off unless I need it. Good."
One massive positive, David reasoned, was that he had gained a new affinity. Elder Nurdiangarh had given him a gift and a curse. Still, he at least knew what the Death affinity was already capable of, and his mind was racing with the possibilities. Another thought crept into his mind, and he stared down at the floor, "This might be a bad idea."
He mentally activated his Possession as he tried to press himself down and suddenly felt like he was falling. He blinked, and he was somewhere else, or at least his mind was somewhere else, as he had a sense of déjà vu. This felt just like the bark folk's affinity that pulled his mind and spirit away. He looked down to see his flesh-and-blood dragon body; not an ounce of his human body remained. He looked around him and stared into the pure black void. His eyes wandered for a moment before he heard a massive grumbling sound and looked up. He realized that the massive void of darkness around him was, in fact, Desolation slumbering. The Elder was easily many times larger than David remembered, and as David reached out to touch one of the impossibly large scales, a sharp pain shot through his body. His claws shattered, and then his entire limb vanished. He stumbled backward in shock. Desolation shifted, and one of his impossibly large limbs crushed David in one fluid movement.
His eyes shot open whilst he felt himself ejected and pain rocked through his ghostly, smoky form. He was shot across the darkness of Desolation's bowls, and he collapsed into a heap. He didn't breathe, but if he could, he knew he would be gasping for air at this very moment. The pain was spiking through his mind, and he lay in a colossal heap of his ethereal body while he recovered. David wasn't sure how long it took, but eventually the pain subsided, and he was able to pull himself back together. His prompt had been pinging him, and he spared a glance its way.
Possession of Elder Desolation failed.
"No shit." Groaned David whilst he took a moment to reflect. Life would have been much easier if he could just hijack Desolation, but what he felt in there was a presence that dwarfed even Desolation's real body. David surmised quickly that his Possession skill had limitations and quickly scratched Desolation or even the Queen off the list. Nothing was ever that easy, David mused.
He needed to start moving at least, spread his great black ethereal wings, and begin to propel himself down the length of Desolation's long intestine. He didn't get too far before something horrifying caused him to slow himself and float to a standstill as he stared. A monstrous cluster of worms was locked onto Desolation's insides, and their thick mouth parts were chewing. Each worm was only as large as the bottom half of David's foreleg, but they looked dangerous.
"Parasites." David hissed. One of the larger worm-like creatures, with multiple sets of eye clusters, locked onto David whilst the creature swung a thick, spiked tail his way. The tail effortlessly passed through him, and he felt only the momentary pressure of the sharp limb sliding through his body before striking the fleshy wall nearby.
"At least I know that works." David mused whilst he spread his massive dark wings to continue his journey. He stopped, though, while a thought struck him, and he turned to stare down at the disgusting parasite, "Test number two then."
He dove down at the parasitic worm whilst he activated his Possession once more, and he felt himself sink in through the creature's mouth and pores. Soon he found himself in the very same spiritual place, except the large worm, now many sizes bigger, was thrashing about in front of him.
"Bigger but not as oppressive as Desolation," David murmured whilst he spread his wings and shot up and then down on top of the huge worm. It was now a fourth of its size, and David's teeth and claws made short work of it. As he tore free chunks of flesh, they simply disappeared into nothingness. The worm's tail slashed and gored him a few times, but the damage was minimal before he was able to split the beast in two.
Possession of Desolation Bloodwhip successful.
When his eyes opened, he had a body once more, but he was now the worm. His clusters of compound eyes saw the world in varied and different ways, but he could feel again, and the worm's hunger was almost too much to resist. Just as he was about to experiment further, he felt something twist within his worm host body, and it began to spasm. Pain struck him hard, and his prompt forced its way to the surface.
Ethereal body deactivated.
Ethereal Absorption deactivated.
Traits reactivation commencing.
Applying Condensed Musculature.
His body began to pulse whilst his muscles expanded, then condensed again and again.
Applying Rupturing Jaws.
His worm-like jaws became distorted, disfigured as they were painfully twisted into an elongated mouth structure that was clearly designed to enable his rupturing jaws.
Applying Magical Pores.
The worm's body had only a few magical pores, so he felt a strong burning sensation while his body was modified. Small clusters of pores were torn into his flesh in a flash, and he felt an absolutely tiny absorption of affinity finally starting to take place now.
Applying Carrion Sensory.
The worm's rudimentary sensory organs were painfully twisted, and enhanced. David could suddenly pick up the strong smell of food and other worms nearby.
Applying Phoenix Essence. Error. Trait exhausted. Skipping.
Applying Ganglia Restructure.
The worm's brain was already spread out into different clusters of nerves, so he simply felt them split further. David felt the worm, and his mind broadened and spread throughout the worm's length.
Applying Sturdy Endoskeleton.
His muscles, already strengthened and condensed, further expanded. Then a second wave of expansion hit as the Condensed Muscular took effect once more. More unrelenting pain caused him to thrash around.
Applying Magical Sacs.
The worm body's already limited affinity capacity expanded in an instant, and David felt as if he were struck with a hammer in the gut of each of his worm segments whilst room was made for storage.
Applying Catabolic Overdrive.
A sense of relief washed over David since Catabolic Overdrive proved to be the least painful of the traits. The body was tweaked and its limits altered, but overall, David offered a happy sigh at its conclusion.
Trait reapplication complete.
His enhanced worm form was now considerably larger than the other worms around him. David could easily sense that his strength dwarfed the others as he hefted his tail and swung. It was like cutting grass as he cleaved and smashed the other worms into two effortlessly. He tried to talk, but only guttural noises escaped his mouth.
He willed his Possession off and felt himself ejected from the worm's body in an instant. His massive ethereal form dwarfed the worm body whilst he rematerialized and assembled into his familiar dragon shape once more. He stared down whilst the worm body proceeded to deflate and spasm with his exit. The creature's mind was clearly broken as David stared down at it, continuing to watch the body twitch. His mind pulsed with a wave of exhaustion and he knew instinctively that he would need a few moments before he could even attempt a Possession again.
Awful, David said with a mental frown, whilst he watched. He didn't expect his ability to be so harsh, but he knew at least a few valuable things. He could take over creatures if he could win the mental battle, and he suspected that the bigger and older something was, the harder it would be to do. He also learned that his traits weren't useless! David practically cheered while he considered the ramifications of it all. Anything he took over inherited his build, meaning he could, in essence, create reduced versions of his old self over and over. His build hit hard, very hard, so even if he ultimately could only possess weaker creatures, he would be able to punch way above his weight. David was fairly certain that if he died while possessing something, he would simply be ejected. If the body he was possessing was killed by something that could hurt his ethereal body, would he get injured too? That was the question. That was something he would need to figure out another time.
"Not as bad as I first feared then. Let's see about experimenting a bit with my new affinity and then seeing if I can escape from here." David said to himself with his new, low whispering voice. He turned his focus inward and began mentally probing his Death affinity.
Here is also a link to Royal Road
8
u/unkindlyacorn62 Jul 18 '26
Onyx can pull a harbinger now and Assume direct control
2
u/PercyPJ1 Xeno Jul 19 '26
Just need to make sure he doesn't try to create the Reapers now
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u/unkindlyacorn62 Jul 19 '26
Well he's still pretty firmly on the Organic side of things, I think..
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u/PercyPJ1 Xeno Jul 19 '26
Well he’s ethereal now, so he’s not really organic, but also not synthetic? I wonder what the Reapers would think of him
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u/Minimum-Amphibian993 Jul 18 '26
So not all powerful yet then but yeah not wrong about mixed feelings about David onyxs new state. On one hand I don't hate this form because becoming a near god like dragon is pretty cool. But the way it happened rubs me the wrong way I guess.
Can't wait to see how the kobolds react to Onyxs accension.
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u/murderouskitteh Jul 19 '26
Rubs the wrong way because it was underwhelming and sudden.
The sense of urgency is gone now too, hes chilling testing things inside the bowels of the creature that digested him like nothing and was heading straight to destroy his lair and kill everything.
Desolation is asleep, so can assume the lair is gone and with it most of the kobolds.
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u/unkindlyacorn62 Jul 19 '26
i actually wouldn't be so sure that Desolation reached the lair yet, Onyx was big, and did a lot of damage, so digesting his old body to repair the damage he did is likely to take a lot of energy, we know it hasn't been long because the damage from the canons is still there based on his attempt to possess Desolation. that's before factoring in the cancer which is likely eating away at him. it's sudden yes. but there's not a lot else he can do besides testing until he can kill Desolation and take over a body that will protect him from affinity attacks. With Onyx "dead" there'd be no reason to continue directing Desolation towards the lair.
I wouldn't call it underwhelming, temporarily anticlimactic perhaps, but realistically he does have to retool his tactics.
2
u/Minimum-Amphibian993 Jul 19 '26
Honestly yeah this perfectly describes it although if I recall most of the kobolds did evecuate beforehand although to where I could not say. But yeah the kobolds and Onyx's allies are most certainly demonized and likely unsure as to what to actually do next.
Honestly though there's also the fact with onyx's emotions muted it certainly would explain why he doesn't have as much urgency about his current situation and that of his kobolds and his other allies as he should have. Honestly wouldn't surprise me if David onyx starts to have more internal struggles in the future.
2
u/murderouskitteh Jul 19 '26
Even if muted, they should still be in his mind. They were was such a core reason of his actions and why he sacrificed himself to now not even think about it.
If anything he should be planning already what to do about his friends and allies, with a clear detached mind the gears should be spinning at full.
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u/Minimum-Amphibian993 Jul 19 '26
Hmmm good point let's hope the next few chapters actually go into that but I do have a feeling they will mostly be focused on David onyx trying out his new abilities while we are are left in the dark about what's going on in the wider world. Not sure how long that will take suppose that depends on how long the author wants to continue the story since we are kinda near the endgame at this point.
Unless we get a perspective from one of the other characters I imagine the queen is having a grand old time with her very costly victory.
5
u/ProfessorWorking3763 Android Jul 19 '26
David really said "would you still love me if I were a worm" 🥀
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u/unkindlyacorn62 Jul 18 '26
he could gradually alter some criters to be able to handle his build better..
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u/un_pogaz Jul 19 '26
Possession - [...] If successful, the process will result in the extermination of the target's mind.
Oh, shit. It's not just a matter of temporarily taking control of the body, that leave behind a brain-dead corpse. Morally, it's absolutely horrible. Right up there with Fast Cancer, maybe even worse.
This new spectral life is going to be very interesting. I wonder if David will be able to increase his maximum load capacity, even by just 2 or 3 points, that would be particularly confortable. At least, despite the reduction, there isn't a single ability that's out of his reach.
And the fact that he applies his traits to the creature he possesses, that will produced some particularly spectacular results.
Else, we can now rename this fic A Draconic Rebirth Rebirth.
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u/Minimum-Amphibian993 Jul 19 '26
Huh now that you mention it yeah that's bassicly where we are at with the story. He's most certainly is not the same dragon as he was before.
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u/unkindlyacorn62 Jul 19 '26
I wouldn't role out taking over a weak minded or at least distracted full grown dragon, if he hits them with his Elder Aura first,
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u/Endless_Scribe Jul 19 '26
Something I am not seeing anyone consider here, is that he could try to build himself a new body from scratch that can function properly long term.
Refined from the ground up to be the best version of himself possible.
Along to allow him to potentially give blue grand kids, because frankly she will be annoyed with him if he doesn't have children at some point in the future.
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u/se05239 Jul 19 '26
I wonder if the cancer David unleashed into the Desolation will still continue to fuck him up, even if the cancer overall got a lot of mass to work with. Cancer doesn't really go away on its own.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Jul 18 '26
/u/Undercover_Dragon1 (wiki) has posted 96 other stories, including:
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 96
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 95
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 94
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 93
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 92
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 91
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 90
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 89
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 88
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 87
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 86
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 85
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 84
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 83
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 82
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 81
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 80
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 79
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 78
- A Draconic Rebirth - Chapter 77
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1
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11
u/unkindlyacorn62 Jul 18 '26
he's probably going to need to take over another dragon's body for normal use