One glance at him, a massive dragon covered in ice and crystal, and most humans would probably scream "final boss" before he even opened his mouth. The last time he ran into humans… that ghost-faced girl still haunted the back of his mind.
To make things worse, he still hadn't figured out how to speak their language. His vocal cords just weren't built for it anymore.
And what was he going to do, fly down, wave politely, and write 'I come in peace' with his claws?
Still, he couldn't shake the feeling.
Why were the monsters so desperate to destroy this city? They weren't acting right. Not at all.
"…Maybe I should just sit back and watch, wait."
Suddenly, something flickered in his head. [Special energy detected… DNA Downloading: 1% → … ]
[Please move to a better network area to continue download]
He stared blankly for a second. Then, slowly, his gaze returned to the battlefield, sharp and focused now.
"…Alright," he rumbled, voice low and cold.
"Guess I do need to take a closer look."
***
"Praise truth, for one day, all lies will drag the world back to reality…"
In a sealed, dimly lit room, a man stood alone. He wasn't tall, maybe mid-thirties, with calm, steady eyes. The only light came from a flickering oil lamp, casting long shadows across things no normal person should ever have to see.
Before him was a pile of flesh, limbs, bones, muscle, and organs twisted together like a nightmare sculpture. He reached out, fingers slipping into the mass as though it were soft clay.
His hands moved with eerie confidence, threading through blood vessels, slipping past bone, teasing nerves like he was tuning a delicate instrument. Then he pulled out the heart.
"Oh, sweet hope, still reaching for that fake heaven above…"
A low hum escaped his throat as black energy flowed from his fingertips, threading through torn muscle and broken skin, stitching things back together like some twisted kind of embroidery. It wasn't random.
Each movement felt like part of a song, flesh was his melody, blood his harmony. The man conducted the scene like a composer lost in his own symphony.
"Ahhh..." He raised the heart once more, opened the abdomen wider, and tapped along the spine. Unneeded parts were cast aside without a thought. What remained was molded again, shaped, refined, made better.
'Yes. Better.' He bent closer, guiding the fibers and nerves into something new, something that made more sense. He wove it all together on a skeletal frame like a sculptor carving roses onto the head of a pin, not out of necessity, but for beauty.
"And when the return comes, we'll offer our eightfold gift!"
His voice rose, burning with belief. Then with a flick, the blood surged backward, flowing into the body like a tide reversing course. Flesh pulled shut with a wet, sickening sound, petals folding in reverse.
"Ah ha ha… hahaha… hahahaha…"
Then, from the thing he had crafted, if it could still be called that, came a sound. Mournful. Dreamlike. Strangely beautiful.
A cry that didn't sound like pain, but something worse, something deeper. A song, yes, it was singing. This creature was his symphony, alive and real.
It writhed in joy and agony, and he stood in front of it, smiling, eyes full of pride. What had once been grotesque and monstrous now looked, in his eyes, pure.
This was art. This was purpose. He had made it so.
"I am… an artist." He didn't say it for praise or to convince himself. He said it because he believed it.
He had spoken these words many times before, yet each time felt new as he looked upon his latest creation.
"You know, I've admired a lot of so-called 'art', paintings, statues, buildings…"
His gaze drifted to a strange device sitting nearby, something made of metal and bone. He fed a bit of energy into it with a whisper.
It twitched, then came alive, needles extended, thin tubes slithered out like tendrils. A rolling eyeball surfaced, blinked once, then embedded itself into the body on the floor.
"But the more I saw, the more I felt like it was all skin-deep. Humanity spent thousands of years talking about the 'self,' but really, how shallow it all is, don't you think?"
He moved to a hulking machine, part organ, part factory, its surface covered in switches, pipes, and glowing keys. As he played, fluid was pumped out, some thick and red like blood, others sickly green or yellow, feeding into the half-finished body at his feet.
"Arggghhhh…!"
The thing twitched, then convulsed. Magic and chemicals surged through it, fusing flesh and reshaping it once more. Where skin had torn, it mended without a trace.
Muscles twisted and grew, pulling its shape far from anything human. Strange sounds spilled from its mouth, something like a language, something like a scream.
The ritual circle under it started to glow. Light spread from its center, rippling like slow, heavy breaths. It was working, and he was smiling.
Seeing this, the man gave a slow, pleased nod, speaking with the zeal of someone deep in revelation.
"How long does it take to truly grasp art? Centuries? Millennia?" He let out a bitter laugh. "No. That's not it at all. Everything we create... it's just a pale copy. A hollow echo of a masterpiece that's already been made."
His hands moved steadily over the grotesque machine, keeping it alive with clicks and groans as its gears pumped strange fluids into the creature. Behind him, the massive summoning circle lit up again, trembling with wild, chaotic force.
But this wasn't magic, not in the way people understood it. It was something deeper, darker. A whisper from the void. Something ancient that made the skin crawl.
"You want the answer? It's obvious. Life. Life itself is the ultimate masterpiece."
He grinned wide. "This world has spent millions of years perfecting it. That, that is real art. And here we are, trying to play catch-up with paint and stone and music."
He gave a mocking bow to the empty room. "The chapter isn't done. Turn the page, if you're brave enough to keep reading. Humans think too small. Their 'art' is just a thin layer over something much older, much truer."
He stopped operating the machine just long enough to stare at his creation, shuddering with energy.
"When I realized that... when I saw that all our efforts were just shadows… how could I be satisfied?" His voice cracked.
Not from fear, but from emotion. From awe. From madness.
His entire body began to shake, veins throbbing, skin rippling. Then it started: tiny cracks spreading across his arms, legs, face. Not normal wounds, these were mouths. Some filled with teeth.