I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1263: Fragments Resonate

Eccar rose from the bench and headed back toward the palace proper.

As he crossed into the inner corridors, the Elves greeted him from every direction. Courtiers bowed, guards placed hands over their chests, and the attendants smiled with clear relief at the sight of him moving freely among them.

"Dragonborn," one of the guards said respectfully.

Eccar nodded back. "Oh? Haha yeah... you’re doing well. Keep it up."

His lips curved into a smile, but it was stiff, held together by effort alone.

He made sure his steps stayed relaxed, his shoulders loose, and his presence calm. He could feel eyes on him, measuring, and reassured by his composure.

He understood what he represented here. If he showed unease, the palace would feel it ripple outward.

"Don’t let it show," he reminded himself.

He continued forward, accepting greetings with brief words and shallow smiles, never slowing his pace.

When someone looked as though they might stop him with a question, he gently angled away, increasing his stride just enough to discourage conversation without seeming rude.

At last, he reached his assigned residence within the palace complex. The doors closed behind him with a soft sound.

The smile vanished.

Eccar moved straight to the center of the chamber and sat down on the polished floor. He drew a slow breath, then another breath to ground himself.

The room was quiet, insulated by layered enchantments meant for rest and recovery. It was the safest place he could think to look inward without interference.

He folded his legs, rested his hands on his knees, and closed his eyes.

The Time power answered almost immediately.

The familiar current stirred within him. It was subtle at first, like a distant tide brushing against awareness. He focused on it, not forcing or pulling it. Just listening. Letting the fragments of Krono’s power resonate on their own terms.

Then the pressure built.

His breath slowed as the world around him seemed to recede. The room faded, replaced by a vast, colorless expanse where moments stretched thin and overlapped.

Flickers of fractured unstable and sharp images bled into one another.

Then the first clear shape emerged.

Eccar saw a silhouette.

It towered far above ruined lands, its outline jagged and wrong, as if reality struggled to define it. The ground beneath it was broken into uneven layers. Space and time collapsed and folded over itself like shattered glass. Mountains bent inward. Skies tore open in slow motion spirals.

Eccar’s jaw clenched.

"Holy shit. That’s not a natural disaster!" he thought. "That thing isn’t just moving through land but crushing the space around it."

The pressure intensified, bearing down on him like an invisible weight. Then an unknown power flooded the vision, thick and suffocating. Not chaotic or wild. But a controlled, deliberate, and ancient power.

The silhouette shifted, and for a brief instant, Eccar felt something brush back.

Awareness.

His heart thudded hard as the connection snapped.

He sucked in a sharp breath, sweat beading along his brow, but he didn’t break his focus. He pushed deeper, ignoring the strain, trying to see more.

Fragments flashed again—cities frozen in collapse, figures locked between moments, a horizon split by glowing fractures that pulsed like veins.

Time screamed without sound.

Eccar’s hands tightened into fists.

The vision dissolved abruptly, the pressure releasing all at once.

Eccar gasped and opened his eyes, the chamber snapping back into place around him.

The silence returned.

He stayed seated for several seconds, steadying his breath, his expression hard and focused.

"This isn’t something I can handle alone," he muttered aloud with a grave face.

—

The ice cave lay in perfect stillness. Aesa rested atop the frozen floor, her massive Ice Dragon body stretched comfortably across layers of crystalline frost. Cold mist curled lazily from her scales with each slow breath.

Above her, the ceiling arched high, carved entirely from translucent ice that caught the sunlight spilling in through narrow openings.

The light fractured into countless glimmers, scattering across the cavern like suspended stars.

For her, this place was peaceful.

She stared upward, unmoving, letting the quiet sink into her bones as her thoughts drifted back through everything that had happened.

The battle with Zerathul, her rage that had burned for so long, and the moment she and the others had finally struck him down.

She had thought that would be the end.

She had felt good afterward. Truly good. The weight on her chest had lifted, the old bitterness dulled at last. Revenge had done what she needed it to do.

And yet. Aesa exhaled slowly, frost spreading faintly beneath her jaw.

"It wasn’t the last," she thought, the realization settling heavier than she wanted to admit. "I have a feeling... Zerathul was never meant to be the end."

The feeling lingered, the sense that something else still slept beneath the surface of the world, waiting. Preparing to rise.

She didn’t want that.

Because if it did, it meant leaving again. She had to fight again, carrying power and responsibility she had never asked for.

Another long sigh echoed softly through the cave, crystals chiming faintly in response.

"I just want this peace to last," she murmured, her voice low and rough against the ice.

Then it happened.

Aesa’s body tensed.

The cold around her didn’t change, but something deeper inside her soul shifted. A pull brushed against her core, subtle but unmistakable, as if an invisible thread had been drawn taut inside her chest.

Her breath hitched.

She pushed herself upright slightly, claws scraping faint lines across the ice as her eyes narrowed.

The sensation wasn’t hostile. It wasn’t painful. It was pressure. The ancient, precise, and familiar pressure of time power.

Fragments of Krono’s power stirred within her, resonating like a distant echo finally answered. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝓮𝒘𝙚𝙗𝒏𝙤𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝒐𝙢

"No..." she muttered, a chill running through her that had nothing to do with temperature.

The cave around her seemed to stretch for a heartbeat. Shadows lengthening unnaturally as if moments themselves slipped out of alignment.

For an instant, overlapping impressions bled into her senses. He saw lands cracked by unseen force, a towering presence looming beyond ruined horizons, reality bent and compressed beneath overwhelming weight.

Her claws dug deeper into the ice.

She knew it without certainty, the same way she knew the flow of frost and storm within her veins.

She knew that this wasn’t hers alone. The pull connected them, three fragments answering the same call.

The pressure faded, leaving the cave unchanged, silent once more.

Aesa remained still, heart pounding, gaze fixed on nothing.

"So it’s starting again..." she said quietly.

She lowered her head, ice crystals drifting down around her.

"I really didn’t want to leave again," she whispered helplessly.

—