Reincarnated as the Last Dragon Egg
Chapter 30

Chapter 30: Chapter 30

The Keepers had not moved in over three centuries.

They were not warriors, nor mages, nor gods. They were memory incarnate — watchers of truth, custodians of the Cycles. Even Darian, at the height of his flame, had only met them once.

Now they summoned Isen.

A summons written not with ink — but carved into sky.

Emberwatch stirred uneasily that morning. Birds refused to sing. The rivers pulsed like veins under stress. And high above the capital, the constellations had shifted — aligning into a single unfamiliar sigil.

The Eighth.

---

Isen stood in the Grand Hall, her arms crossed over her chest, fingers nervously brushing the faint glow still pulsing beneath her skin.

"I don’t want to go," she said softly.

"You don’t get to choose anymore," Kaela replied. "You hold power no one understands. You owe it to the world to answer that call."

Darian stepped forward.

"She’s right. But you won’t be alone."

He extended his hand.

And for the first time... Isen took it.

---

The Keepers’ domain was not on any map. It existed outside geography — nestled in the Weave between Cycles, where past and future converged in a space no mortal should dwell.

But Isen was no longer merely mortal.

The passage opened like a rift in air.

And they stepped through.

---

The Throne of Stars was not a seat. Not a structure.

It was a presence.

A place where reality bent toward meaning.

Hundreds of floating orbs — memories of past bearers — circled above an endless floor of starlight. The air buzzed with silent judgment.

Isen stepped forward.

The orbs dimmed.

And the Throne awoke.

> "You do not belong," a voice echoed.

It came from all directions — old, female, eternal.

Isen swallowed. "I didn’t ask to."

> "The Cycles were crafted to maintain order. Seven. No more."

> "You are excess. An anomaly."

Darian stepped forward. "She was forged in necessity. The Librarian twisted the weave. She was the only path the world chose on its own."

> "Even anomalies ripple."

Isen raised her voice. "Then let me speak for myself."

Silence fell.

Then — slowly — the Throne pulsed.

Permission granted.

---

"I didn’t grow up knowing power," Isen began. "I didn’t train to be a Cyclebearer. I was nobody. Just a girl."

"I was alone. Forgotten. Until the day something burned inside me — and I realized I wasn’t broken... I was unfinished."

She looked up.

"I don’t want to replace what came before. I want to protect what’s coming."

A long silence.

Then a single orb drifted down.

It held Darian’s face.

Frozen. Proud.

The voice returned.

> "One Cycle must be sacrificed... for the Eighth to stand."

Kaela gasped. "What?!"

Darian’s expression darkened. "You mean one of the Seven must be erased?"

> "Balance demands it."

Isen stepped back, stunned. "No. That’s not fair. I didn’t ask to be born."

> "But you were. And every choice has a price."

The light in the chamber began to fracture.

A decision had to be made.

---

That night, Isen sat alone in the halls outside the Throne.

Darian joined her.

"They’re right," he said. "If your Cycle remains, one of the others will collapse."

"I can’t choose. I don’t want to choose."

"Then don’t," he said softly.

She turned. "What?"

"Forge a new path. Don’t destroy a Cycle. Fuse one. With yours."

She blinked. "Is that even possible?"

He smiled. "We were told seven was the limit. Then you happened. Why stop now?"

---

Back inside, she faced the Throne again.

"I won’t erase what came before," she declared. "I’ll bind my Cycle to one already bleeding. One fading."

The orbs spun faster.

> "Which?"

She stepped forward.

And whispered:

"The Cycle of Flame."

---

Gasps echoed. Even Darian went pale.

"My Cycle?" he said.

She nodded. "It’s breaking anyway. You were the final bearer. Let me carry it forward — not erase it, but carry you with me."

The light in the chamber began to twist — not in pain, but rebirth.

Two glyphs swirled above her head: the Flame, and the unnamed Eighth.

And then, in a blaze of white fire...

They fused.

---

The Cycle of Stars was born.

And Isen Valen became its first bearer.

---The newly born Cycle of Stars rippled through reality like a breath inhaled by the universe itself.

It was not fire.

Not wind.

Not stone, shadow, or storm.

It was possibility.

And possibility, once born, cannot be silenced.

---

Somewhere in the floating city of Serak, a boy with no tongue began to speak in fluent flame.

In the broken mines of Mirthrock, a blind girl awoke screaming names of stars no one had ever seen.

In the Monastery of Echoes, where old monks whispered the lost Cycles, an entire wall of forbidden glyphs cracked... and sang.

And across the world — every unborn child beneath a certain sky now carried a flicker of silver in their soul.

The Eighth Cycle was alive.

And it was recruiting.

---

At the edge of Emberwatch, Isen stood atop the northern ridge, the stars dancing above her like old friends just arriving.

She had fused the Cycle of Flame with her own. She no longer needed to fight to control the fire. It listened to her now — coiled like a loyal beast around her heartbeat.

Kaela walked up beside her. "The sky’s wrong," she muttered.

Isen didn’t turn. "It’s right for the first time in ages."

Kaela hesitated, then added, "People are changing. Some are... awakening. You did something bigger than just rewrite the Cycle. You rewrote the rules."

Isen finally looked at her. "And now we have to protect it. Because someone’s going to try to take it back."

---

Elsewhere – The Void Altar

The Librarian stood before a long slab of stone carved with reversed glyphs — unwords, etched from forgotten timelines.

He was bleeding from the eyes now.

Not from pain.

From power.

A cost of writing without permission.

"Begin the Vesseling," he ordered.

Around him knelt seven figures — the Rejected, bearers of failed Cycles, former champions who had been discarded by history.

Each had suffered the touch of power... then betrayal.

Each now craved rewrite.

One by one, he poured fragments of the Unwritten into their chests.

They did not scream.

They smiled.

"Let her feel what it’s like to be the authored," he hissed.

---

Back in Emberwatch

Darian sat alone at the edge of the sacred well — the one where he first chose to wield the original Cycles.

He stared into its depths.

"They’re changing because of her," Neriya said as she approached.

"I know."

"She didn’t just awaken something new. She broke the dam. Now power’s choosing its own hosts."

Darian looked up, his face unreadable. "She did what I never dared. She let power be free."

Neriya sat beside him.

"So what now?"

"We teach them. Before the Librarian corrupts them."

---

That night, Isen saw faces in her dreams.

Not memories — souls.

New bearers waking across the world.

A boy with laughter that exploded as lightning.

A girl who touched water and turned it into stardust.

A child of stone whose footsteps echoed centuries.

They didn’t know her name.

But they dreamed of her face.

They were hers.

And they were coming.

The Librarian did not sleep.

He did not blink.

He did not hope.

Hope was for authors.

He was a Rewriter.

And now... his seven Vessels stood ready.

Each one a cast-off, a memory of might stolen and never returned. Failed bearers twisted by his ink and voice.

They did not speak.

They remembered.

---

Vessel One — Syrel of the Cracked Flame.

Once a proud Cycleborn of Fire, left to die when his glyph split mid-battle. Now his flames whispered lies to the living.

Vessel Two — Kaen the Stormless.

Born to summon lightning, but silence filled her every call. The Librarian gave her thunder that screams only when she bleeds.

Vessel Three — Tharn the Hollow Stone.

His skin once bore the Cycle of Earth, but the core refused him. Now he walks with a body made of graves.

Vessel Four — Mina of Echoes.

She sang in the Tongue of Sound, but her voice shattered the minds of children. She now sings to haunt.

Vessel Five — Leirn, the Forgotten Wind.

He was born in a skyless land. They promised him air. He chokes others with the gust he never had.

Vessel Six — The Twins of Shadowlight.

Neither accepted by Cycle nor sun. They wear one body, two faces — and kill in verse.

Vessel Seven — Savax.

No one remembers what Cycle he bore. Not even himself. He is the blank page — perfect for rewriting.

---

The Librarian stood before them, ink dripping from his tongue, every word he spoke becoming a law of pain.

"You are not bound by balance. You are the vengeance of the discarded."

He turned.

"Find the Children. Erase the Eighth."

And like ghosts in wind, the Vessels vanished.

---

Elsewhere — Emberwatch

Darian dropped the stone.

It pulsed briefly — then shattered.

Seven echoes had just been felt across the Weave.

"Vessels," he muttered.

Isen stood beside him, staring at the map glowing with glyphs on the table.

Seven blots had appeared. Seven distortions.

"They’ve been unsealed," Kaela said. "I thought they were myths."

"They were," Darian said coldly. "Until he rewrote them."

Neriya’s shadow hissed.

"Then we have to move."

Isen clenched her fists. "Where do we start?"

Darian tapped the map.

"Serak. One of the Children woke there yesterday. If the Vessels sense her... she won’t survive."

---

Serak – The Floating City

The city shimmered under glass skies, built upon stone islands tethered to the clouds.

And in a small observatory tower, a girl with pale skin and starlit eyes stared at her hands in terror.

"My name is Nima," she whispered. "I was just a cartographer’s daughter..."

But her breath bent light. Her skin flickered like it was made of nebula.

And outside, a shadow touched the floating gate.

Vessel One — Syrel — stepped into the wind.

His cracked flame hissed with hatred.

"Child of Stars," he growled. "Time to be unwritten."

---

Isen arrived in a burst of light.

She didn’t hesitate.

One punch slammed into Syrel’s chest, fire bursting from her fist — not just heat, but will.

He staggered, laughing. "So it speaks..."

She didn’t answer. She burned.

But Syrel was no ordinary enemy. Her fire couldn’t destroy what had already accepted its death.

He absorbed it.

Grew.

And then, with a scream, he unleashed a surge of black-flame memory.

Isen shielded Nima with her body, taking the hit.

It hurt.

But it didn’t stop her.

Because this time, she wasn’t alone.

From behind, Darian arrived — flame in one hand, starlight in the other.

---

Together, they fought.

And for the first time since the Eighth’s birth, one of the Rejected faltered.

Syrel screamed as Isen’s starfire melted his core.

And with one final strike, Darian whispered, "You could’ve chosen peace."

Syrel shattered — not in death, but release.

The Librarian felt it — and howled.

---

Far away

The six remaining Vessels paused.

Savax looked up, tilting his head.

"She rewrote one," he said calmly.

The Librarian clenched his fists.

"She’s learning."

He turned.

"Then we must hunt faster."