I Received System to Become Dragonborn-Chapter 1276: Injected

The smile Erend gave them was steady, he was trying to be reassuring.

But none of them truly believed it was enough.

The wind cut across the frozen cave again, sharp and restless, tugging at their skins as if urging them to move.

Silence lingered a few seconds longer in that cave before reality settled back into place.

They could not stand there forever.

"I will go first and handle my business. Later, we will meet again," Erend said.

"Me too," Eccar added.

After that, Erend and Eccar returned to their respective responsibilities.

Eccar would go back to the Elf Palace. He needed to refine his control over the fragment of Time within him.

It was powerful, volatile, and still far from stable. There were more adjustments to make, techniques to reconstruct, and limits to test in isolation before he risked using it in real combat again.

Erend would return to his own world. The military experiments still required his oversight.

The assimilation project could not simply be abandoned, especially now that greater forces were beginning to stir.

Before they parted, Erend spoke clearly.

"If anything unusual happens, we contact each other immediately."

Eccar nodded once. Aesa gave a short, firm response.

"Agreed."

No dramatic farewell followed.

Two spatial distortions opened in the cold air. One edged in faint crimson lightning, the other shimmering with brown and black light.

Erend and Eccar stepped through their respective portals without hesitation.

The portal sealed.

And Aesa was left alone in the frozen cave.

The wind howled louder now that the others were gone. Frost gathered faintly along her sleeves before she suppressed it with a small sigh.

She stared at the empty space where they had stood.

Another problem. Another ancient entity awakening. Another layer of complexity added to their already fragile balance.

"Annoying," she thought.

Her gaze dropped to her own hand. A faint pulse of temporal distortion flickered beneath her skin before stabilizing.

The fragment of Time inside her was also not fully synchronized with her body yet. It responded to her emotion.

That would not do. She would need to train as well.

Not only her control over Time but her body to be able to fight with that power. If the Void Architect truly emerged, half-measures would not be enough.

Without another word, she opened her own portal and disappeared from the part of the cave to the deeper part of it.

—

A few days passed.

Deep beneath the Elf Palace, in a concealed chamber carved from ancient stone, Eccar continued his training inside the chamber that was layered with containment runes and reinforced by old Elven enchantments designed to withstand spatial collapse.

Inside, the air itself bent in subtle waves as he worked like always.

He stood at the center of the room, golden energy coiling around him in tightening spirals.

Time fractured in thin vertical lines before resealing again. He slowed falling dust midair, reversed cracks in stone. He now even managed to accelerate his own movements until afterimages lingered like ghosts.

But the power still resisted full obedience.

At times, it surged unpredictably, forcing him to reset and recalibrate.

Adjustment, refinement, repetition. He kept doing it.

He would not allow instability to be his weakness.

—

In another world, Erend resumed his duties at the military base.

The sterile white corridors and reinforced steel walls felt far removed from frozen cave and ancient beings, yet the tension followed him.

He assisted directly in the ongoing Magic assimilation experiments. He observed energy readings, corrected their way of combat, and stabilized the subjects when necessary.

His presence alone reduced failure rates significantly.

Between assignments, he gathered Adrien and Billy in a secured briefing room and explained everything.

The Void Architect’s resurgence, the coordinates he gave,and of course the need to travel to another world again.

They just listened in silence at that time. Neither of them argued. They had seen enough to understand that this was beyond ordinary military jurisdiction.

Later, Erend requested a private meeting with General Lennard.

Inside the General’s office, behind layers of clearance protocols and surveillance shielding, Erend delivered the same information in concise terms.

After that he informed him that he would be leaving the world temporarily once more.

General Lennard did not interrupt.

When Erend finished, the older man leaned back slightly with fingers interlocked.

He understood the weight of what Erend represented. He was not just a soldier after all, but as a variable in a much larger equation.

Authorization was granted without resistance.

Erend left the office knowing that, once again, he stood between worlds.

—

Late at night, inside his room, silence wrapped around Erend.

The lights were off. Only the faint glow of the city beyond his window stretched across the ceiling in pale lines.

He sat on the edge of his bed, elbows resting on his knees, his mind steady but alert.

Then the System interface flickered.

Not the clean, structured blue of Veyrun’s presence. This was different.

The air in front of him distorted, and fragmented letters bled into existence. Glitching, jagged, and unstable words formed and broke apart before stabilizing again.

He did not need to guess. It was the Void Architect.

[Hi. I think you are ready now.]

The text trembled as if reality itself struggled to contain it.

Erend’s jaw tightened slightly.

"You said you had the coordinates."

A brief distortion rippled across his vision. The letters rearranged.

[Correct. The location cannot be transmitted through conventional data streams. It will be inserted directly into your neural pathways.]

A pause followed.

[Do you consent?]

The room felt colder. Direct insertion into his brain.

Erend remained silent for several seconds. His thoughts sharpened, calculating risks.

Veyrun said that he had already reinforced the System’s security. The Void Architect could not breach his mind without permission.

At least, that was what he had been assured.

Still, this was the Void Architect. An ancient existence whose true limits remained unknown.

But if he refused, they would lose the lead.

Slowly, Erend exhaled. "Do it."

The glitching text pulsed once.

[Consent acknowledged.]

Pain did not come immediately. Instead, a sharp pressure built behind his eyes. Then a sudden surge of incomprehensible data forced its way inward. Coordinates, layered in multidimensional values, burned across his consciousness.

His vision fractured into black and white for a split second.

Then it stopped. The room returned.

Erend inhaled sharply, steadying himself.

The coordinates were there. Embedded inside his brain.

—