With his affinities reaching their peak, the dragon closed his eyes. He craved to ignite the royal sigil, but he suppressed it, knowing there was still one last thing he needed to do to maximize his benefits.
'Well, system, you can proceed with the awaiting evolution.'
At the dragon's thought, the system's resonating ding welcomed the new wave of text floating before his eyes.
Ding!
//
You have mutated, triggering an extra evolution. The powers, and abilities, of the mutated evolutions will be merged and added to the current evolution, together with the standard powers of dimensional dragons integrating space and time powers into the draconic biology.
Standard powers of dimensional dragons:
Their scales and armor transformed and gained an unnatural ability to bend space around them to deflect or block attacks.
A dimensional space dragon's breath can twist and bend space to travel in impossible directions and ways. It can instantly skip over a long distance, striking enemies from behind, above, or underneath them.
The wings on their back evolved to utilize their space magic to move naturally in impossible ways, each flap of their wings warping the space around.
...
Please choose a mutation:
[Cosmic apocalypse dragon]
This ability makes the dragon nearly invulnerable to conventional attacks, as it can simply shift to a different dimension, making the attacks pass through them without causing any damage.
But the dragon's mastery over the cosmos does not end with evasion, as it has a unique ability that alone brings it to the top of draconic evolutions. It warps the very threads of reality to summon echoes of itself. These phantasmal duplicates, drawn from the fleeting moments of the past and the imminent future, can be used in tandem to overwhelm enemies.
All the duplicates share injuries and energy consumption between themselves and the main (present-time) dragon.
Its most devastating weapon is the dimension-distorting breath. Its destructive force doesn't strike enemies directly but instead warps, shatters, and breaks space and time around them, effectively erasing them.
//
Vesuvius wasn't surprised by the lack of options, as it wasn't a regular evolution brought about by leveling but a special one brought about by external factors.
He was actually surprised to have any choices at all. 'The Black Hole option must be from when I was in a black hole, and the warped one probably comes from my new affinities.' It was weird for him to even have options like these.
His eyes, shining bright, moved quickly over the text in front of him, trying to take in all the details. He let out a big sigh, feeling overwhelmed by how hard it was to choose, especially with such confusing descriptions.
'What kind of special abilities do other star dragons have? What extra power could I get?' He thought about it but decided not to get stuck on things he couldn't find out. He focused instead on what he knew.
'Enhancing my star's power would mean a lot more energy. It's essentially what I have, but significantly stronger.' Even with his limited knowledge of astronomy, Vesuvius knew of the terrifying defensive potential that black-hole-like armor would give him and the shocking destructiveness of quasars.
'Quasars are incredibly powerful, capable of obliterating everything they touch. But the other option has its own unique advantages.' The thought of being able to summon duplicates of himself was intriguing, despite some drawbacks.
Now, he was weighing the sheer force of the first evolution against the unique tricks of the second one.
(AN: As always, I will welcome your points of view and suggestions on which path to take. Also sorry for the delay, but with each evolution, it is harder and harder to think of new even more powerful ones.)