Day 365 (1 Year later...)

"Kayaaoooh!"

The Hellhound hollowed as I sent it flying through the air with my tail. It slammed against a tree and slumped to the ground. Then, I pulled myself up on its back with an audible creak. The Hellhound's front legs moved awkwardly, but they were still good enough for me to use them. My claws dug into the creature's scales as I leapt onto its back.

This creature was, as its name suggested, a hellhound. It was barely my size, but formidable opponents were in packs. As I climbed up and over the beast, another came at me from behind; teeth bared like a wild animal. Before it could get close enough, I swung my tail around and caught it between my own maw and bite.

[Gained 24 Experience Points. Gained Skill:]【Dragon Claw: Lv 1 (0%)】

I landed atop the third beast, pinning it to the ground. About six months ago, I started seeing the exp points of the monsters I killed. Some might think they're unnecessary, but you can't deny that some of these creatures are pretty tough. If I hadn't got those skills, I don't know if I would have survived this long.

[Monsters killed: 12/100]

As the sun rose higher, I looked out over the forest in anticipation. I still had a bit more than four hours, and with the newly levelled-up skills, the fights should go a lot faster. I thought of putting some points into ATT to boost the damage of my feather daggers but decided against it. Maybe if I struggled, later on, I would use them.

After that, I mostly flew around Isle, killing almost every fire monster I met. A year after this, I'm almost fast a falcon. Yes, almost; when I spotted a Salamander with nearly five thousand HP, I concluded that it would take me too much time to kill it if I could even manage it in the first place.

During this time, I also discovered a crucial fact. Critical strikes existed. There wasn't a percentage chance for them, but getting crit meant hitting the weak points of creatures' bodies like their eyes or necks. When I found one early on, it felt so satisfying! After that, whenever I saw something vulnerable, I made sure not to miss it.

With only one hour left, I still had six more Fire Monsters to kill, so I flew to the small mountains on the northern side of Hellfire Isle. I wasn't sure if any monsters lived here.

I probably should've stayed where I was and killed the rest of the monsters, as I now had three very angry Beholders pursuing me. I flew a bit too close to their resting place, and they apparently decided that this was a good enough reason to kill me.

Thankfully, they were all only level fourteen and didn't even possess weak armour.

Still, three-on-one is a bit unfair.

I used my higher speed to put some distance between us, and then I tried to hit them with feather daggers from my tail. They dodged most of them and countered with their own projectiles in the form of eyes laser.

Curious, I deactivated my aura and let a few of the beams hit me in the side. I was pleasantly surprised when one of the lasers managed to get through my feathers after a few minutes. I only took 1 point of damage.

Nodding to myself, I activated my aura once again, thus negating the damage entirely, and charged at the nearest eyeball freak.

The beholder clearly didn't expect me to turn around on him and failed to dodge, instead taking my charge head-on. The impact made the beholder lose control of its flight, and it began to plummet towards the ground. I took the chance to fire a few daggers at the form of the falling thing.

I didn't have the time to find where it fell, as I was forced to dodge another few volleys of lasers courtesy of the remaining beholders. My gaze flickered towards my kill count for a second, and I noticed—

—I Only need to kill five more monsters to complete the quest.

Satisfied, I attempted to replicate my previous plan, but this time this fucker actual had a brain and dodged my charge. I switched to firing my daggers, but I was forced to stop when my MP when at 20%

They took my pause as an invitation to try and attack me with their tentacles. I used my tail to swipe it away and followed up with an aura-powered charge to finish the beholder off. I really expected them to maintain some distance between us after how I grounded the first one, but it looked like they were too young to understand that much.

With only one beholder left, I used my claws and tail to deal with it as it couldn't avoid me any longer. I really didn't want to waste any more HP or MP.

With the last holder dead, I searched for the shortest way back to my home base and began to fly in that direction. On my way there, I killed three more packs of hellhounds exceeding those needed for the quest, thus completing it.

I waited to check the notification until I landed near the water. After landing, I meditated for a few minutes to recover before finally moving on.

[Quest Completed: Trial One for All, All for One]

This is mandatory! Better do it, fam... Unless you like dreams of pillar men smashin' all night...

Exterminate 100 Fire Monsters to pass the first requirement for obtaining the territory of Hellfire Isle. Time limit: 4 hours 32 minutes 15 seconds.

Rewards: 1 EP, Demon Path, 20,000 EXP.

[You gained a level]

Bonus rewards: 【Young Dragon: Lv1】and Opportunity to fight for domain control.

Congratulations! For clearing your first trial hunt, you receive 5 XP per day for 30 days! Your total XP earned so far will be displayed at the top right corner of your screen.

Finally, it took my minion and me over a damn year to finish this quest! That's right, I'm one year old now, and I was finally able to use my breath skills just yesterday. I may be playing a game, but I still have to go through the basic bullshit of growing up, exercising and eating healthy.

"Hiya, boss!" Lianna greeted me as she flew down to greet her master. "What'd ya kill today?"

I shrugged. "Hellhound, those eyeball fucks and more many things. What did you kill? And what are you doing here, anyway?"

She giggled. "I was looking for you, actually. I wanted to talk to you about something."

I furrowed my brows. Even though I'm a dragon hatchling, so I don't have eyebrows. "So, what's up?"

Lianna glanced around the area before answering. She seemed to hesitate before saying anything further. Her expression was unreadable, but I knew that she was hiding something from me.

I frowned.

"Well...."

Her voice trailed off as if it hurt to say it. I waited patiently for her to continue.

"…I... I..."

She paused for a moment, gathering herself. "I'm going to leave Hellfire Isle for a while."

"For what reason?"

I asked, trying to hide my disappointment. What could she be planning?

But before she could answer at that moment, we had put ourselves in the open, and a group of wild Hatchlings attacked us; I wasn't even prepared for the encounter, but it happened quickly.

Because neither of us had been ready for it, we suffered more damage than I felt comfortable fighting with. So I led Lianna through the ashy sands into a cove. Where we could rest, it takes a long time for my MP to recover.

We sat on a ledge overlooking the ocean. The moonlight reflecting off the waves was beautiful; the stars sparkled in the sky above. We were safe for now.

"Hey, boss," Lianna began after a brief silence.

"You changed your mind?" I said.

Lianna looked at me, shocked. "Boss, how did you know? Are you able to read minds now?"

Of course, I couldn't read minds, but Lianna is very simple-minded, so she never thought twice about letting her emotions show on her face.

"No... Your just very easy to read." I looked at my MP; it was about 40% filled when I heard a noise.

It was an unusual sound— not especially since I didn't often hear anything when there was no fighting. Curious at this new sound, I turned my attention towards the direction of the noise.

I listened carefully, trying to pinpoint where the sound was coming from. After a moment, I realized it was coming from over the edge across the cove. I motioned Lianna to follow me; I made my way over to see what it was.

"Keep on moving! If you break, you will be killed!"

I can hear someone speaking. It must be a hatchling; they are the only ones that can actually talk.

I looked at the source of the voice, focusing on a large, grey figure at the front of the group. He wasn't like any other hatchling I had seen before, but I intuitively knew he was a dragon. He had a long head with three horns, actual scales on his body and very large wings. His is easily bigger than Lianna and me combined. And behind him were other Dragons, both eastern, western and Mexican dragons. In addition, there were little lizardmen holding weapons with wings. They looked strong.

I was immediately drawn to this hunting party. This was something new! I wanted to know what they were— I wanted to get close enough to use 【Dragon (Status) View: Lv Max】 on them.

The level cap on skill was 10, and it didn't come with an upgrade. So I can see the entire stats of anything below my power or ten levels above mine. But anything past that cap, I would see less information.

However, as I placed a limb forward, I felt Lianna hold me back with her tail. I angrily turned to her for stopping me. She better have a good reason for this. She pointed a claw forward.

I followed it, finding my eyes landing on a second group of dragons— ones that I was more familiar with. They were [Hatchlings] and [Wyrmlings] like us travelling together as a pack right behind the first group. Shit!

Any anger I felt toward Lianna was gone. I wrapped my tail around her and moved down the cliff on the cove to see what we could find out. Usually, dragons would fly everywhere and anywhere. But I don't roll like, so I made Lianna train to use her body like it was human. After three months, we can hunt like lions on all fours and fight in close quarters like a pro, well, more like amateurs, but it's all the same.

We moved not too close to observe the interaction of this group from afar.

The lead dragon with the three horns at the front of the group continued his shouting as they made their way through the valley.

"Keep on moving! Keep on—"

Suddenly, he was cut off by a loud, piercing noise. It was very high-pitched, sounding almost like a screech. Immediately, all the scaled Dragons turned their attention to the source of the noise that seemed to come from the other side of the valley. The group of scaled Dragons seemed more alert to this sound, while the second group behind them just looked around in confusion.

I also found myself staring down the valley. What is that noise? It continued for a moment before being followed by more sounds. More noises. And they came at different pitches: some were deep and long, others were high and fast. Whatever was making the noise, I did not think it was only one thing.

And it wasn't.

From the other side of the valley came pouring hatchlings and wyrmlings. Just how fucking big is this Isle? Cuz these dragons were nothing like us.

They were all so much better than us. I could feel my rage building as I thought this. They came in all shapes and sizes, with very little consistency among them. Some had four wings with veins filled with lava. Some big houses or mansions and others moved faster on land than Lianna, and she was pretty fast on land.

These wild dragons charged down the valley, rushing at the scaled dragons that had been travelling down that path. They roared, howled, growled, and made all kinds of noises— none of them making any sense to me.

But the scaled dragons didn't even look scared at all. They should be there are literally over 200 feathered dragons running down on your ass. And the three-horn fucker just opened his maw and...

A ball of flames appeared in front of him. A massive one that shot forward and instantly obliterated half of the coming wild Dragon. Then once the explosion had gone away, the ground was glassifed.

His flames were so hit it turned the sand into glass. He looked at the rest of the wild dragons that didn't get caught up in the blast.

"Slay these weak dragons!"

Behind him, the other scaled Dragons of his group yelled out and charged the remainder of the feathered Dragons. Those pour souls didn't even have the to run away.

It was a complete slaughter. The wild feathered Dragons fell in droves; only three of the scaled Dragons bothered to fight—one of the hatchlings took his chance to run only to be killed when he got three feet away.

"I told you I will you all to break formation!" He then glared at the rest of the hatchlings and wyrmlings.

"Now move! For if you break, you will be killed!"

And they just obeyed.

I just watched this procession pass through the jungle, trying to register what had happened.

Only when they finally left did I feel the tension in my body escape, and I could slump over to the floor. I wasn't sure what was going on, but I knew I would be enslaved if I followed them.

I turned to my minion... NO companion, and nodded gratefully at her. "Thanks, Li", I tried to tell him.

"No problem, boss."

[Faster growth], [Second pair of limbs], [Predator's Eyes], [Dragonskin], [Armor (Weak)], [Dragonology], [Scales and Spikes],

Total = 8 EP

Y/N?

I tapped yes.

[You finally evolved now, and this way earlier than dragons normally take. But you must finally choose your true name. Think of your new name to proceed.]

So it was time to select a name, huh?

My old one, duh.

[You have chosen your name. As your body changes during this evolution, you will need to picture what you want in your mind. Good luck.]

Demon Path was chosen on default.

The moment the notification disappeared, the darkness consumed me. I quickly focused on how I wanted my dragon form to look and waited for the process to complete.

Eight hours later

Finally, after a few hours of waiting, I felt my body change completely. The darkness disappeared, and I could see once again. The first thing I noticed was my size. I could feel and see that I was about as a t-rex. Quite the leap in size, but that wasn't the most important change. No, for that, I had to look at my body.

Without wasting a single second, I spread my new draconic – and featherless – wings and flew to the shore.

There, I could look at my reflection in the water.

My wings and scales were black as night, just like I wanted. I had the body of a typical western dragon. Apart from that, I had spikes running from atop my head down through my spine and long tail. The red glowing eyes remained. My tattoos were now on my legs, and my chest was glowing.

I based my look on Deathwing and Grigori of World of Warcraft and Dragon's Dogma.

A few notifications popped up after the evolution finished, but for now, I wanted to rest. I didn't know if this was because of the evolution process, but I think that I've earned it.

With that said, I flew back to the cave on the cliffside and closed my eyes. I have a feeling that Lianna was evolving as well.