After having meditated for an undetermined period, I felt a stronger gust of wind rising. I stood up and stretched myself, ready to resume my search. My mind, clearer than ever.

When I turned back toward the forest, I was greeted by a sharp draconian head, a few centimetres in front of me. Bigger than Randal, the beast looks at me with its green eye. Its scales were white, just like the clouds behind me. Its powerful breathing made my cloak fly in its breeze. The dragon was sitting as if he had always been here.

From the top of its, four-story height, he had to bend its head down to look at me. Compared to Randal who looked rather feral, if I ignore its usual attitude, this dragon looked proud and powerful. Fully aware of its strength and size, he didn’t acknowledge me as a threat. He was probably right, at least it didn’t look like I was dinner either.

From its relaxed pose, he was probably just curious about what I am or what I am doing, that, or I stumbled into its territory. Everything here seemed so peaceful, even the dragon, not that I would try to bother him anyway. Lavanda actually never said to hunt or kill anything this time, just to take a look at the area. I assumed this was a hunting expedition because it was what she had me doing each time she sent me to other islands. Going from wolves to caterpillars, to all the other things she had me kill like, tunnel monkeys and plague crows, a dragon was still a bit too much of a leap in strength.

Raising my hand, I wanted to touch his scale. He let me pet him, thankfully not seeing this as a sign of aggression or threat either, he even seemed to like it. I always thought that dragons were extremely different from wyverns, but right now he acted pretty much like Randal, their soft spot was even the same, just under the chin.

Taking out the jackalope in my bag, I swung it in front of its nose. He followed it with its eyes, without taking its sight off it. Taking a few steps back, I threw him the meal, and he swallowed it whole, the want-to-be rabbit disappearing in its stomach. He looked at me, wanting more.

“Sorry big boy, that's all I got” I could see his disappointment, but he acted as if he didn’t care. The fact that he understood me was a pleasant surprise. To continue the comparison with Randal, I thought that Lavanda must have trained Randal or something for him to understand, but it seems like if the species is smart enough it can understand us with no problem.

As I gave him more of his favourite scratches, a sound-breaking screech forced me to cover my ears. The earth itself seemed to feel its power as I crumbled to my knees. The dragon wasn't spared either, as he tried to cover his head.

It took me a moment to regain my bearings and after some very long and painful seconds, the buzzing in my ears stopped.

Looking around, I wasn’t able to remember the direction the monstrous scream originated from. As far as I could see, there was nothing that could have produced that sound.

It was as if everything was disturbed. The birds in the sky were perturbed and attacked anything that wasn’t their species. Even fish were throwing themselves out of the water to disappear in the clouds. I could detect frantic movement all across the forest.

The only ones who seemed to be spared were me and my draconic friend. I could only hope that Randal was fine too.

The dragon looked all around, searching in the sky for what could have made that sound, with a worried look on his face.

Before I could think about what to do, I detected a pack of jackalopes heading in our direction. The word pack was a euphemism, as a swarm or army was more appropriate to describe the few thousand rabbits ravaging everything alive in the forest. I was able to feel each encounter with the other wildlife they had. The solo animals didn’t stand a chance against their rabid foes, even the ones who were as large as a car were killed in a matter of seconds.

The sky was covered with hundreds of animals, birds, and fish who fought to the death and fell to the death for the latter. It was raining blood, literally. There was no way for the dragon to take off without getting himself into a fight with everything in the sky. I wasn’t able to see if Randal was somewhere on the aerial battlefield.

My thoughts were brought back to the ground when the rabid swarm reached us. Their eyes craving blood, my blood. Fighting was the only way to come out of this mess alive.

The dragon started by scorching the closest wave of rabbits that came out of the forest. Even away from the beam of fire, I could feel the heat as it was melting and disintegrating them out of existence. When he stopped, more jackalopes came out from the wall of fire, all of them without a care for their burning fur.

Unsheathing the short sword Lavanda gave me, I cut the first one that reached me, killing it instantly. For each one that died, ten more followed just behind it, and hundreds more came in range of my root's detection. Jackalopes were the only thing I could detect as far as my roots were going, and more kept appearing each second. This place was way more populated than I first thought.

With all the fire spreading around, using my plant magic was complicated. Strangling a few horned rabbits was effectively useless. I couldn’t even concentrate properly to use my light, water or plague magic. The only magic usable was my incendiary sand, and it wasn’t long before my reserve disappeared as I burned a few groups of them.

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Dodging one rabbit was easy, but dodging the hundreds of others who rushed at me at the same time was impossible. My homemade armour was, thankfully, sturdy enough to not be pierced by just rabbit teeth. The problem was that with each new scratch left by these bastards, it was getting shredded little by little. My cloak didn’t waste time, becoming a leftover scarf.

The forest was slowly burning away to let more foes enter the new clearing. As if they weren’t enough. Some flying monsters, who until now stayed in their battle in the sky, were joining our already too-big party. The only positive was that they had the courtesy of chipping a bit of the jackalope army.

I recognized them from one of the books in Lavanda's library. They were Cortatrik. A smaller version of a Quetzalcoatlus. In other words, a flying dinosaur and a pain in the ass.

Lucky me, they gave me a few chances to climb them and take me above the hell that was the ground. Always making sure to never go too far away from the main battlefield and the dragon. If I was left alone, death would not miss me this time.

My only ally was unsurprisingly doing fine in the fight and way better than me. Clawing, snapping, and smashing what were insects to him didn’t seem to wear him down. The complication was that some rabbits were able to bite, with time, into part of their skin that wasn’t as protected as others. His blood soon mingled with all the blood, staining its normally white scales.

For my part, I only had a few scratches here and there, but my armour was starting to leave more and more parts of my skin without protection as it was getting unrecognizable. Blocking any attack after my head with my arms didn’t spare them, and ignoring the pain was getting difficult. We needed to get out of here.

While we were fighting, I saw him glancing at the sky, looking for any opportunity to take off the ground. After the start of the fight, he only threw a few fireballs at regular intervals, he was getting exhausted as I was.

With most of my magic arsenal being useless, my mana reserve was still fine. I could probably blow a few spells using raw mana instead of my items, but it was so mana-hungry that I needed to keep them as a last resort. Which was probably soon since everything kept getting worse. It was now or never.

The best, and probably the only, way out was the sky. I hoped Randal was safe, but I had no way of knowing his whereabouts. Normally he never went too far away from me, but he probably didn’t have the opportunity to get back when the insanity broke out.

The airspace was getting more packed each time a glimpse of a way out showed up, closing it instantly. To break out of this aerial blockade, brute force was a necessity, or in my case magical force.

Making my way to the dragon, I jumped from Cortatrik to Cortatrik, avoiding the ground as if it were lava, which wasn’t far from the truth.

When I got close enough, I made a final jump onto the back of my friend the dragon. Felling something heavier than usual on his back, he prepares a fireball and turns his head toward me.

“Easy, friend, it's just me,” I said as I cut all the pests on his back. Noticing me, he fired at a Cortatrik behind me, the heat of his attack barely avoiding my face.

“I can create a way out, but we got one shot.” He kept looking at me. “Just fly in a straight line with your head down, I handle the rest…GO!” At my order, we took off, straight into the fray. The few jackalopes hanging on him didn’t last long.

Raising my arm, I concentrate my magic on it. I could feel the raw mana heating up till it was enough. Releasing my spell, a beam of fire shot straight in front of us. Incinerating every living being that dared stand on our path.

Keeping the continuous shot straight was difficult since we were now the centre of attention. Being assaulted from all directions but one, we continued onward. Ignoring everything else. Our only blessing was that their skin was not very fireproof.

Doing my best to hang on my mount and cover myself with only one arm. The voracity of my spell was greater than I expected. My supposedly greater-than-average mana reserve wasn’t going to hold long enough. Concentrating on a second spell, I made sure to spare my friend from the blast I was going to make.

“Keep going!” I said as I stopped my first spell, transferring all my mana left into our last chance.

When the spell had finally finished sucking up every bit of magic I had, I unleashed it. A blazing blast shot out in every direction. While sparing us at its centre. Its heat was not hot enough to disintegrate everything like the last spell, but it was enough to give a third-degree burn to everything in its blast radius.

Flaming corpses were falling from the sky, as I tightened my grip with what was left of my strength.

With a bit more leeway, we were finally able to speed up and get away from the madness we were in. I didn’t know where he was going with me, but as long as it was far away from hell, I was fine.

The ride was now smoother. He slowed down his speed, visibly exhausted from all the fighting and the fast flying. Some beasts in the sky were fighting each other, but he made sure to stay away from their little brawl.

After eating the last of my mana-regenerating leaves, my headache finally lessened.

While flying, we encounter Randal in the middle of his own battle with a flock, of bird-like creatures. Even outnumbered, he was able to show them the mightiness of a wyvern, leaving their lifeless bodies falling to god knows where.

I used a bit of the magic I just got back to control my two liquid weapons. Melting and piercing what was left of his enemies.

When he noticed me, he quickly finished up and flew to me. The two were not pleased when Randal got closer. I should have thought that Dragon and Wyvern weren’t best friends.

“It's fine, he with me,” I said to both of them. They didn’t complain more after that, probably putting up with it just for me. The fact that we were all injured and exhausted helped too.

Going in the same direction from the very start, the Dragon seemed to have a destination in mind. With Lavanda place being hours away, rest before going back home would be best, so we continue on his way, hopefully, closer to our destination.

The sky was slowly getting dark. I could see the behemoth moon on the horizon. It had been a long day.