In the end, I can't help myself and end up eating almost an entire wyvern body. Then I curl up in the middle of all those bodies and fall into a deep sleep. The early morning sun is what wakes me up the next day and despite that I feel amazing.
As I stand up and stretch I realize that I have had another growth spurt. Using mana I make a mirror and take a look at myself, I now stand about as tall as a horse. My shoulders are wider than a horse's and I am bulkier, but my legs are shorter.
Mainly because they bend out to the side like a lizard's instead of going straight down. My wings are also a bit bigger than they were and my tail has gotten a bit longer. Looking at myself I would have to say that in general I look more mature than I used to.
After having some breakfast I go back to dealing with breaking down the corpses. This time I only collect the hide and meat, I don't bother keeping the bones. The bones of the youngsters aren't fully grown so they are weaker and not really useful.
The meat I plan to keep for myself and Nala since it will help us to grow. The hide I will use for making armor, there are more than twenty warriors among the elves. Hopefully, if we are able to rescue more elves there will be more warriors among them.
Come to think of it, I should make a suit of armor for Silverstream since she is a troop leader now. It should at least be as good as Brightfire's since they are basically the same rank. While I am at it I should also see about enchanting whatever weapons she is using.
However, that can wait until we are back on the ship since she is currently fighting. While the enchantments would make fighting easier, she probably wouldn't appreciate the delay. I will just let her focus on her mission for now, and I need to focus on mine.
After I am done dealing with the eleven bodies I return to the air and resume searching. The mountains are fairly big, but not big enough to support this many predators. Although, since they can fly they can leave the mountains to hunt, even go to the ocean.
As I saw for myself, there are plenty of things for them to hunt in the ocean. For the wyverns at least, I doubt that the pterodactyls could do more than fish a little. After all, the humans had stories of the wyverns appearing all over the island to hunt.
Those cases were probably just the wyverns spotting something tasty on their way to the ocean. Either way, that means the predator population could be even higher despite there not being enough land to support it. Which means, despite all the ones I have killed, I still need to keep searching.
Or in the case of the wyverns, I need to fly around and play bait to lure them out. Since I can't detect them, that is all I can do to find them, which is annoying. I will just have to hope the one by the sacred spring is the only one in a deep sleep.
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As I am flying beside a mountain I spot a suspicious looking pile of rocks at the base of the mountain. After I fly past it starts moving and then takes flight, but it doesn't make it to me. As the wyvern is passing a cliff on the mountain a mouth suddenly comes out of the mountain.
The mouth is huge and it only takes one single bite for the wyvern to disappear. I quickly circle back, keeping my distance from the mountain, and take a look. However, after eating the wyvern the mouth disappears back into the mountain.
Once it stops moving it is impossible to see where the creature is, the cliff looks solid. I want to know what kind of creature it is, but not enough to go near the cliff. Just judging from the size of the mouth, whatever it is, it is bigger than the dragon.
Considering that the cliff looks completely normal, the creature must have the ability to control the earth. That would mean it can appear from anywhere on the mountain, not just the cliff. While that is just a guess, I make sure not to get close to the mountain.
Then again, I was close to the mountain earlier and didn't get attacked. Maybe that is because I am not even a mouthful to the creature so it ignored me. If so, then I am very lucky and have no intention of pushing my luck.
The point of this trip is to remove beasts that the maker can use to get off the island. Whatever is inside that mountain is something I am not worried about. I doubt the maker can kill it, and even if she does I doubt it can fly, at least I hope not.
Either way, I don't think it is something I can deal with so I am going to leave it alone. I simply eliminate the area around the mountain from my search area and move on. It is a big mountain so it takes a decent chunk out of what I have left to explore.
However, since it is starting to get dark I decide to find a place to camp for the night. I could probably finish the search during the night, but I am hungry and I need to play with the kids. They have gotten used to doing this every night and anytime I miss a night they get worried.
Although, I should probably check and make sure there are no nocturnal flying beasts. So after eating some of the wyvern meat I create a soulscape and play with the kids. Then after that I fly around for a while to see what is moving around in the dark.
It turns out that there are some nocturnal beasts, but nothing big enough to worry about. Since there is nothing flying around I find a place to perch and nap until the sun comes up. Then I go back to searching the mountains while hoping that thing in the mountain is unique.
Just in case, I am extra cautious any time I am flying near a mountain. It is not paranoia when there might actually be something inside the mountains waiting to eat me! Although, that thing in the mountain would explain why the wyverns evolved the ability to hide.
It would also explain why I haven't seen many beasts in the mountains. I had thought that the wyverns had hunted out all the other beasts, but now it looks like I was wrong. If whatever is inside the mountain can move around underground that would explain it.
It also makes me wonder what is going to happen when the undead start entering the mountains. Hopefully, that beast is going to start eating them and force the maker to stay out of the mountains. That would mean that even if I miss some beasts, the maker won't be able to get them.