Now we had a little staring contest going on. I shrugged and figured this guy was just hungry too. It slowly came up, much like the drake before. I looked up at it and chuckled nervously. If it was maybe ten times bigger with wings then I’d be running for my life.

As I suspected, the bigger drake was hungry, but he fancied human meat and not whiptail caiman meat. Its jaw strength was strong enough to pierce my torso when it grabbed me and bit down. I screamed out and promptly regretted dropping my guard. I changed the staff to a dagger and used a skill on the weapon for some extra piercing power, then stabbed the shit out of the drake until it let me go. One of its eyes were gouged out and the side of its face was badly damaged.

Doran immediately came to my aid while the big drake fell back a few meters to monitor the situation. Before long, it attacked again, and I understood why it waited when yet another large drake came into the scene. Maybe we were just in a bad position here. I breathed slowly and enveloped my arm a skill enhancement. I chucked the dagger and damaged the new challenger’s leg. On its way back, the blade sliced through the back of the fallen reptile. The one-eyed attacker was hot on my back, but the friendly one intercepted it just in time.

Snarls and hisses, brought the deadened evening to life; they fought viciously and their movements were so wild and alacritous that I couldn’t just join the fray without harming the smaller drake. Eventually, all that clawing and snapping led to the bigger one sinking its fangs into the smaller guy’s neck. I switched Shadowsiphon back to a staff and used Shadowbind to keep the larger drake in place, then smothered his body with Shadowspears.

“Heal that one,” I said.

“I’m sorry, what?!” Doran exclaimed.

“Heal it.” I playfully whispered in his ear. “I’ll help you cook the other ones. Juicy drake meat, man.” I made circles around him like the devil I was. “Don’t you want to know how it tastes? Hmm?”

“I really hate you…” He put a hand over the small drake and after a few seconds, Greater Heal fixed all internal and external wounds.

So, we had a new friend that night that we both had something in common with. Like me, the drake was clearly a cannibal, because it didn’t give a damn about eating its own species. Cue goblin flashbacks. And like Doran, it was ostracized for a trait it couldn’t control – turned out to be an albino monster. That was a first for me. I slowly approached it and touched along its scales. There were obvious variations in the size of its scales. Along its back, legs, and part of its neck were thick, hard-surfaced scales that more looked like plates. Its underbelly, joints, and throat had much smaller scales like a snake, but it was still tough to pierce.

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It followed us, or perhaps I should say the drake and I followed Doran. Even with my newfound strength, his survivalist skills were pure gold to someone like me. He found all the best spots to camp, food to eat, knew which water sources to drink from, knew how to prepare various herbs and meats, and could even identify poisonous foods and venomous creatures. The kid was as much a jungle monster as was actual jungle monsters.

We found a decent clearing to camp out for the night. I kept summoning undead and dismissing them back into oblivion for my night practice. Doran cast Mana Shield and I had an undead knight use half-assed attacks. “So, a lich, right?”

“I thought you didn’t want to talk about the past?” I retorted.

The kid sighed and brushed his brown hair out of the way as it’d grown quite a bit. He kept quiet for the remainder of the night and focused on his spells, as did I.

Doran and the drake eventually fell asleep. I eyed him and wondered if there’d come a day where some demon would take him away because of me. No matter what it took, I had to get strong enough to rekindle the connection between the devils, Knerog and Agares, and also find a new vessel that wasn’t a fugitive. I hadn’t known Doran very long compared to Tina, but he was a lifelong friend. The number of times we saved each other’s asses or survived hopeless situations was too much to ignore.

I stoked the fire a bit and went to bed; when I awoke, the drake and Doran were gone. My eyes scanned the area and my summons were still there, although three of them were missing. Hmm, strange. I ignored it and began my morning exercise, then stopped. I don’t even need to do this anymore. Instead, I focused on efficiency, and decided that using Consume was a faster and sure way to get stronger.

I ventured around the sparse jungle, found a couple drakes and Komodo dragons, had my breakfast, then returned to the campsite. The snow-white drake was resting a bit, and by its bloody mouth, I knew it ate. The tantalizing aroma from Doran’s roast was proof that he had his fill as well. “You ready?” I asked.

“Almost,” he eyed me mischievously, then whistled. The drake’s eyes opened and it bellowed softly. Doran being Doran hopped up onto the drake, then it stood up, and he spread his arms apart like he was the king of the world. “Worship me, peasant.”

Admittedly, my jaw hit the ground so hard that I had trouble bringing it back up. My pea-sized brain was tangling together as it tried to extinguish the fire blazing through my last remaining village of neurons. “How?!”