Damien was dashing through a dense forest. Not long after he and Ela left the temple ruins and relaxed for a bit, Damien decided he wanted to explore the world. With Earth now ten times its original size since the system's arrival, much of the planet remained undiscovered and unexplored, leaving countless opportunities—like the temple they had recently been in—waiting to be found.

To his surprise, however, when he asked Ela if she would like to come along she turned him down, but when Damien asked why she said no Ela stated that they needed to gain experience by themselves. As of right now, they were both reliant on each other to a certain degree so Ela decided that instead of traveling together they should go separate ways before meeting up in a town called “Owlshire” shortly before the next system even began.

Although he was a little bummed they were not together he was also rather excited about the prospect since so far he truly has been with her since he escape the facility. After saying their goodbyes and whatnot Damien headed out in search of interesting places, Ela had shown him a map of the area around Ruby’s town that had been explored and mapped which was quite a lot but that was not surprising considering how long they had been alive.

As Damien examined the map in his hands, he was quite impressed by its design. The map featured numerous landmarks that would help lost travelers, and it indicated dangerous areas where powerful monsters or beasts resided. One particular beast caught Damien's attention—a creature resembling a wyvern, marked on the map with the number "20" above it, indicating that it was level twenty when the map was created. However, by now, the beast was likely much stronger. Aware that it was a wyvern or something similar, Damien immediately set off toward its location, intent on engaging it in battle.

After traveling for quite a while Damien eventually came across a giant canyon-like area, according to the map the wyvern had made this canyon its home and anything that stepped foot inside would be noticed and attacked. Looking down towards the bottom of the canyon Damien scanned all over with his eyes looking for any sign of the beast but was unable to locate it as of yet.

Not only was the canyon insanely deep being twice the depth of the Grand Canyon of the past but it also was extremely wide and spanned almost five hundred miles, if Damien wanted to find the wyvern he had quite the task ahead of him. Hopefully what the map said about the beast was true and it would seek him out after he stepped foot inside.

Taking one more look over the edge Damien adopted an excited grin and placed one foot above the canyon before dropping himself inside and plummeting to the canyon floor. The air started to violently whip past his face, and his hair and clothing started to fly about as his speed increased causing Damien to let out a laugh.

He could not help but think about how exciting and fun life had felt ever since he regained his memories, while the system brought upon things that Damien wanted to never experience again along with the death of his mother and just the death of millions in general, not everything was so bad if you asked him. No more mundane jobs, longer lifespans, being able to learn and use interesting abilities… It’s not like it's a talent thing either since everything and anything awakens upon the system’s arrival on a planet whether it is humans, animals, insects, or even plants. Everything is given a chance to better themselves.

That was one of the things Damien loved most about the system, it was fair in every sense of the word. It gave no one inherent advantages and for those that did have said advantages well it was simply luck, like if someone was born with special blood like Damien it all came down to luck. Well unless the bloodline was passed down like Alina’s was.

While Damien was lost in his thoughts about the world and system a few hundred miles ahead of him a massive beast with majestic-looking scales could be seen sleeping soundly over the top of what appeared to be a geyser of sorts. Suddenly the beast's nose twitched and its eyes snapped open revealing a mysterious glint in its eye.

The beast was of course the wyvern who had now detected Damien with its sense of smell, being an animal it had far superior senses than humans did since it had been a wild animal before the system's arrival. Turning its giant head in the direction Damien was in the wyvern's eyes narrowed seemingly in thought.

Standing up the rest of the beast's body came into view, its body was covered in dark blue scales, and upon its head were two horns. Shaking its body does get the dust and debris off it as it had been lying down the wyvern spread its wings and lowered its body’s center of gravity before taking a giant leap into the air propelling tens of feet upwards before swiftly taking flight.

Each flap of its wings sent tons of wind onto the floor below creating almost a tiny dust storm, once it was fully in the air and gliding the wyvern’s body started to almost narrow increasing its speed and leaving a sonic boom in its wake. Had Damien seen this scene he would have been completely stunned since breaking the sound barrier was already a crazy feat but doing it now? Upon the arrival of the system, it changed many things one of them being the strength of the sound barrier, to break it now you would need to go Mach five which was equivalent to almost four thousand miles per hour.

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With the wyvern moving at such speeds it swiftly arrived above Damien coming to a halt and gazing down at the being below it, curiosity along with annoyance hidden in its giant yellow eyes.

On the ground, Damien could be seen with an expression of shock as he looked above him, one minute he had been lost in thought, and in the next, the wyvern had appeared in the air before a massive sonic boom was heard in the seconds after.

After a few minutes of staring at one another, Damien managed to gather himself, his calm look returning once more. Not only had the beast gotten stronger but he was sure the speed it had just displayed was something new as well, no level twenty beast would be able to move that fast let alone refrain from attacking him for so long.

While continuing to look up at the wyvern Damein could not help but be in awe of how majestic it looked he was also feeling a little star-struck, seeing something that only existed in myths, legends, and stories in real life felt super surreal to him. Now the only issue was getting the beast to fight him.

He doubted the beast would attack him seeing as it had not already done so, with that in mind he would have to either attack it himself or see if it could understand him. Damien was not opposed to having some type of spar with the wyvern rather than killing it, he honestly would rather not fight the death since it was the first one he'd ever seen.

Raising one of his hands he motioned for the wyvern to come down trying to see if it understood his intentions, however, it seemed he was a little too hopeful as instead of the wyvern seeing his gesture as friendly it interpreted it as the opposite thinking Damien wanted to fight which enraged to beast to no end.

How dare this little ant make its way into its home and then have the gall to ask it to fight? Letting out a loud snort. The wyvern’s tail raised far above its head and pointed in Damien’s direction.

Wyverns were what some would consider wannabe dragons since they had similarities however most did not know that wyverns unlike dragons had a stinger on their tail. This stinger is extremely lethal and can kill anything that is hit with it within an instant.

Damien upon seeing this scene sighed, “Guess we have to do this the hard way.” taking a defensive stance he waited for the beast to make its move. Since it was high above him in the air Damien could not attack it as none of his attacks could reach it therefore forcing him to take the defensive.

The wyvern seeing this snorted once more believing the human below it to be stupid, as if the tiny ant could block its mighty attacks. Rearing its tail back a giant black stinger was revealed from the inside of its tail green mist was gathered around it giving it an ominous feeling.

With its attack prepared the wyvern’s tail shot forward and the stinger detached before flying at Damien, within seconds the stinger was just a few feet away from him. As Damien was about to block the attack he sensed grave danger and was forced to dodge out of the way just in time for the attack to slam into the ground creating a small crater where he was previously at.

Looking at the spot where it landed Damien was able to see the ground being corroded from the poison within the stinger making him feel thankful he had dodged the attack inside of taking it head-on, if that poison had hit him… Shaking his head he glanced back up at the wyvern to see it looking down at him with what appeared to be a smug look.

Upon seeing this Damien became annoyed and his eyebrow twitched, “You must think I can’t attack you while you're up there huh?” he mumbled to himself while picking up an object from the ground floor.

Opening his hand and gazing at the object he had picked up, Damien smiled. It was a rock, and he had an intriguing idea of how to use it. He squeezed it as hard as he could and was pleased to see it did not break. Then, he began to infuse the rock with his mana, specifically his lightning mana, causing blue streaks of lightning to appear around its surface.

While he was doing this, the wyvern was not idle; it was observing the actions of the "ant" below. Upon noticing the rock in the ant’s hand, the wyvern immediately felt disdain. If this ant truly believed that a simple rock could hurt it, then the wyvern was done playing around.

As the wyvern was preparing to attack again, intent on finishing the fight, Damien focused his gaze on the creature in the sky. He quickly pulled his arm back and launched a rock covered in lightning toward it. The wyvern, brimming with arrogance, chose not to move, believing that such a small object thrown by a seemingly insignificant being could not possibly harm a majestic creature like itself.

BOOOM!!!, as soon as the rock made contact with the wyvern it exploded with lighting mana it created a massive explosion of lighting and thunder making even Damien have to cover his ears as it was so loud.

After being struck by Damien’s rock attack, the wyvern was knocked out of the air and was currently plummeting to the ground below, unable to move since the lightning from the attack had completely stunned its body.

Hitting the floor the ground rumbled from the weight of its body and dust was kicked up all around obscuring Damien’s view and making him unable to see the damage it had sustained. Upon hitting the ground the wyvern regained minimal control over itself and managed to weakly stand and slowly make its way out of the dust cloud.

Its body was relatively unharmed since its scales took most of the impact but unfortunately for the wyvern, the lighting remained unimpeded by this and easily made its way to the beast's insides causing internal damage and severely wounding it.

Damien who was now able to see the beast showed a smug smile himself, ‘That’s what you get for acting cocky.’ he thought while waiting for the wyvern’s next move.

ROOAR!!!

Suddenly the beast let out a roar that seemed to be brimming with anger, its eyes intently focused on Damien. This was insignificant ant was going to die today, it would make sure of it.

‘Seems like I pissed it off.’