Demonic Devourer's Development

I found the worst by far part of the poison affecting me in a few hours, when I returned to the cave I cleared from the mantichora to catch some sleep. But of course… after an hour of doze, the poison kicked in, and I had to hold my breath and suffer through it before I could go to sleep again.

Then, an hour later, it repeated, and again, and again.

Needless to say, I didn't have much sleep. I never had problems with falling asleep before, or with sleeping just a little before going on towards the next meal, but something like that could disturb even the sturdiest sleeper. It worsened my mood even below what it was, and weakened me overall. Enough that I had to explore the mountain on foot or risk ending up in claws of a Bird of Paradise. And I normally destroyed them with my superior air manoeuvrability!

At least the snow was cold and nice, just the way I liked it. It filled me with energy. 'Cold Affinity' was an amazing skill for places like the mountain peaks.

I counted that about eighteen hours had passed, and I still found no sight of a creature that could be my cure from the poison that wracked my body.. There was nothing I caught now or before that had the ability I looked for. Meanwhile, the attacks of the poison didn't grow weaker.

Neither did Pest, at the first glance. The creature didn't need sleep or rest the same way I did, but I suspected that enough effort would make even him tired.

'Are you tired, Pest?'

'What sort of question is this? I don't have a body to feel tired.' Pest snorted. 'Why you even ask so suddenly?'

'If you get so tired that you feel like fumbling the anti-poison spell, warn me.'

'Okay… But I'm not tired. I'm just sick of doing the same thing over and over again. I hope that mantichora burns well in Hell.'

Did monsters even went to Hell? Were monsters that lived in Hell actually reborn there from mortal realm, or were they just spawned from chaos there the same way monsters of the mortal realm were spawned in here?

Who cared? Not me. I was just sick of feeling sick.

I spotted a speck of dark passing overhead and decided to move away from the open area before the wyvern—I could see the characteristic long snake tail—dropped on me. Any other day I would've happily taken it on, but right now I didn't want to deal with the monster. Their knife-like claws would've been problematic for me in my state.

Instead, I went towards the mouth of a cave I spotted nearby. It was so tall and wide that it was less of a cave and more of a very deep indentation in a mountain cliff. I scented no one inside or near, and there were no fresh tracks in the snow at the entrance. Scents weren't as noticeable in the cold—or I wouldn't have been surprised by that mantichora—though. As for the snow, the wind was constantly sweeping it around.

The cave could've still been taken, so I still exercised caution as I walked in. I didn't plan to go deep—only hide far enough inside that the wyvern would pass by, then leave—but a deep claw mark in the stone floor made me pause.

It was bigger than anything I saw on the mountain before.

It belonged to a monster I didn't yet caught and tasted! Maybe it had poison resistance. The problem was… whatever could leave scratches that long and deep in the stone by just, as it looked to me, walking over it, wasn't something to threat lightly.

I looked around me again. The cave entrance was ten meters tall and about fifteen meters wide, and I only walked deep enough inside to hide myself from the snow. The cave went much deeper inside, somewhere in the dark. To go there or not to go, that was a question…

'How long until the next poison attack, Pest?'

'About half an hour.'

Alright, then I would peek inside and leave in half an hour. Ever so slowly and quietly, I crept forward, searching for more traces of the gigantic creature. I found them without too much looking. More scratches on the floor and the walls showed that something had been squeezing back and forth with some degree of regularity.

There was no scent at the scratches, though. It was possible that the lair of the beast had been abandoned long ago. Would I be lucky or unlucky if that was the case depended on what the beast was. I had my suspicion, and these suspicions made me even more careful in my sneaking.

When I reached the creature, at first I took it for a strangely shaped pile of rock. Then, I took it for a corpse. Its temperature was exactly the same with the stone around, and it wasn't moving. Still, I didn't dare to approach and for a long time only studied it from afar.

It wasn't for naught. When I spotted a long, soft breath of warm air leave the beast's huge nostrils, I knew it was alive. Sleeping, but alive. I couldn't believe my luck.

It was a dragon. Not an underground version of it, but the real thing that suddenly made me feel nostalgic for a thing I couldn't quite remember. A beast a size of several houses, covered in thick scales, with two leather wings that covered it like a blanket, and a muzzle that was a mix of that of a lizard and a horse. A majestic beast even now, when it curled on itself and made no movements.

I was still hesitating on whether I should take that opportunity to quietly leave or to quietly approach and try to kill the dragon in its sleep, when it opened a glowing yellow eye that was as big a man and looked at me.