[A.N: Will do a mass release of 3 chapters in the next week, so look forward to it... And also Thank you for the support until now and Enjoy reading!!]

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"CRACK" "CRACK" 

With the sunlight directly above, somewhere in a deep lush virgin forest, the sound of someone cracking bones could be heard. If we look closely enough, in the middle of the forest, inside an enormous cave, a dragon's hatchling could be seen munching away at some sort of a pig's carcass.

Its snout was all bloody from the dragon mercilessly breaking, crushing, and tearing away at the bones and flesh of the fat pig's legs with its lean yet muscular jaws. 

The dragon was almost the size of a human and had grey scales that reflected a light blue when sunlight hit them. A mysterious feeling emanated around the scales. Its maws were filled up with sharp jagged teeth that had a very ominous aura around them.

Its obsidian black claws were big and emanated a deadly sharpness. It had 2 big translucent wings on its back and it stood on its 4 limbs. The dragon gave off a very powerful and domineering feeling. Considering its age, this dragon was quite big.

Normally when a dragon is born in the world of [Zephyrus], they have a height of at most 1 meter and a length of about 2.5 meters. However, this dragon's height was almost a good 2 meters and its body length was almost 5 meters. 

Also, the power and pressure emanating from this newborn dragon was out of the charts for a hatchling. Although the power showcased by this dragon doesn't even amount to 1% of adult matured dragons, nonetheless it is still impressive.

This 'impressive' dragon, is naturally our dragon boi from Earth who just came to this world a few days ago. 

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 It has been about 1 week since my battle with the Giant Mantis. The light cuts and scratches on my body I gained during that battle have almost healed up. Only my deeper cuts did not heal completely and remained as battle scars. For the past week, I have been constantly exploring the forest around the cave that I was currently living in. 

During these days of my exploring, I found many varieties of fantastical animals and monsters in the forests. There were toads as big as elephants, wolves that had wings on their back, rabbits that had unicorn horns on its head, and countless other such creatures. There was even a monster that looked like some sort of a tennis ball with hundreds of eyes coupled with a pair of hands and feet. After seeing that monster or rather an abomination, I just wanted to barf out my entire stomach. However, my pride as a dragon did not let me show such an unsightly sight as a dragon barfing. 

I even encountered the typical fantasy creatures depicted in a typical magic world... Goblins. 

Those were nasty little things and looked almost the same as depicted on Earth. Goblins were small, their height only amounted to about 0.5m to 0.7m. They had nasty yellow teeth and were constantly drooling. They were half-naked and wore a single loincloth that covered their private parts.

Just by being in the vicinity of goblins, a strange pungent smell enters your nose. The loincloth looked like it had been in has been in some kind of underground sewer for years and has not been washed. 

After becoming a dragon my every sense was amplified. So for my dragon nose, the smell was too strong. Although I did not want to kill such inferior and disgusting creatures, I wanted to have some battle experience, so I did not wait long and started to kill them.

But...To my disappointment, they were weak, I mean like stupidly weak. How were they even surviving in this world?!!!

After killing 6 or 7 with a single strike, I did not waste my time with these mongrels and finished all of them in just 3 or 4 swipes with my claws. But after killing those nasty freaks, my claws smelt like poop and dump, so I had to again search for a water body to wash my claws. 

I sighed deeply and went on to wash my claws.

I continued exploring the past week and found out that to the north of the cave that I was presently living in, there was a big river. By my estimation, the river was almost 60 meters wide.

To the east of the cave, there was a big muddy swamp. I decided to not explore the swamp first as there could be hidden dangers beneath the water. And I could not see underwater. So I decided to explore the swamp after I explored the other dry areas of the area.

Towards the West, was a virgin forest that stretched for miles, and towards the south, there was a big mountain range  

Leaving that, presently, I am inside my cave eating away on a piece of wild boar leg from the boar that I hunted today. These days, my daily routine was the same, wake up - hunt - eat - explore - come back at night - sleep - then again wake up the next day.

For today, I wanted to explore the mountainous side to the South of my cave. After some minutes, I finished my meal and then headed off toward the mountains. 

This side of the forest was very different from where I was living in. The place where I lived had dense trees with a thick canopy. The interiors were cool and dark with almost no sunlight reaching down. However, here, the trees were scarce with little vegetation.

While being alert for any sneak attacks, I went on towards the mountains. As I walked, I left a trail behind of sharp claws on the ground. I passed by a giant waterfall and then went on to find a fat sheep monster about the size of a dog. that was lazily eating away the grass without a care in the world. I quickly killed it and ate it in a few minutes. After that, I continued on my exploration.

But after walking for a few minutes, I came to a sudden halt. About 40 meters ahead of me, there were 7 brown hounds surrounding a black wolf pup. They were baring their teeth towards the black pup and swiping their claws at the pup occasionally. They were just playing with the black pup. 

I swear, that if they had a human face, then their faces would surely have sadistic smiles splattered across their face. 

In a normal situation, I would have paid it no mind and left the black pup to its fate. This was the law of the jungle. If you are weak you die, if you are strong you survive to live one more day. 

However, this time......this time I felt something. Something different, something more than what it looked.

I was staring in the direction of the pup for a while, wondering what was odd and different... when the pup suddenly looked at me. When our eyes met, a jolt went across me. I felt as if the pup was a part of myself, you know that feeling when you meet a very close long lost friend after a long time... that's the exact feeling I felt when our eyes met.

And these hounds dare to harm my 'long lost' friend. Hmph, I would never allow that.

My pride fuelled me as I bared my fangs and let out a huge roar. 

The surroundings shook with my roar and birds flew away from the trees. Even the hounds were unable to move for some time. I looked menacingly towards the hounds, and rushed towards them, determined to give them the most painful of deaths. 

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Next Chapter: [Fallen, the First Claw]