Big Meal and Introspection

There was a strange, low sound inside my head but I completely ignored it. In fact it sounded a few more times, but my focus was elsewhere entirely.

I released my grip, my chest heaving with exertion and triumph. I stood over the fallen serpent, its lifeblood staining the cave beneath us. The taste of victory mingled with the metallic tang of blood on my tongue—a reminder of the savagery that lay within me, tempered by the lessons learned in the crucible of survival.

I quickly got to work on my hard-earned meal. The serpent's scales were hard, perhaps even harder than my baby dragon scales, but I was adamant and my sharp teeth, made to devour all my prey, prevailed over its defenses. Unlike my previous meals, this one took incredible effort. Not only was it many times my mass and size, I was also exhausted. Before I could finish even half of it, I lost consciousness with a happy feeling of fulfillment in my heart.

This time I wasn't ambushed, perhaps due to sleeping during daytime, as I was ambushed at night and spent the rest of the day following, fighting and eating the serpent. By the time I awoke nighttime was encroaching. I spent the next few hours devouring the rest of my prey, and then I looked around the cave for the first time. 

It was empty as one would expect from an unintelligent monster, though in its most hidden crevice I discovered three eggs. I could instinctively tell that they were close to hatching, I must've fought a mother serpent. I quickly got to work on my extra helping, I cracked each egg and slurped the small serpentine monsters right into my bottomless belly. 

Unlike their adult mother, they were real delicacies. No hard scales, thin bodies that I didn't even need to bother chewing. I slurped them up from the ground with ease. 

After treating myself to such a fine dessert, I laid down in the cave and for the first time in my life thought a few things through. I went through all of my experiences during my three days of existence, I analyzed my failures and victories in great detail. I understood instinctively that I was a little wyrmling, one of great potential but little current might. From my mother's inherited knowledge I learned that devouring dragons were actually on the weaker end of the spectrum as far as newborn dragons were concerned. It was due to us having little inherent advantages over other dragon sub-races. 

I had the usual advantages dragons have over other lesser creatures such as;

Draconic brain: capable of great thought processes especially when compared to my peers in my age category. No newborn creature is more intelligent than newborn dragons and this trend tends to remain true until the final draconic evolution; the great wyrm stage.

Draconic eyes: Great night vision and ability to see clearly for great distances, combined with the supreme draconic brain leads to the ability to analyze situations quickly and efficiently

Draconic heart: The driving force of the apex creatures of the world, capable of beating many times faster than a humanoid's heart, allowing for significantly greater exertion of power.My sturdy scales, talons, fangs, wings, tails etc.

All these advantages would grow stronger as I evolved into my older age stages. Another major advantage dragon-kind enjoyed that not many other races had the privilege of is getting stronger just by aging. A lazy or wimpy dragon can just hide himself or herself away in her little cave, hunt harmless animals for calories and wait multiple millennia to become a strong individual. However, all true dragons had these advantages.

What set devouring dragons apart from the rest were their unique abilities:

Bottomless stomach: I can store creatures many times my size as evidenced by the giant serpent. This stomach is a separate magical dimension as in reality my belly did not grow to the size to accommodate my fallen prey. I can then store them indefinitely and consume the calories when needed. Right now I can live for weeks just on the tiger and serpent monster, as I can also store water in my dimension.

Draconic Predation: I can absorb the essence and powers of any dragon I devour, incorporating some of their abilities into my own arsenal. 

Adaptive Evolution: With each dragon consumed, I not only gain new powers but also enhance my own strength and resistances.

The last two abilities are what makes devouring dragons into the natural predators of dragon-kind, but it also means that until I can find a couple of dragons and beat them my kind is the weakest of the species. 

During this introspection I also noticed that consuming the serpent made me many times stronger than the tiger did. In fact, if the tiger was a small drop of water then the serpent was a whole puddle. It has become clear to me that animals are only good to satiate my hunger, for my strength to grow I must hunt strong monsters or humanoids. I quickly understood that I was about 1/10th of the way towards my evolution into a very young dragon. Surely doing so would make me larger and stronger, perhaps even giving me greater abilities. 

If I were to grow as such, I would need to find wyrmlings to prey upon and I would gain some of their characteristics and abilities. What I gain would greatly depend on the strength of my enemy. If I eat three red dragon wyrmlings I wouldn't get much if any at all after my first kill, however if I then found a young red dragon and consumed it I would further enhance my predated red draconic bloodline.

I burped happily, excited for the challenges that lay ahead. From my experiences during the time I stalked the serpent I knew that going out during night is significantly more dangerous, though there is also more to be gained. I decided that for the time being I would remain a daytime hunter, thus I soon went back into my slumber.