The Wounded Dragon.

Ivan had arrived in front of a dragon that was bleeding profusely from an aggravated wound in its heart area. Ivan hadn't even realised the emotion that made him want to make that dragon in front of him his pet, and from the way his mentality had taken a turn for the worse, it wouldn't be weird even if he was aware of that feeling because he would want the same regardless.

So, unbothered by the eerie feeling that made him shudder, Ivan moved forward, towards the humongous, majestic being, placed his right hand on its nose, and caressed it, ignoring the ripping skin of his palm, which was almost regenerating instantly. Without turning back, he raised his left arm and waved, pointing at the dragon, mentally ordering his summons to surround it to welcome a new member.

Since his summons didn't feel or fear death, they soon surrounded the seemingly unconscious dragon.

'Too colossal....' Ivan thought inwardly as he placed different pieces of the puzzle that would make his hunt successful. But no matter what, he couldn't formulate a proper, for sure-kill plan, and without that plan, a reckless attack would surely wake up the dragon, which would be the cue for his death.

'Acid!' He remembered how dangerous the acid produced in his body was; a single drop had continuously devoured its way into the ground when he dropped a droplet of it to test it, and after a while, when he checked on it, a centimetre-wide, metre-deep hole had formed. As shocking as it was, that wasn't what surprised Ivan the most; a two-foot-wide range around the centimetre-wide hole was rotten and had turned pitch black, indicating how dangerous it actually was, and that was something his body produces continuously, storing in a separate gland, in which a mouthful of acid could be stored at once.

'Should I poison it first? Since it won't harm me even if I eat it later....' Ivan thought about it and decided to do so because it's better to be safe than sorry. He walked towards the open wound on the dragon's chest, bit the edge of his index finger, and soon after a droplet of blood gathered,

'Blood poison.' He muttered in his mind and felt his magic power cruise through his body before a strong amount of magic power gathered in the exposed blood droplet, turning it black, which was just the darkest concentration of purple, and without a second thought, he dropped the droplet onto the dragon's wound.

Within a split second, the purple blood droplet cruised through the dragon's body. Now he didn't know if the poison would hurt or not, but from the wails of the monsters when he tested the poison on them, he could understand it would hurt like hell, so now it was a race against time; the moment the dragon woke up, he would die.

So, he tensed his leg muscles and concentrated his magic power on his legs and jumped into the air, easily getting on the dragon's head. He crouched down with his hands placed on its head, inhaled sharply, focused on his poison glands, and spat out the acid on the dragon's head, softly.

SSSSSSssssss.....

Sizzling sound sounded in the dragon's scales; some of the acid even got in between its scales, devouring through the dragon's tough scales, skin, fat, muscles, veins, skull, and finally, Ivan's target, its brain.

SSSSSSssssss...

.....

...

After a few moments of the most underwhelming and anticlimactic bullshit Ivan had ever been through, the dragon's heart finally stopped beating after beating for a few minutes, even after the dragon's brain had been devoured by his acid, which had then dropped to the ground after devouring through the dragon's brain in a straight, fist-sized line.

"That's it?" Ivan frowned in confusion, glaring at the dead dragon's body, which remained as unmoving as ever.

"This is bullshit." He scoffed in annoyance, jumped off from atop the dead dragon's head, and made his way towards the dragon's heart, which was supposedly a powerhouse of a dragon that held almost infinite magic power, according to the stories he read.

He ordered his summons to guard him and tossed a lot of flesh at them, since he didn't know how long he would have to concentrate on the dragon's body to get the most out of it. He placed his hand on the dragon's body and let his magic power cruise through its body, since he needed all the information he could get before "working" on it.

'Fuck, it looks like it's going to take a lot longer than I expected.' Ivan cursed inwardly as he sensed many new, never seen before organs in the dragon's body, if he wanted everything about the dragon, he wanted to learn what and how they worked too, but first,

"The dragon's heart." Ivan mumbled and concentrated on finding the dragon's heart after tossing another tonne of flesh at his summons.

'I don't have much food left now; maybe it could last a few days, if only I ate. I should learn about the dragon faster and store its flesh too.' Ivan organised his priorities for the present and completely focused on the dragon.

.....

After a few days.

Ivan found the heart and learned many things about a dragon's body, and fortunately for him, the dragon heart holding "almost infinite" magic power seemed to be true, at least for him, because he could feel an overwhelming amount of magic power from a football-sized core inside the dragon heart, while the dragon's heart itself seemed to be holding a huge amount of magic power separate from the core inside it.

After recovering his magic power, with a sharp exhale, Ivan placed his hand on the dragon's still cold but healthy body and

"Summon." He mumbled.

"Cough!!! Cough, cough!!" Ivan coughed out a mouthful of blood as soon as the dragon's body sucked his magic power, up to the last drop, almost emptying his magic power reservoir, as severe exhaustion and a headache assaulted him, his face turned pale and his body began to tremble due the abrupt loss of strength.

THUMP

"F....uck...." His exhaustion forced him onto his knees, and he cursed as blood oozed out of his eyes, nose, and mouth, stopping soon after. Something in him told him that he was unable to make an undead out of a dragon and that all dragon species reject black and undead magic.

But the fortunate thing for him, now, was that the dragon's flesh dropped on the ground after getting separated from its bones, dropping every "material" he wanted, and without wasting another second, he waved his hand and stored the flesh and other important-looking organs into his sub-space, except for the dragon's heart, before too much blood leaked out of the dragon's flesh.

"It's a fucking... boulder...." He mumbled and made his way towards the dragon's heart, staggering. He wondered how he would eat all that, but as soon as he placed his hand on it, the heart shrank into a normal human's heart-sized one after pushing out the football-sized core that was inside it.

The core was mesmerising to look at, filled with a bright, blinding glow that for sure would have blinded him if not for something murky, purplish black, that was seemingly eating everything bright inside of it.

"Well, at least one of them is as cooperative as it is convenient for me." He mumbled to himself, though even he didn't know what nonsense he was spouting as he wasn't able to think straight from the mind-splitting pain he was experiencing, due to his magic power being drained in an instant.

He thought that he should eat the core first since it was inside the dragon's heart, so he stumblingly walked and picked up the football-sized core into his hands, sat on the cold, blood dyed ground, and channelled his magic power into his teeth, tensed his jaws that activated wolf fangs "involuntarily," as he intended at the beginning of his practice, and bit the core.

"!?" But his bite met with no resistance whatsoever; the core wasn't hard, it melted in his mouth and tasted sweet like chocolate, but it made him wince at the bitterness that flowed into his mouth when the murky part of the magic power entered together with the bright part. He hypnotised himself, saying that it was pure dark chocolate, and ate the core even though tears were streaming out of his eyes.

'Fuck, my first sweet in years had to be a bitter one.' He grumbled inwardly but still ate without complaining since, as he said, it was his first chocolate in years. And even though it was bitter, it felt refreshing and seemed like it was filling his body with overflowing energy, yet his stomach didn't seem to be getting filled, instead hunger started to haunt him soon after.

A few minutes later.

"I'll eat this now," Ivan mumbled, 'and I'll eat again later if this doesn't fill up my stomach.' He thought, he glanced at the dragon's heart in his hand, he inhaled sharply, and bit it.

And he completed eating the dragon's heart with just two, mere bites,

SNAP

His heart abruptly stopped, and as if something inside him snapped, he fell unconscious and his body slumped on the ground like a dead body.

THUD