CHAPTER 43: CHAPTER 43: RECUPERATION

The moment he woke up he felt a stabbing pain all over his body, the parts of his body with missing scales felt like somebody pulled off his nails.

He wanted to scream and roar but he was afraid it might give out his position to that damnable hippo.

What he needed right now was a place to lie low and recuperate. He had never suffered demage of this level before and doesn’t know how long it will take to heal.

Or if it will heal at all, he dragged his battered body. He swam slowly trying not to cause a commission but his body was so large it split the water apart when he moved.

It didn’t take long for him to find a huge underwater hole with dense vegetation, the hole was home to a variety of normal fish.

He couldn’t sense a single rank 1 let alone rank 2 fish. Infact there was barely any essence here which is something he had learnt was possible.

Some regions had a high concentration of essence energy while others had a very low concentration of essence energy.

Beasts also prefer places with high levels of essence energy. So an energy desert like this would not attract powerful beasts.

It was the perfect place to lie low until he heals. Plus the surrounding vegetation was an easily accessible food source.

He was deeply worried about his wounds getting infected but his worries were unfounded, the fish would occasionally eat the dead flesh off his body.

However that brought another problem, his flesh was too...he didn’t know how to say it but after a while the fish that ate his flesh grew larger.

Much larger than before then one day one of then ranked up and became a rank 1 beast. However the beast was tame and not very aggressive even though it was a demon beast.

It did not even eat the other fish and continued eating vegetation and it appeared to be very affectionate towards him. After a week another evolved.

He noticed a difference between them and most other beasts he had met, their essence not only smelled refreshing like blooming flowers it was also thick.

It smelled pure. He was almost certain that these two fish were stronger than those of their rank and grade.

He remembered the painful memories of getting constantly jumped before, maybe this is why, those beasts sensed his flash would be very beneficial for them.

Or maybe it was just him trying to feel important. A month passed, four new awakened fish appeared and his body was slowly healing.

The external wounds were no longer as bad, he was even starting to grow new scales. They were still soft and brittle but they will grow stronger.

Perhaps even stronger than the last scales. His biggest problem was his organs, while they did not completely turn into mush like he felt, they were still seriously wounded.

Occassionally he would cough up black blood, while it looked bad it was actually a good thing. It meant he was healing and his body was expelling the old contaminated blood.

At this rate he will be back to full strength in no time. Six months later he was still in the hole, his external wounds had healed completely but his insides still felt like they were being punched whenever he tried to make any large moves.

Now he was starting to deeply regret pissing off that hippo and no matter how hard he thought about it he still doesn’t understand why he actually did it.

As long as he was patient he could’ve easily hunted that crocodile, even if it was not easy, the chances were not low but he just had to mess with the hippos.

Even normal hippos in his past life would kill you just because. They had no valid reason other than you’re in their personal space and dumb him had to mess with a giant hippo instead.

Not mention he saw it, he felt it aura, he knew it was there and still thought he could escape it notice. That stupidly high confidence must’ve been due to his bloodline.

’ Why did I wish to be a dragon? Is this my punishment for it? Huh? Answer me Zues you COWARD.’ he laughed at himself, if the Gods were real they would’ve cursed him for all the insult he had sent their way.

He sighed, being a weak dragon was really hard. The fact that he had so much pride even when his dragon blood was so low and impure was troubling.

What if he was not a lesser swamp dragon but a true dragon instead. Would he have directly challenged the hippo and the toad at the same time?

’ No no no, I need to deal with this stupid curse before it get me killed.’ Even though he thought that he had no solution for it.

He sighed, guess I’ll deal with it later. With nothing else to do he checked his status, it been a while since he did.

Name: Ved Zhakrii

Species: Lesser Swamp Dragon ( 12 years/ 1000 years) ( 4.7m/5m) Mid Sky grade

Rank: 2

Abilities ( 2/2): Trait Assimilation, Haki

Traits( 6/6): Poison secretion, Herculean strength (460x), Aquatic, Flash (340x), Iron scales ( 30 000x), Web Secretion

Evolution points: ( 18.8/20)

He was not very far from his next evolution which was a relief, he had been in this rank for far too long. He bet White had long surpassed him by now which was worrying.

If that battle manic knew she was stronger she would definitely beat him up for all the losses she had in the past.

If only he didn’t get trapped in this place with so few beasts his rank let alone his grade, his points would’ve grown faster.

3 more months later, his organs had mostly healed but he figured they will never truly heal but even this was still impressive.

Organs don’t just heal like that. He placed his hope for a full recovery on his next evolution but finding prey in this place was hard.

The ecosystem hadn’t recovered since...well him,so he placed his eyes on the crocodile. Finding it was not hard, he just followed the familiar scent.

He stopped 500 metres away and watched it feast on an all too familiar centipede. Then he slowly released his poison in it direction.