Free Web NovelChapter 12: Lizard Chief
[Optional Quest: Defeat the Lizard Chief]
[Reward: Venom Fang, 1,000 EXP]
[Penalty: None]
[Do you wish to accept this quest?]
"Another quest?" Ren muttered when he saw it come up. He had already been thinking about fighting the lizard chief, but now he had even more motive to go ahead and do it.
Ren read it over carefully, weighing it for all of two seconds. No penalty listed at all, which immediately made the decision easier than the last one had been. He’d already been half-convinced before the system even chimed in with its own opinion on the matter, but seeing terms this clean made it feel like an easy yes.
"Yeah, okay, we’re doing this," he said, looking at the lizardman. "Accept."
[Quest Accepted]
"Lead the way," he added.
Before anything else though, he turned back to the alpha’s body, still warm, and tore into it without hesitation, the same instinctual hunger from before guiding him through the meal.
[Devour: Strength +5]
[Devour: Speed +5]
[Devour: Stamina +5]
[Inherit Triggered]
[Skill Learned: Sonic Roar]
Ren paused mid-bite, genuinely delighted. "Oh, hell yes. I get the roar thing now too? That’s the best part of this whole fight, honestly."
[Status]
[Level: 17]
[Strength: 86]
[Speed: 88]
[Stamina: 88]
He finished the meal properly, satisfaction settling deep, and rolled his shoulders.
"Alright," he said, turning back to the lizardman. "Let’s go meet your chief."
The procession moved out together, lizardmen flanking him on one side, the wolf pack falling into step on the other, an odd mismatched army trailing behind a small shining dragon as they pushed deeper into the territory.
The land shifted as they went, the forest floor growing wetter, murkier, until they were moving through genuine swampland, dark water pooling between twisted roots, strange cocoon-like structures hanging from the lower branches of the trees around them, faintly luminous in the dim light.
At the center of it all stood the largest tree in the swamp, a massive cocoon structure suspended near its base.
The lizardman who’d been escorting Ren stopped, drew a deep breath, and let out a screech that rolled across the water in a visible ripple, the sound trembling through the swamp and clearly reaching every corner of the territory at once.
A challenge announced.
Lizardmen emerged from every direction, climbing down from the trees, rising from the water, gathering at the edges of the clearing to watch.
The chief emerged from the central structure a moment later, and Ren immediately understood why the lizardmen spoke of him differently than the others. He stood a full head taller than any lizardman Ren had seen so far, his bearing far more refined, clean cloth wrapped properly around his frame instead of crude hides, a polished staff held in one clawed hand.
He crossed the water to dry ground without hesitation, eyes already locked on the group approaching.
The escort lizardman stepped forward and spoke quickly in their native hissing tongue, explaining the challenge, gesturing back toward Ren.
The chief’s expression shifted instantly into fury. He lunged at the escort, staff raised, clearly intending to punish him on the spot for the audacity of bringing a challenger.
Ren intercepted before the staff connected, slamming into the chief’s side hard enough to send him stumbling several meters back.
"Hey," Ren said. "Don’t do that. Wasn’t his fault."
He frowned, genuinely a little annoyed now. "What kind of leader attacks his own people out of reckless anger? I mean, I get being pissed someone brought a challenger to your door, sure, but take it out on me, not him."
The chief straightened, staff gripped tight, eyes burning with insult and rage in equal measure.
"You," he said, his voice carrying a sharper, more deliberate hiss than the others, "would stand against me? A dragon, fully grown and evolved, against a hatchling barely out of its egg?" The lizard cheif referred to itself as a dragon, one of the funniest things Ren had heard here. This fellow did not even know what a dragon looked like, if he had known he would not even dare to say that. A memory of his mother flashed in his head, massive and domineering.
"I mean, when you put it that way it does sound a little unfair," Ren admitted. "For you lizard."
The chief’s eyes narrowed to slits, killing intent leaking visibly off him now.
"I accept your challenge."
He didn’t wait for a formal start. The staff came up fast, a glowing rune flaring at its tip, and a ball of condensed fire screamed across the clearing toward Ren.
Ren barely cleared it in time, the heat washing past close enough to singe his side as he banked hard.
Okay, he thought, scrambling to adjust. He’s actually got magic . That’s new.
The chief didn’t let up, chaining a second fireball almost immediately, then a third, forcing Ren into constant evasive movement, gliding and dodging without a single clean opening to close the distance.
"This is annoying," Ren muttered, weaving around a fourth blast. "Could you maybe slow down for like, two seconds?"
The chief answered by slamming his staff into the swamp water, and a thick green fog began spreading rapidly outward from the impact point, rolling across the clearing floor.
Ren’s instincts screamed the second it touched him, a sharp burning sensation crawling up through his lungs even from a brief exposure, and he scrambled higher into the air to escape it.
Poison fog. Of course. Of course he’s got poison fog too.
He circled overhead, genuinely struggling now to find an angle that worked, the fireballs forcing him constantly on the move while the fog ate up ground space he couldn’t safely land in.
Another fireball screamed past, close enough this time to actually clip his wing, and something in Ren finally snapped past irritation into genuine anger.
"Okay," he growled, banking hard and dropping altitude fast, eyes blazing. "You want to play with fire?"
He opened his jaws wide.
"Let me show you what an actual dragon’s breath looks like."
