On the front side of a mountain, a group of people wearing thick animal coats to protect from the coldness in the wind was travelling up along the rocky and bumpy path. The group consisted of 2 men bulging with muscles and a woman looking to be around her twenties. After consistently trying to climb the mountain, to gather some special herbs, only growing at the uttermost top, the group finally managed to climb almost to the top.

- "We've finally managed to get close to the top. It's taken us two weeks already. This quest is the worst one, why did we even take it?" Said a man, with a big beard, round glasses and short hair.

- "Reves, did you forget, that we'll get a huge amount of gold for completing this quest?"

- "Alright maybe I did forgot it, but that's because it's just too dangerous. But you know Hovis, why do you always only care about gold more than your life?"

- "You two always keep complaining about the missions we do. First, it's too dangerous, then it's too little gold. Do you ever stop complaining."

- "Why would you even care?" Said Reves with an irritated expression plastered on his face.

- "Because it's annoy-"

Suddenly the sound of a powerful wind came from above the group of 3. They all looked up, and as soon as they noticed what the reason for the powerful wind, their faces turned pale and they began to shiver. It was a gigantic black scaled dragon, with blood-red carvings and patterns around its body. At the tail was a spike, that seemed it could pierce anything without any effort needed

- "Antalia, what race is that dragon to be that big?" Said Reves with a quivering voice.

- "It seems to be a Demon Dragon, but usually they don't ever get to grow this big because they attack beasts stronger than themselves." The girl Antalia answered back with fear in her eyes.

- "What?! Those dragons that attack any living creature without reason?!" Reves almost yelled.

- "Shush, it doesn't seem to have noticed us. Quiet down!"

While the group of 3 talked, the dragon landed on top of the mountain and went out of view of the three of them.

- "How are we going to get those herbs, now that the dragon is on top of them??"

- "We'll continue climbing to the top, and wait for the dragon to take off before continuing to gather the herbs in the quest. When we reach the top of the mountain, the dragon should be gone." As soon as Hovis said that, he began to continue climbing up the steep mountain. A couple of hours later the group of three, sat down and took a rest and some food after climbing for most of the day.

9 hours later after setting up camp and sleeping, Antalia and the others finally reached the top of the mountain with exhausted looks and sweat drenching down their bodies. But prior to their expectations, the Demon Dragon was still there; sleeping on the flat mountain top leaving only a third of the space available. Antalia, Reves and Hovis noticed something strange though.

- "Antalia, why does it seem the dragon has shrunk compared to before..?" Asked Reved with curious eyes.

- "Where should I know that from? Although I know a lot about beasts, I've never seen such a thing before, but it indeed does seem to have shrunk."

- "Maybe it's weakened, we should try to end it quickly if we want to get the herbs," Hovis revealed a weird expression.

Suddenly, the skin and flesh on the dragon began to move around as if it was alive. Sounds of bones breaking could be heard and some of the parts of the dragon began to rip apart and restore at an incredible speed. The scales of the dragon began to slowly change their colour, from coal-black to an eerie red almost representing blood. Spikes began to grow all along the back, and the facial features began to change. Almost devil-like horns began growning on the head, emitting a faint red glow. Although the dragon had shrunk a little, it began to emit a lot more pressure compared to before.

- "What's happening to that dragon?!" The group all whispered while scared and disgusted at the sight in front of them.

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["Host successfully combined the Demon Dragon bloodline with the Demonic Deer bloodline resulting in the race; 'Giant Demonic Dragon'."]

["Beginning to transform and modify the body of the Host to the selected bloodline."]

While being asleep, Lucifer couldn't feel or see his surroundings. The only thing he could do was sleep and dream, completely unaware of the outside world around him.

["Successfully modified the body of the Host into the 'Giant Demonic Dragon'."]

["Waking up Host."]

Lucifer slowly opened up his reptile dragon eyes and began to blink uncontrollably due to the sunlight hitting his pupils. He was sore in all his body, just like after the first advancement he made.

["Due to Host reaching 'Lord Rank' the System will undergo an upgrade and will temporarily be offline for the next couple of hours."]

'Great, so even the system can get upgrades.' Lucifer pondered over what new features the system upgrade would allow him to get. He already had some useful skills that could give him a huge advantage when battling with his opponents. Because the system was offline for some time, Lucifer wouldn't be able to check his stats and see if he'd gotten any new- or enhanced skills.

While deep in thought, Lucifer, noticed three people looking at him from a distance. Two of them were men with muscular bodies, and the third was a woman looking to be in her early twenties. One of the men looked to be in his forties. He had a thick beard and eyebrows, green eyes and brown spikey hair. The other man, was younger, with a sturdy body, clean-shaved face, blue eyes and a pair of smooth, thin eyebrows.

The girl had long blonde hair, grey eyes and little nose. Her body was curved and she looked mature. All their faces and eyes were filled with fear, disgust and confusion. They all had a pale complexion and shivered ever so slightly. Of course, Lucifer wouldn't know the bizarre changes had taken place. They would obviously think he was an undead since he didn't die of what just happened under his transformation. 'Maybe I should try to scare them? Or try and talk to them?' Lucifer had different thoughts appearing one after another in his mind, on how to deal with the current situation. He decided to just ignore them, and begin to explore further in the vast lands of this world.

_________________

- "ROAR!"

A deafening roar resounded from the dragon, as it looked at the group of three. Blood dripped out of their ears, while Hovis pissed his pants due to being too scared of the dragon.

Suddenly the dragon turned away from the group, and flapped its wings and began to fly off into the distance at an incredible speed.

- "W-why would i-it let us g-go?" With grim expressions the Antalia and the others looked each other into the eyes, knowing each other's thoughts with just a single glance.