Luckily, it is not bad enough that I crash, but gaining altitude takes a lot more effort than it should. Instead of heading to the battle I fly away from it, I need to get used to this form. After all, if I trip and fall on my face in front of them, the humans will know something is wrong.

As much as I want to hurry, I also don't want to waste all my effort by doing something stupid. Besides, I only want some of the humans to survive the battle, not all of them. It would also be good if most of the orcs end up dead by the end of the battle as well.

Once I am a decent distance away from the battle I land and end up falling on my face. It looks like moving away for the battle to practice was the right decision. I also now know that I need to slow down more before landing, I need to practice some more.

So for the next little while I take off and land repeatedly until I am good at both. Then I practice the wyvern's attacks for a bit before I am ready to return to the battle. When I reach the battle the numbers have been reduced by a lot, no real surprise.

The humans are down to under a hundred and the orcs have around seven hundred left. The humans are still surrounded so I target part of the orcs' encirclement. I land amongst the orcs with a loud crash killing several orcs that I land on.

After that I start attacking the orcs around me with my teeth, claws, and tail. Any orc touched by the stinger on my tail instantly turns black and falls over dead. It would seem that the different name of my shape is a reflection of the power of my poison.

I get the feeling that this poison can kill pretty much anything that doesn't have poison immunity. It makes me really glad that the wyvern I fought wasn't this type of wyvern. If it was, I think I would have had a lot more trouble dealing with it.

The orcs try to fight back against me, but their weapons cannot penetrate my scales. Once all the orcs around me are dead, I grab a few bodies with my feet and my mouth and fly away. This way, hopefully, the humans will believe I am just a hungry wyvern who happened by.

Of course, I have no intention of eating the orcs, once I am out of view of the battle I immediately drop them. Then I shift back into an eagle and circle back to see if my plan worked or not. It did, twenty-three humans are running south with around four hundred orcs chasing them.

Luckily, at least a few of the humans are faster than the orcs and will escape. A few of the slower humans show their bravery and turn to fight the orcs to buy time for their comrades. This is a good thing because I can't interfere again without it looking extremely suspicious.

Once some of the humans have a good lead I turn to fly ahead of them. It would ruin everything if the humans I saved were to run into an orc ambush on the way. On the way to the fort I don't spot anything that will threaten the fleeing humans.

When I reach the fort I find that a lot has changed and there is a lot of activity. The wooden fort has been replaced with a stone one that is about seventy-five percent complete. Around it there is a town under construction along with an outer stone wall.

The few simple docks have been replaced and the entire bay is lined with docks and a shipyard. The shipyard isn't huge, it is mainly for repairs and maintenance, or will be when it is finished. Most of the construction is newly started, but I can still tell that this is a major project.

It is a good thing the elves will be leaving, they wouldn't stand a chance if they stayed. At this rate the humans are going to take over this entire island eventually. Once they deal with the orcs it won't take long for them to spread throughout the island.

The island is actually bigger than the area the kingdom currently controls. So once they control it they will have doubled their territory, but that will still take years. Unless the island manages to revolt and become an independent kingdom, the balance of power will shift.

If they play their cards right, this kingdom may even grow into an empire. Not that it really matters, the elves and I will be long gone before anything like that happens. Once I have studied the new fort for a bit I turn and fly further south to see if anything else is happening.

As I expected the humans have already moved towards the south, at least a little. There is a logging camp and outpost at the edge of the jungle being constructed. I am counting on the jungle to keep the humans from spreading to the east side of the island too fast.

Hopefully, it will buy me enough time to finish the ship and leave before they do. If not, then at least the distance and the terrain will make it hard for the humans to reach us. We also have the advantage in that until we release the sailors, the humans don't know where we are.

The sailors will be released as promised, but their odds of surviving the journey are low. Even if they do manage to make it, the trip will take them weeks on foot. Hopefully, by then the humans will be in a full scale war with the orcs and won't be able to do anything to us.

Whatever happens, I will just deal with it when I need to, for now I head for the mountains. Even though I am coming from the opposite direction I don't have any problems finding the mountain I want. Flying down into the grotto is easy since I am a normal sized eagle this time.

Everything is exactly as I left it, so I land, drop shapeshift, and get to work. First I remove the wyvern's wings and set them aside, I have something I want to try with them. Then I start butchering the body, taking care to keep the scales and hide intact.

Those in combination with the hide from the legendary beast should allow the elven leatherworkers to make armor. If their skills are good then chances are it should be better than metal armor. It should go a long way towards making the elves stronger, at least I hope so.

Once the hide is removed I start butchering the body and storing the meat in my pouch. Even though there is too much meat for the elves already, I can't just let it go to waste. Besides, I have to dig deep to get the heart out, once I do I start eating it.

Devour Activated: Strength +10, Endurance +20, Flight Speed +20!

As soon as I see the stat boosts my first thought is if the flight speed will affect my shapeshift forms. If it does, then that is awesome and will save me at least a little bit of travel time. If not, then that's just too bad since I don't fly much in my normal form anymore.