The commander approached alex before anyone else since alex's fight was still fresh and they had never seen him so injured and didn't know how he would react. "you look like hell sid , can't say you didn't give as good as you got though." he said jokingly and alex just rolled his eyes at the man. the commander just smiled seeing as alex was as easy going as ever despite just going through a tough battle. "well if you aren't going to make yourself useful you could at the very least let the medics take a look at you." the commander said with a chuckle and alex just squirted him in the face with water earning a laugh from everyone else.
The researchers stationed nearby wasted no time at all collecting the biological samples that lay scattered all over the battle site. they collected flesh , scales , spikes and blood from both nergigante as well as alex that was scattered about. meanwhile the medics were scolding alex for acting like a wimp as they applied alcohol and healing paste to his wounds. alex couldn't be blamed since it stung like nothing else to have alcohol poured into open wounds.
The healing plants of this world would have put anything from earth to shame as they caused wounds to visibly mend and scar over. when mixed and worked into a medicine this effect was even more pronounced resulting in alex being mostly healed with in an hour. the trade off to the medicine however was that it used the fat and nutrients you had stored to repair the damaged area. this meant that alex was positively ravenous after he healed to the degree he actually didn't kill the kulu ya ku before eating it when he flew back towards astera.
Alex didn't leave any part of the body uneaten as he even snapped and swallowed the bones for calcium. he was still hungry after that but at least he wasn't tempted to eat a person anymore to satisfy his hunger. he wouldn't actually eat someone since the idea of eating a sentient thing still bothered him a lot. eating monsters was different as they were mostly just powerful and huge animals , not sentient no matter how clever. there were other elder dragons in history that showed sentience however but they could only be counted on one hand showing how rare they were.
Alex himself was the latest entry on that list as the fifth to ever show sentience and the one that came before him was over two hundred and fifty years ago. anyway alex filled his belly when he returned to astera since the medics had sent word ahead of how hungry alex was likely to be. alex had waited until he got back to astera to shed all of his damaged scales to replace them with fresh normal ones. he went back into his nest after that and took a nap as he was exhausted from dealing with both zorah and nergigante.
The next morning the fleet commander had the debriefing to discuss the failure of the operation and the sudden appearance of the unknown elder dragon which alex knew was nergigante. it was also mentioned how the tectonic movement from zorah had opened up a rift leading further inland. alcina and freya decided to take an expedition into the rift and alex knew he would need to get a move on before hand if he wanted to get there first. it was funny how alex insisted on staying ahead of the story to the best of his ability.
Strictly speaking it wasn't actually necessary for him to remain ahead of the story since he was already strong enough to tango with nergigante. as it currently stood alex had nothing to worry about until zeno jiiva was found. this wasn't enough for alex however as he wanted to be able to clash with even the likes of fatalis and alatreon and come out on top. sofi jiiva was actually was considered a joke by alex since compared to alatreon that shows up around then it was much less dangerous. right now alex was planning how to murder legiana without dealing with it's ice element since it was as strong against lightning as it was weak against it.
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