All of the scales on his body were simply gone after having been evaporated by the attack while the flesh and muscles underneath them faired little better as in several parts of Alex's body scorched bones could be seen. 'I really didn't want to do this but I have little choice.' he thought before using the ability he got from the xeno jiiva he ate previously. The hunters who survived the attack watched on incredulously as the nearby energy was drawn into Alex and the wounds on his body started to visibly regrow flesh and recover.-
The reason he didn't want to do this was because it cost him part of his lifespan to recover in this way but his bag containing all the healing items in it had been destroyed by the previous attack. Safi quickly returned and was even further enraged to find that not only had it's attack not killed Alex but that he was stealing it's energy to recover. It charged him to try and finish him off before he could recover but simply could not have foreseen what happened next. 'I am tired so you can die now.' Alex said coldly right before coating his claw in dense withering energy and uppercutting safi jiiva sending his claw all the way through it's head in an instant.-
This single burst of withering was enough to cause a ten meter radius around him to grey and turn barren but this amount of collateral damage was well worth an end to this fight in his mind. Finally satisfied with this outcome Alex succumbed to his injuries and collapsed as the nearly hunters who were still capable of it rushed over to help. While none of the hunter had been killed in safi's attack quite a few had taken serious damage and needed to stay put to prevent aggravation to the wounds.-
It was a brutal scene for many of the hunters who went to aid Alex as despite his act of taking in energy to heal himself much of his body was still covered in horrible raw wounds with some still being all the way to the bone. Despite this the hunters carefully set up the huge stretcher that had been prepared for if Alex was injured like this. Time blurred at that point as Alex was brought back to astera to receive treatment via a large group of wingdrakes carrying the stretcher.-
The commander couldn't help but sigh when he saw the gruesome state Alex was in when he was brought back but had always known that such a thing was a possibility. Still they didn't skimp out on resources when it came to treating their own so Alex was in good hands. There was one slight problem that had popped up however with Alex being out of commission for the moment in the form of the scholars. The over eager researchers were eager to study the corpse of the other apex elder dragon but the admiral had been watching them like a hawk to stop them from making off with the whole corpse.-
They had tried to complain about them standing in the way of progress but no one was having any of that with the sacrifice Alex had made to put this elder down. Any gem and salvageable meat on the elder had been taken and stored away for Alex when he awoke and the scholars were not happy about it. They wanted those "samples" for themselves and did not care at all to steal them if they had too.-
This had always been a problem with the scholars in this world as they never seemed to understand the concept of restraint. Even if threatened or punished they still pressed their luck to get what they wanted. In this case more than a few scholars had been shackled and sent back to the old world for trial in the next week as Alex was unconscious. Eventually though he stirred awake and the first thing he thought was 'I could really go for a nice meal'.