Ivan and his summons fought for three days straight; he gained 136 new subordinates. He used all of the military tactics he had read about in the books and the few techniques of war used in the history books and killed his enemies, who were just strong in numbers with no coordination whatsoever, and even though he did everything he could, fighting against a mini army and winning it, he didn't really feel that "winning" feeling because he lost four skeleton snakes, one skeleton spider, and two skeleton wolves, leaving him with two skeleton wolves, two skeleton spiders, and two skeleton snakes.
Though it was an inevitable loss, it still somehow left a bitter taste in his mouth. He concluded it had something to do with the [Aura of the Dead] and thought he should begin to be cool and cold headed.
"An army of 142." Ivan mumbled with a small smile as he looked at his army standing in a few proper lines. He gained all the five senses of a snake, a wolf, and a spider, including their muscle development and muscle density, and the worst of them all, he gained a monster's MENTALITY.
That calm, cool, cold, and predatory persona was turning Ivan into something that's not Ivan. And even though everything he gained was against him, he was in control of everything about him. And since he didn't know how to utilise all of his upgraded senses, he continued to employ his magic power in his body, even to his mind.
Again, sounds of footsteps sounded in his ears, and he noticed that the monsters were still kilometres away, but this time, instead of running away, he stood on his skeleton wolf and rode it towards his PREY.
He continued to hunt, expand his army, which stopped at 200 summons, and he continued to hunt all his prey that rushed towards him and made his way towards where his preys were coming from, even though he had no hopes of meeting human civilization here; he hoped to live amongst the wild.
And since he was continuing to advance, he was slowly turning cold-headed as he unsummoned the "USELESS" and "WEAK" summons, keeping only those that were strong in his mini army.
He rested, rode, hunted, filtered his army, trained in all his recently gained abilities, and rested again. After a few days or months of travelling, when he was on the other side of the Unknown World, he found himself in front of the never-ending army of monsters. He spotted only the army of the wolves, the spiders, and the snakes even at the ends of his sight, with some kind of massive structure at his left; he wasn't able to see the structure completely, but from what he could see, he was able to discern that it was as huge as the mountains—not one, not two, but several combined.
As mesmerising as the sight was, he wasn't able to concentrate on it, and soon the army in front of him began to march towards him, as a strong tremor cruised through the ground he stood on. Perhaps the tremor cruised through the whole world, but he didn't know.
No matter how strong he was, he wouldn't be able to fight against an army yet, and that too, one of that size, so he decided to retreat. Since he knew that some of the monsters would still follow him, he would get stronger using them, as strong as he could.
And from then on, years continued to pass as Ivan continued to reduce the numbers in the army as he ate, rested, fought, filtered, ate, rested, fought, filtered, ate.... and repeat.
The cycle continued as many years passed.
He now had the ability to trap in many ways, using the tactics he developed and the abilities he gained after eating spiders—their steel webs were stronger than anything he had ever seen; their poison, combined with the poison of the snakes' he ate, that ability became so deadly that the poison that's produced in his body, could literally melt the ground; and it wasn't even acid, which he could somehow produce in his body. It was useful for him even though he didn't really know how he got that ability.
He used everything in his arsenal and continued to survive. His regenerative ability had become instantaneous, his mentality had become cold and sharp, and he had made a habit of carving an "X" mark on the cave's ground every time he survived a life-threatening situations, and now there were thousands of marks carved on the cave's cold, hard ground, which was literally on the other side of the world from where the army of monsters stood.
Ivan's body had become perfect—no, monstrous, to be precise. He could move in any way he wanted, and his body would allow him to do so without any hindrance. He wrote everything that happened to him on the skins of the monsters he hunted, making a literal library of his own, that he stored in his sub-space.
He made himself clothes from the skins of the monsters, and he noticed that he couldn't wield any weapon except for a small pocketknife; maybe because it wasn't really considered a weapon, it couldn't even make a scratch on the monsters, much less on his own skin.
He could hold the weapons he crafted, but it would drop whenever he tried to swing it, no matter which weapon. Leaving that problem for the future, he focused on arming his army. He made gauntlets, swords, daggers, whips, shields, spikes, spears, tridents, crossbows, catapults of rocks, and arrowheads; he made everything he could and embedded it into the armour worn by his summoned army. Even if he could make the summoned wolves stand on their hind legs and fight, it would only hinder their movements, making their presence useless amid a battle, so instead he decided to use their strong points and embedded the bone weapons he created into armour, which he later adorned them with.
He was a soldier, sergeant, lieutenant, and captain; skipping the rest of the ranks, he was commander of his own army. As annoying as the limited number of his army was, he survived with everything he could, lowering the numbers of the army in front of him as he did so.
He then looked into his body, finding it weird that the number of summons he was able to control wasn't able to increase even after years had passed, and learned that his core, where his magic power cruises from, was exactly the same as the first time he noticed it; it hadn't grown even a bit since then. At the mention of cores, he remembered his childhood friend that was taught him martial arts with the mentions of dantian and ki, so without further thoughts, he remembered how it is done and began to store the "energy" in his core. Since it seemed similar to how he absorbs mana, it wasn't a big deal for him.
After almost half a century passed, he found himself in front of a massive tunnel-like cave, into which he walked without hesitation. After at least an hour of walking with his summons following from behind, he appeared in the deepest part of the cave, where sounds of heavy, difficult breathing sounded.
He ignored the pool of blood beneath his feet and made his way towards the humongous being in front of him and noticed a pair of twisted horns protruding out on its head, even though it seemed gravely wounded, it still oozed majesty, and something deep within Ivan, a desire of the humongous being in front of him to be his pet crept from the very depths of Ivan. And with that thought, his lips twitched before curling up into a twisted, ominous grin.
"A Dragon."