The other high-ranking members shared the same fate. This demon wasn’t fooling around, and killed them mercilessly. It tore them apart, and after it was done, it gazed directly at Arthur.

“I can sense you’re stronger than the rest of these fools, but it will not be enough to stop me.”

“Let’s see.” said Arthur.

He dashed towards the demon at full speed. Arthur threw a right punch, aiming at the demon’s cheek. The demon blocked using his left arm, but Arthur did not stop there. He twisted his body from right to left, and send a right kick into the demon’s ribs.

It landed, but the demon retreated only one step because of the impact.

“Good. Now it is my turn.”

The demon ran forward. He had enormous claws on his hands, so these were the weapons he wanted to use against Arthur. The first claw attack came aiming at the head, and Arthur avoided it by bending his knees.

Now, for the rest of the attacks, it was a different story. It was not only one claw attack, but a barricade of attacks. Punch, kick, claw attack, and the demon even tried to bite Arthur.

He dodged a few, but in the end, Arthur was all bruised up. It was all but superficial wounds, so he would overcome these easily with his regeneration. The problem was that the demon was only playing with him. He couldn’t win against this demon, at least not using common ways.

Arthur did not want to enter a weakened state once again, but that was better than dying. He still had Sully around to help him, but it was a fight he wanted to win alone.

“Draconic Transformation!”

.

With claws, scales, and new abilities, Arthur was ready to take on this demon. He roared, disorienting the demon for a second, which helped him to pierce his claws through the demon’s chest, and send him flying with a kill afterwards.

The demon, who was now on the opposite side, had a shocked face after realizing what had happened. It was old enough to know how a dragon looked like.

“This, this is impossible. A dragon shouldn’t be here. They dealt with your kind a long time ago. Who- who are you?”

Arthur never thought the once terrifying demon would turn like this. He opened up his mouth and used his dragon breath towards the demon. A fire breath went straight at the demon. The demon wasn’t in his right state of mind. It took him a few seconds to respond to the attack, and that caused him a lot of damage.

The demon had burns all over his body, which was already bleeding from the claw attack Arthur had performed some time ago. He was a mess, but Arthur could not hold but to question him about something.

“Who dealt with my kind? Speak!”

“We can’t talk about them. They have eyes everywhere, and they will kill all of us.”

Arthur tried a few more questions, but the demon did not answer any of them. He only repeated the same thing, talking about they who had eyes everywhere and would kill both of them.

“Well, then fucked it.”

Arthur vanished, appearing right in front of the demon. He looked despicable, and it seemed he had given up to fight. Arthur thought that, but turns out he had fallen into a trap.

The demon attacked out of a sudden, and its claws pierced through Arthur’s chest. Blood spurted like a waterfall, and the pain was too much for Arthur to bear.

“Bastard! I’ll kill you!” said Arthur.

A punch came flying at his face, and he fell. Sully walked in to help his master, but the demon had already fled. The demon had too many wounds to keep fighting, and when he saw Sully stepping in, he knew the best decision was to run.

Arthur would not let the demon flee like that. He got up and said, “Sully, let’s go find this bastard.” He hoped on Sully’s back, and Sully flew to chase it.

“Haha, I should be fine. The kid wouldn’t chase me, right?” The demon said.

But when he looked up at the sky, he saw a man riding a huge blue beast. They were looking for him, and both Arthur and Sully had good eyesight. The demon was also a black and red dot, which wasn’t hard to spot.

The demon was only confident in his escape because he thought Arthur would stay in the ground after getting a fierce wound like that, but it was not the case.

“Sully, you know what to do!”

Sully locked his aim at the demon and opened up his mouth. A big bolt of lightning formed inside his mouth, and went directly at the demon. The attack was fast, and even faster for the demon who did not know Sully could shoot lightning.

The bolt of lightning hit the demon. It burned all of his body out, and he could not keep running. Arthur and Sully landed near his body.

“It seems this is the end for you.”

“It seems like it, but your end will be near too, hahaha.”

He tried again a sneak attack on Arthur using his claws, but this time Arthur saw it coming, and beheaded him using his own claws.

After that, Arthur sat on the ground. He was getting weaker because of the wounds he had.

“Sully, bring me back to the cave.”

~~~~

Arthur ripped the cultist’s clothing he wore and crafted an improvised bandage. It was not the best, but it would help him not to bleed out. He was not panicking because he saw on his system screen that he still had quite a few health points, and with his regeneration, it wouldn’t take long for it to become full again.

The best thing he could do was wait and recover, so he did exactly that.

Kai showed up the next day, afraid that things went wrong with the demonic cult. He had all of his things packed up, prepared to leave.

“Arthur, are you okay? What happened to you?”

“Nothing much, really. You should see the other guy.”

“I thought you said these cultists would not pose a threat to you.”

“They did not pose a threat, but it turns out they summoned a demon during the fight, and I had to kill that motherfucker.”

“Really? You won against tons of cultists and a demon? You’re awesome, teacher. Anyway, want some help?” Kai said.

“Actually, I do. Go out with Sully to hunt and please cook the food for us.”

“Sure. Just stay here and recover.”

~~~~

Sully and Kai got back with a few beasts for them to eat. Kai did what Arthur taught him and kept the fire going to cook all the meat. They ate and chatted about their departure.

“Where will we go next?” Kai asked. He was excited about leaving the island for the first time.

“Honestly, I don’t know. There are some friends that I need to find, but it shouldn’t be that easy.”

“Speaking of which, Kai. Do you have any ideas on how to find someone?”

“Well, I don’t know if you know, but pirates are a huge thing on these islands. There are many, many islands scattered across the sea. Visiting each one of them until you find your friends will be impossible, but we still have something we could do.”

“I’m listening.” Arthur said.

“Like I said, pirates are a huge thing on these islands. If your crew and ship are outstanding, and you somehow stand out from the rest of the pirates, people will know you throughout the islands. You could use that as a way for your friends to come find you. Maybe naming your pirate ship of something they all know, I don’t know.”

“The Frostpeak!”

“What? Frostpeak? What is that?”

“Our ship, boy. Haha!”

Who would know that Kai would come up with such a good idea? Arthur knew little about the place he was. He never heard of pirates in this place, for example. It felt good to have a goal to aim for.

Leave this forsaken island, earn money, find a good ship, and a perfect crew. Then, shake the seas using the Frostpeak name so Jane and the others could find him.

“They will certainly get curious when hearing about a ship called Frostpeak. They will search for me, and know I’m alive and kicking.”

Two days passed in a blink of an eye. Arthur took his time to recover, both from his injuries and from the burden of using his Draconic Transformation. Sully and Kai helped him a lot these days, and it was time for them to leave.

They both hopped onto Sully’s back and left the island. Kai told him about the general direction to another island not that far from there. An island big enough for them to find opportunities to earn money, their first goal.

“The sea will fear the Frostpeak ship!” thought Arthur as he looked at the sea from the sky.