He was currently standing in a pit two meters across and half a meter deep that was coated in blood and brain matter. From the drakes head no part larger than a tooth had survived Chronos' attack.
The other drakes were wobbling about in a drunken state trying to dig back into the ground and hide from what was clearly world ending danger in their eyes.
Luckily for them neither Chronos nor Gregory were interested in them right now.
Gregory looked at the mess and sighed, "You ruined a good lower jaw. We could have sold that to the knights for a good price; they would have turned it into a good shield or breastplate. I'll see if we can sell what's left to the army's soldiers."
"Then I'll get the beast core, if it's still in one piece." Chronos said.
Transforming one of his hands to his werewolf form he applied [Sever] to his claws and began to dissect the burrow drake. He thought that he would have to be careful of the breath sack that all dragon type beasts had, those could explode if mishandled, but he found it on the ground in front of its destroyed neck.
He only needed to cut the connecting blood vessels and bile ducts that transported the magma and he could work without worry.
After cutting it free he set it on an [Isolate: Table] that he had made to hold important body parts and covered it with another barrier just in case it exploded.
Continuing to cut up its body he retrieved the scales along its back and sides but chose to leave the ones on its stomach to hold the internal organs in. Other than holding the organs, the scales were so soft that even leather had a higher defense than a burrow drakes underbelly. Mostly they served to help guard against the magma the drakes created when they dug underground.
As he cut the scales off, he cast another [Isolate], this time turning it into a bowl to collect the drake's blood that poured out once the scales were cut. Even if it was only the lowest ranking dragon type beast the blood could still be used in various fire and earth type inks for spells or scrolls.
Doing it this way might ruin the meat, but from what he had heard drake meat didn't taste very good to begin with and was incredibly tough to eat, almost like trying to eat softened leather.
He was working on removing the claws when Gregory came back with an alchemist that was carrying several knives, bowls, and dismantling tools.
"Oh, good you haven't started on the organs yet. It was smart of you to leave the stomach scales on, once they are removed all of its organs start spilling out like they are trying to escape. I'm Johhny and will be working with you on this drake now." he said after setting down his tools and offering a handshake.
"Nice to meet you. If we can't retrieve the organs the regular way, then how should we get at them?"
"Through the neck. We'll need to clean it up some but it's the only way to collect them without losing half of the important organs in some way. The ash bladder, the stone stomach, the ore liver, and the thermal spleen are all invaluable and must not be lost.
We even collect them from small drakes since nearly all of these organs can be used in fever medicine and other cures for diseases that plague the plains."
So that's how it worked. All of those organs were on the lower part of the body making it very easy to lose track of them when working from the underbelly. Especially if it was true that they would practically try to escape once the underbelly scales were collected.
How did that work anyway?
"How does the escaping thing work? Is it magical or do they come to life?" Chronos asked as he carefully pulled out the esophagus.
"Pass me that, since it is acid and fireproof it can be used to hold the more dangerous alchemical concoctions in my shop. As for the escaping organs, that's due to the pressure of the dirt and stone pressing on their bodies while they're deep underground.
It compresses their bodies and organs to nearly half the size we see here. When they surface their bodies expand becoming larger and allowing them to be more flexible on the surface. The only reason they don't explode is because of their scales and extremely dense muscles keeping everything inside."
Chronos frowned as he listened to the explanation.
"Doesn't that mean that this thing might explode now that I've removed the scales?"
"Yes, if you aren't going to pick up the pace then move." Johhny said as he pushed Chronos out of the way.
In one swift move he removed the heart, lungs, and pancreas tossing them to the side before taking out the stomach. Which he swiftly emptied into another bowl before putting it in a bowl of water to soak.
While he was working on the corpse Chronos picked up the heart Johhny had abandoned and carefully split it open, in its center was a stone covered in blood. Cleaning the blood off he found that it was a beautiful amber color and gave off a sense of power in the middle of the third rank, the beast core.
Upon seeing the stone Johhny exclaimed, "I didn't realize it had a beast core. Most burrow drakes can't form one for some reason. What are you going to do with it?"
"I promised to give it to the royal eagle so its infants can grow up stronger."
"A pity, I would have bought it for 200 gild minimum." Johhny said as he got back to removing the internal organs.
A few minutes later he had taken out all of the other organs and stored them in the appropriate bags and bowls to be used later.
Just as he finished storing the ash bladder the drake's body let out creaking sounds and started to tremble.
"Quick get out of the pit!" Johhny yelled, scrambling to collect all of his bags and get away from the corpse.
Gregory sent out his threads to help Johhny out of the pit and into cover while Chronos just stood on the edge of the pit watching it expand. He wanted to see what would happen if there was nothing holding its body together.
Boom! Thwack! Thud!
When they came out from behind a nearby stone they saw Chronos twitching on the ground with a large femur bone resting next to his head.
"Great, he's dead."