I love how massive, looming, and nigh unstoppable the dragons are depicted here. Dragons, particularly this one, are the crux of the "antagonistic" pull of the story, and it's done satisfyingly well, where they're not simply a bullet sponge or some high level enemy that is entirely used just to illustrate how powerful the protagonist is, but rather depicted as a force of nature, something that most everything just gets out of the way of or dies. It highlights humanity and the fight against natural order, like how people, especially in fantasy settings, choose to settle in places that would kill everything else, like death gorges, ruined wastelands with treasure, fertile ground that borders murderous orc & other monster territories, and whatever else you can think of, whereas most everything else would rather just not be there. The scene and narration of the instinct for survival really puts into place the sheer magnitude of the problem for not just the protagonist, but for the world as a whole, and by framing this colossal threat within the natural order, it depicts humanity's fight against the dragon to be as if fighting nature itself, highlighted by the narrative of "fighting natural survival instinct," for pride or other reasons. Really cool stuff.