Red dragons don't kill every enemy they encounter in battle.
They always take reputation and status into consideration, often allowing some survivors to escape and spread word of the red dragon's victory.
Reputation is incredibly important to red dragons. Although they often find themselves in dire situations, they refuse to flee, which ultimately leads to tragic consequences—all because they cannot let go of their pride.
Ordinarily, for a dragon to gain a reputation, simply destroying a few villages wouldn't suffice; they would inevitably need to attack and destroy one or two cities. Even mature dragons couldn't achieve this; they would have to wait until later in life as adult dragons... Leon figured the primary reason he had garnered such fame was that he had pursued the mature red dragon Angmog across half of the Lost Plateau, drawing widespread attention.
