Knowing that she wasn’t entirely safe yet, as she still had to avoid the massive wave of water rushing towards her, Scaly continued running with all of her might, as she sometimes turned around to look at the mountain gnolls not too far behind her having completely given up on chasing after her as they were now just escaping in the same direction as her.
Even when the leading mountain gnoll managed to catch up to her and pass her, he didn’t do anything to her. Instead, just continuing to escape.
Clearly, he understood very well that if he wasted even a single second trying to deal with her, he might end up wasting time he could have better used trying to escape. After all, no matter how valuable Scaly might be because of the mountain dwelling troll meat she had ended up eating, it meant nothing to him if he couldn’t escape from the heavenly lake serpents.
Outside of that, there was also the fact that someone had to return to the tribe and inform the rest about the situation.
If not, when the heavenly lake serpents spread out and began taking revenge on any mountain gnoll they encountered, it would be far too late for them to do anything, as countless mountain gnolls would have already died by the point information about them got back to the main tribe.
Not to mention, the information would also have to confirmed before any of the stronger mountain gnolls would leave the tribe to act, something that the leading mountain gnoll understood full well would take a long time, time that the heavenly lake serpents could use to kill even more mountain gnolls.
Unaware of the myriads of anxious thoughts flowing through the head of the leading mountain gnoll as he passed her, Scaly could only continue moving forward.
However, as more and more mountain gnolls flew past her on their wolves, Scaly became increasingly aware of the fact that she was far too slow.
Although the wave of water had been decreasing in size and started slowing down after it reached the base of the mountain, it didn’t entirely stop and was still pressing on with terrifying momentum. Making Scaly guess that the heavenly lake serpents might have some kind of ability to manipulate water not much different from her water magic.
Of course, there was no way for her to confirm this and she could only continue escaping while hoping for an opportunity to move out of the way of the water, something that should be fine now that the area covered by the wave had significantly reduced and the heavenly lake serpents killing intent was no longer targeted at her...
Whoosh-!
In the end, when one of the massive heavenly lake serpents was only a few meters away from reaching her with its mouth already open to swallow her up along the way, Scaly saw her opportunity and jumped behind a large rock that was too big for the heavenly lake serpents to simply destroy-
Bang!
And like she had expected, the next moment, the heavenly lake serpent that had been about to swallow her collided with the rock along with the water. Only slightly moving the massive rock a few centimeters before the heavenly lake serpent gave up and went around the rock to continue chasing after the mountain gnolls.
Compared to the mountain gnolls who could be considered an old enemy, Scaly, who hadn’t really done much to them outside of escaping from them, was nowhere near the same level. Resulting in her quickly being forgotten by the heavenly lake serpents as they continued to chase after the mountain gnolls.
Splash!
Of course, even though the heavenly lake serpents were no longer chasing after her, the massive amount of water from the wave they were swimming inside still ended up hitting the rock shortly after the heavenly lake serpent gave up on eating her.
Rumble~!
As a result of the water, Scaly suddenly found herself engulfed completely, as she along with the massive rock were soon lifted off the ground by the powerful wave of water. Forcing Scaly to do her best to try and grab hold of the rock now serving as her only anchor from not getting dragged forward and into the front of the wave where the mouths of the massive heavenly lake serpents whose bodies she could see in the water all around her were located.
Although they might not bother turning around to catch her now that they were busy trying to catch the mountain gnolls, she didn’t doubt that they would be more than happy to snatch her up as a light snack if she ended up drifting in front of them.
After all, that was how she would react if a delicious snack ended up drifting over in front of her... And yes, she did consider herself delicious, as there was no way a majestic dragon like herself would be bad in any way!
WHOOOOSH-!
Luckily, as she moved with the water and the heavenly lake serpents for a little over a minute while holding on to the large rock with all of her strength, Scaly soon found herself ten meters off the ground, as she managed to pass through the wave.
Huh? Ahhhh-
Bang~!
Unfortunately, she still couldn’t fly and soon ended up falling onto the ground below. Only just barely managing to move out of the wat and avoid getting crushed by the massive rock she had been holding on to for the past minute inside the wave of water.
Finally... Safe...
Ignoring the pain spreading throughout her entire body as she laid down on the rocky ground in a shallow layer of water that had been left behind by the massive wave of water that had passed through the area second earlier, Scaly could not help letting out a sigh of relief. Having finally managed to escape from what could be considered a long-drawn-out escape that had played out ever since she first escaped from the mountain gnolls back in the blue colored forest after her assassination of one of the mountain gnolls.
Even though the chase had been extremely exhausting and only left her with a short time to rest when she had been eating the mountain dwelling gnoll and found the mountain cave that ended up leading to the crater lake at the top of the mountain, Scaly didn’t feel any regret over what had happened. Instead, she felt happy when going over what had happened now that everything was over.
Not only did she manage to increase her level to the limit of her current evolution, but she had also managed to increase the purity of her dragon blood, something that would undoubtedly be hard to accomplish given how hard it was for her to find monsters related to dragons.
Name: Scaly
Race: Water Dragon Hatchling
Dragon blood: 8% (Inferior)
Level: 10/10
STR: 228 |VIT: 385 | DEX: 180 | M: 516
Skills: [Dragon Bloodline, lvl 4], [Dragon Flight, lvl 2], [Dragon Water Magic, lvl 3], [Poison Resistance, lvl 3], [Dragon Claw Strike, lvl 5], [Swimming, lvl 2], [Dragon Breath (Water), lvl 3], [Corrosion Resistance, lvl 2], [Ice Magic lvl 1], [Pain Resistance, lvl 2]
Looking over her status to see if any of her skills had ended up improving from her time at the mountain and during her last little escape, Scaly was happy to see that her pain resistance had managed to increase, something she didn’t find too surprising considering just how painful it had been for her to roll down the side of the mountain before using all of her strength to push herself to the limit and continue escaping after she slammed into a tree upon reaching the mountain forest.
At the same time, it seemed like the dragon blood in her stomach had also been fully absorbed, something she thought would take longer, but might have been accelerated due to the things she had gone through during the escape down the mountain. Definitely something she would have to look into in the future.
Outside of those two things that weren’t that surprising, all things considered, Scaly also discovered that her swimming skill had somehow managed to level up to level 2, something she had not expected to happen. Especially considering that the only time she had been swimming was when she had fallen into the river while making her way up the tunnel to the crater lake and just now when she had ended up being swept away by the massive wave.
Then again, it might be because her swimming skill was still at a rather low level and the circumstances in which she had used it in were far beyond the normal difficulty for swimming, thus allowing her swimming skill to rapidly increase in level. Bringing it directly to level 2 after only a short time in the water.
Of course, given it wasn’t anything bad, Scaly didn’t mind this in the slightest, as she slowly began getting up from the wet ground to find a more suitable location to lay down and recover her strength and go through her fourth evolution.