As the situation of the mole lord grew more dire by the second, Scaly wasn’t at all focused on the now rather intense staring competition taking place. Instead, her attention was fully focused on the now dead heavenly lake serpent that was ignored to ensure the sanctity and honor of the staring competition remained intact.
Maybe... Just maybe I could sneak around and dig inside the body and get the heart without being discovered.
Because of this, Scaly started having some rather dangerous thoughts, as she looked at the body of the dead heavenly lake serpent with a perfectly intact heart just lying on the ground and in the end, she couldn’t win against her desire to devour the heavenly lake serpent heart that seemed free and up for grabs.
Rustle~
Soon enough, she found herself scuttling along the rocky surface of the ground while doing her best to keep herself hidden while moving around the mole lord now almost fully surrounded. Ensuring that none of the heavenly lake serpents had a chance to catch a glimpse of her.
After all, she understood very well what kind of reputation she had managed to garner with the heavenly lake serpents, and she doubted that they wouldn’t recognize her even if she ended up evolving another two or three times...
Shockingly enough, this was far easier than she had expected it to be, as not just the heavenly lake serpents, titan spider and mole lord were focused on the staring competition taking place, but the rest of the monsters were also fully engaged in the situation taking place between these powerful monsters. None of them daring to do anything that might end up attracting the attention of these powerful monsters.
With everything working out perfectly, she soon found herself near the tail end of the now dead heavenly lake serpent, hidden among a few slightly larger rocks just big enough to hide her from the surrounding heavenly lake serpents.
The main reason why she didn’t try and move nay closer to where the heart was located being because this was the closest any of the heavenly lake serpents were moving to the mole lord.
Although she felt confident hiding herself in the face of the heavenly lake serpents, she didn’t feel this kind of confidence when faced with the mole lord. After all, it had killed the heavenly lake serpent right in front of her without even turning around. Clearly possessing some kind of special ability that allowed it to sense its surroundings to some extent.
Chomp!
With that in mind, Scaly decided there was no better time, as she bit down on the dead heavenly lake serpent and began digging herself a tunnel through the dead body in the direction of the heart. Planning to use the dead body as a cover to hopefully avoid whatever detection method the mole lord was using.
Of course, to ensure that none of the other monsters around ended up noticing what she was doing, she made sure to slowly chew through the dead heavenly lake serpent instead of rushing things.
Even if a fight did end up breaking out while she was still in the process of chewing through the dead heavenly lake serpent, she felt confident that she would be able to remain safe even without knowing about the situation taking place outside.
After all, nobody would waste their time or strength attacking a dead body and even if some attacks ended up landing on the dead body, the body of the heavenly lake serpent was not that easy to damage and could serve as a protective shield when faced with normal attacks.
The only thing she really did feel a sense of fear towards was the mole lord, as she was aware of how powerful it was from how easily it killed off the heavenly lake serpent that she was now chewing through.
However, if a battle really did end up breaking out between it and the heavenly lake serpents and the titan spider, she doubted it would have any time to worry about anything other than itself. Even if it somehow managed to learn about her presence...
Chomp~ Chomp~ Chomp~
Fully dedicated to her task of chewing through the heavenly lake serpent in the direction of the heart, time continued to pass without any signs of movement from outside. Indicating that the staring competition was still ongoing and had no clear winner.
The only thing that made her certain, the heavenly lake serpents were still around outside being the fact that she could still hear some of them growing impatient every now and then. Resulting in them letting out angry roars filled with killing intent.
Then again... She would like to believe that they were just sore losers that ended up losing in the staring competition with the mole lord.
Ah? AH! FOUND IT!
Lost in her own thoughts thinking about the still ongoing staring competition outside as she chewed her way forward, she finally found what she was looking for, the heavenly lake serpent heart.
Hehe, with this, I might actually be able to increase my dragon blood purity from 19% to 20%!
Feeling a sense of anticipation and joy welling up inside of her as she looked at the heavenly lake serpent heart now directly in front of her, Scaly could clearly feel that even though the purity of the dragon blood inside of the heart in front of her was still inferior, it was clearly of a higher quality than a normal heavenly lake serpent heart.
Making her feel hopeful that she might be able to break through the bottleneck and take her dragon blood purity up to 20% without the need for any more heavenly lake serpent hearts.
CHOMP!
And so, without a second thought in mind, she directly opened her mouth and chomped down. Swallowing the heavenly lake serpent heart without a second thought in mind outside of the desire to become stronger.
Unaware that doing so would have some rather unwanted consequences...