Not waiting around for long after catching the tail of the monster horde she had found herself chasing unexpectedly, Scaly flapped her wings as she flew in the direction of the heavenly staircase that the monster horde used to reach the third floor of the dungeon. Finding herself landing on the middle section of the heavenly staircase by the time that the last few monsters above disappeared above her. Having successfully made their way to the third floor of the dungeon.
The main reason why she didn’t just fly over and directly ascended alongside them being that she didn’t want those monsters to notice her presence yet. Knowing that her current form was far more intimidating compared to any of her past evolutions.
To avoid potentially being seen as an enemy and overwhelmed by the massive number of monsters in the horde, the second she stepped onto the third floor of the dungeon, she decided to slowly make her way up the staircase on foot. Buying the monster horde above a little time to move out of the way by the time she reached the third floor of the dungeon, while at the same time also giving herself some time to react in case things went south for the monster horde and they found themselves being pushed back by the humans.
In the end, five grueling minutes passed as she made her way up the staircase slowly, her cautious attitude already waning, as she found herself sneakily jumping off the staircase to fly up a few levels every now and then.
Of course... Not entirely sneaky, as it was rather easy to spot her whenever she did this and there was no way for her to convince herself that doing something like this was her laying low and taking things slowly out of caution.
But then again... Five minutes should be more than enough for the horde of monsters to clear out of the way.
Hm? That is...?
About to jump off the side of the heavenly staircase to cross the last section needed to reach the top, Scaly suddenly found herself freezing on the spot as she noticed several small figures approaching from a distance.
At first glance, she thought it might be some monsters who had been knocked out earlier and now began finding their way towards the third floor of the dungeon on their own, but...
Humans!?
After another look, she realized that the small figures weren’t monsters, but instead humans! Even worse, the strength of these humans approaching from below were clearly strong enough to pose a threat to her.
Even though part of her did want to test her current strength against these powerful humans approaching from below, she also clearly noticed that there were more on the way in the distance. Making a fight with them here and now nothing short of a deadly trap.
Whoosh~
Because of this, instead of facing off against these powerful humans on her own, Scaly decided to continue up the staircase towards the third floor of the dungeon while keeping herself as close to the central pillar of the staircase as possible in the process. Understanding that it would be best for her to remain hidden if she wanted to avoid any confrontation with the group of humans below.
Not just because she had no intention of starting a fight with them, but also because she fully intended to ambush them after they began fighting the horde of monsters above.
Luckily for Scaly, she had managed to stop herself just barely in the nick of time before jumping off the staircase where she would likely have been instantly spotted by the group of humans below. Allowing her to smoothly make her way up the staircase to the third floor of the dungeon without being noticed by the humans below.
However, this didn’t come entirely without cost, as the humans were far faster at ascending the staircase compared to her. Reaching the halfway point by the time that she stepped back onto the soil of the third floor of the dungeon again, but this difference was quickly made up for, as she wasted no time taking to the air again. Rapidly ascending into the sky, where she would be far harder to notice and at the same time also had the ability to move around with far more ease.
The main problem she encountered being that overall ceiling of the third floor of the dungeon was lower than that of the fourth or fifth floor of the dungeon, a few of the mountains on the third floor almost scratching against the ceiling of the dungeon floor.
Annoying as this was, it didn’t affect her ability to survey her surroundings with ease from high above, as it didn’t take more than a few seconds to find the monster horde that she had been chasing after.
The monster horde in question finding itself busy attacking a large human town trying its best to break through the already cracking barrier protecting the city while the large number of humans inside were doing their best to reduce the stress on the magical barrier by going out to directly face the monster horde.
Of course, this went nowhere for the humans trying to thin out the crowd, as the sheer number of monsters was far too much for them to handle-
Crack-! BANG!
And before long, Scaly witnessed the barrier that had been protecting the human town so far breaking apart under the continuous and constant attack of the massive horde of monsters. Soon enough causing the horde of monster to crash directly into the walls of the city that were now the last line of defense for the humans inside the town against the sea of monsters that had already turned the human town into nothing more than a small island that barely held on against the unending tide of monsters attempting to breach the last layer of defense protecting them.
Just watching everything playing out from above left Scaly with a sense of awe at the raw power that such a large number of monsters had, while at the same time also amazed at the abilities of the humans to hold on against this seemingly unstoppable force.
Earth mages using their magic to repair the walls, while others did their best to hold off the monsters trying to force their way over the walls and into the town.
From a glance, the humans were doing fine against the unending flood of monsters attempting to break the town walls, but as time went on, it became clear that exhaustion was starting to set in. The mana of the earth mages constantly using their magic to reinforce and rebuilt the walls wasn’t endless, while the same could be said for the stamina of those holding the walls.
In at most another minute or two, the human town would be submerged beneath the endless sea of monsters that had surged up all the way from the fifth floor of the dungeon.
Not just because of their sheer numbers, but also because the strength of these monsters far exceeded that of monsters on the third floor of the dungeon.
The only real reason why the humans below had been able to hold on for more than a few seconds being that there was a group of powerful humans only a bit weaker than the crimson flame knight she had seen earlier holding the line and taking care of any of the stronger monsters.
Speaking of those powerful humans, they had already turned into her number one target, as she intended to take advantage of the situation when they could no longer hold back the flood of monsters to dive down and take care of all of them in one fell swoop along with any nearby humans.
As for the stronger monsters hidden inside the horde of monsters... She did have an eye on some of them. Unfortunately, they remained hidden and hadn’t yet made a move. Making it difficult for her to take them down easily.
Instead of troubling herself with them, targeting the humans who were about to break was far simpler. Not to mention, the stronger monsters could always be saved for later when those powerful humans from the fourth floor of the dungeon appeared.
Speaking of which... Those humans had just made it up the staircase and were now rushing over in the direction of the human town.
Unfortunately, with their current speed, it would take them another two or three minutes to reach the human town... And that was without mentioning the sea of monsters that stood between them and the human town.
In other words, the town was doomed with no way out as far as she could see. Meaning that it would be perfect for her to first take care of the strong humans inside the town before turning her attention to the ones that had just come up from the fourth floor of the dungeon.