Contemplating her options and at the same time also feeling the growing hunger of not having eaten anything for the past few hours, Scaly began looking at the opening above with increasing interest. Feeling that even if she ended up encountering a powerful monster, she should still be able to keep herself alive and escape if the worst situation played out and she found herself unable to beat the monster inhabiting the mountain peak. After all, she had already escaped from a powerful adventurer that had surpassed that of a normal S Rank Adventurer back in Howling Cave City and felt confident that she would be able to do so again in case she encountered a similarly powerful enemy. After all, though she wasn’t in her most optimal state, she was still in a far better state than back then, as she did have far more mana to play around with this time around.
So, with that in mind, after hesitating for a good few minutes looking around to see if she could find any non-poisonous monsters or traces of where the monster behind the slaughter that played out within the underground forest had disappeared, Scaly flapped both of her wings as she began cautiously flying up towards the opening above. Moving slowly to keep an eye out for any potentially deadly monsters she might have missed within the underground forest or the cave ceiling above.
After all, from what little she had seen of the previous inhabitants of the underground forest, it was clear that they were incredibly skilled in hiding themselves and ambushing others.
Even if it was unlikely that any of them were still around, she couldn’t entirely rule out the possibility that one or two of them had managed to escape the slaughter that had ended the rest of them.
Whoosh~
Hm? Huh...?
And indeed, as she ascended upwards towards the opening above, she did indeed spot something she had missed before, a monster far larger than any of the ones she had seen before...
[Mountain Slime Lord, lvl 132]
[Description: The revered mountain slime, one of the stranger slimes out there. The mountain slime, as its name indicates, can be found on mountains. Peaceful and doesn’t attack others unless attacked, as it would much rather consume rocks, as doing so helps it grow.
Although, mountain slime can become dangerous when they grow large enough, as they tend to consume anything that ends up touching them. The largest recorded having grown to become a cube with a height and width over a thousand meters, causing the destruction of an entire kingdom, though, there is no recorded limit to the size they can grow and there might be larger mountain slimes out there.]
A mountain slime far beyond any of the mountain slimes she had seen back in the Howling Caverns Dungeon laid before her, as the small mountain at the center of the mountain shaped cave turned out to not be a small naturally formed mountain, but instead a massive mountain slime that had evolved beyond a normal mountain slime and turned into a mountain slime lord.
And from this realization, she also realized that the opening at the top should have been created by the mountain sized mountain slimes in the past, as the entire underground mountain shaped cave should have been dug out by the massive mountain slime lord over a long period of time far beyond the lifetime of a short lived race like humans or goblins.
The monster who had once lived inside the underground cave that had essentially been dug out by the mountain sized mountain slime lord had most likely not been aware of the existence of this terrifying slime and had mistaken it for a small mountain like she had before accidentally inspecting the mountain slime lord on her way out of the underground mountain shaped cave.
Because of this, the end of those powerful monsters might have come from them accidentally provoking or attacking the mountain sized mountain slime lord. Stirring it from its slumber as it retaliated and instantly annihilated the unfortunate monsters unaware of what kind of powerful being they had ended up provoking.
The realization that this might be what had happened was reliving to Scaly to some extent, as it meant she wouldn’t have to worry about being attacked by any powerful monsters on her way out of the underground cave, as the towering mountain she found herself inside had almost certainly been claimed by the mountain sized mountain slime lord. After all, though weaker monsters might not realize it was there, stronger monsters aiming to claim the mountain peak for themselves would undoubtedly notice its presence after some time.
Having encountered mountain slimes in the past, she knew that there was no need for her to worry about being attacked unless she went ahead and recklessly provoked it on her own, something she had no intention of doing with how powerful this mountain slime, evolved into its lord form, was.
Whoosh~
Reassured, Scaly flapped her wings with far more ease than before when she had still been nervously ascending towards the opening above. Knowing that there was little chance of any powerful monster waiting to ambush her up above.
And soon enough, she found herself leaving the dark underground space. Finding herself on top the snow covered peak of a towering mountain that stood close to the core of the Thousand Spire Mountain Range, a place where the deadliest monsters of the mountain range lived and also the location that had earned the mountain range a reputation for being deadly even to S Rank Adventurers, as there was no lack of powerful and unique monsters capable of challenging these powerful adventurers within the depths of the Thousand Spire Mountain Range.
Of course, Scaly had no clue about any of this nor how dangerous the location she currently found herself in truly was, the only thing she knew for certain was that she was finally out of danger, as the deadly situation she had found herself getting caught up in back-to-back finally seemed to be coming to an end.
Even better, as she gazed out across the mountain range that appeared below from her current high position, Scaly noticed countless monsters that she recognized as delicious and not too difficult to deal with in her mana depleted state, causing her to unknowingly lick her lips as she wasted no time after spotting an especially large forest boar. Diving down towards it with a terrifying speed that almost seemed to break through the sound barrier as she crashed directly into the oblivious forest boar with such speed that her strength didn’t matter-
BANG!
As the force generated from her dive proved to be powerful enough on its own to directly kill the forest boar in a single hit.
[Gained 878 Exp]
Although the experience gained from the forest boar that had not even realized that it had been attacked to the very last second of its life, Scaly didn’t care much about any of this, as her goal for targeting this specific forest boar didn’t have anything to do with increasing her strength, but more so had to do with filling her stomach.
Chomp~
And fill her stomach it did, as Scaly found herself happily chomping down on the now dead forest boar whose body had been cut in half by the terrifying collision with Scaly.
R-Roar...!
All under the terrified gaze of the rest of the forest boars who had been travelling alongside the larger forest boar that should have been the leader of these forest boars. The hunger Scaly had been feeling having left her momentarily unable to register the presence of these weaker forest boars in the face of something delicious capable of filling her stomach...
Huh? There are more of them!? Great!
Bang! Bang! Bang!
[Gained 202 Exp]
[Gained 37 Exp]
[Gained 343 Exp]
[Gained...]
However, following the fearful roar from one of the weaker forest boars, they ended up waking Scaly up from her hunger-induced stupor, as she happily turned around and finished them off as well. Feeling more than happy to add more of these delicious forest boars to her meal. After all, with her increased size following her fifth evolution, she also needed to eat far more than she needed before her fifth evolution.
Even the family of forest boars on their own was far from enough to fully satiate her, causing her to turn her attention to other monsters that roamed throughout the mountain range, as there was clearly no lack of monsters in this place. Making it rather easy for her to fill up her stomach even if the monsters she encountered so far was nowhere near strong enough to provide her with any reasonable increase in strength, somewhat causing her to view her current situation as an eating break to fill up her stomach before returning back to the dreamscape where she would start her attempt at reaching the floating continent.