Thinking about returning to the dreamscape, Scaly first decided to find somewhere to land, as she didn’t want to run the risk of potentially ending up in the open sky when she got to the dreamscape because she was flying through the open sky when using the gate of dreams.
Not to mention, outside of this worry, there was also the worry that she might end up somewhere in the upper regions of the dreamscape that might be just as dangerous as the lower regions of the dreamscape where she had almost ended up being swallowed by a group of dream cloud whales not too long ago.
Whoosh~ Thump!
In the end, she landed on top a small empty mountain peak with nothing but a bit of snow to keep her company alongside the cold wind. Taking the time while she began activating the gate of dreams to look back towards the group of adventurers who had been chasing her from behind all this time.
Seeing much to her surprise, that the group of adventurers had somehow ended up getting far closer to her than she had originally expected them to be. Still, they were nowhere near, close enough to stop her from returning to the dreamscape, so after a brief surprise at their speed, she calmed down and watched with a small smile as some of the stronger adventurers began panicking visibly upon realizing what she was up to.
But... Even as those stronger adventurers broke off from the weaker ones in an attempt to reach her in time before the gate of dreams fully activated and pulled her into the dreamscape, there was simply no way for them to get to her in time as the familiar colorful clouds soon engulfed her completely and pulled her back into the dreamscape. Leaving the group of adventurers who had rushed forth to stop her from returning to the dreamscape, unable to do anything but stand helplessly on top of the now once again empty mountain peak...
"The divine messenger already left this plane..." Standing on top of the now empty mountain peak, one of the people wearing a finely decorated robe with a solemn look on his face could not stop himself from quietly whispering his thoughts just barely loud enough for his four companions to hear.
"There is nothing we can do about it; the cardinal already attempted to meet with the divine messenger early but ended up instead running into a hostile dream cloud whale inside the dreamscape. Destroying his spiritual projection and forcing him to have us try to find the divine messenger while he recovered his strength.
Even then, there is not much we can do, as entering a place like the dreamscape without any preparations is deadly. In the first place, chasing the divine messenger after the cardinal sensed its return to the material plane was just a vain hope on our side, as a divine messenger can easily move between the inner realms and leave whenever they want to." Nodding her head with a similar look of regret, a younger woman strode forth and gently patted the older man and spoke out in a somewhat reassuring tone.
Earning a nod from the remaining three, who also agreed with what she said. In the first place, they had never believed that they would be capable of catching up to the divine messenger in the first place and had essentially set off in hope of getting lucky.
"Let’s go back and inform the cardinal about the situation before we move too far into the Thousand Spire Mountain Range. After all, though this place is relatively safe with us five working together, only the cardinal has the strength to confront the one at the very core of this mountain range."
"Indeed, let’s leave before we get ourselves into a dangerous situation."
"Agreed, I will ensure that we aren’t being followed by any monsters looking for an opportunity to strike from behind."
"I will stay behind as well. After all, being alone still has risks involved and three are more than enough to keep the rest of the group safe."
And after realizing that they had no chance of catching up with Scaly who had already entered the dreamscape, the group of five didn’t waste much time lingering on top the empty mountain peak as they all began making their way back towards the large group they had been following alongside into the depths of the Thousand Spire Mountain Range.
In the first place, this large group might not have been needed, as they were more than capable of chasing after Scaly who they perceived to be a divine messenger on their own, but in their eyes, Scaly always had the ability to leave whenever she wanted and chasing after her slowly or quickly made no difference to them.
In fact, the large group they had dragged along was a standard welcoming party that would have been responsible for overseeing a proper welcoming ceremony for the divine messenger, should she have decided to allow them to approach and potentially get her back to the cardinal and later the church.
Now that this attempt had ended in failure, they could only return to the cardinal’s side and inform him about the situation.
Although, everything wasn’t bad in their eyes, as they viewed how Scaly had allowed them to get so close in the first place positively for future interactions.
Not to mention, the emergence of a divine messenger that they had already managed to confirm with the help of the cardinal was something positive no matter whether the divine messenger ended up returning to the church with them today.
After all, there was always tomorrow for them to try again when the cardinal recovered his strength and returned to the Holy See and found a better way to find the divine messenger. No matter what, none of them thought that the divine messenger would be capable of avoiding them forever, as the method of the church was far reaching and for a clearly young divine messenger or divine beast, it was impossible to avoid even by retreating to somewhere like the dreamscape.
...
Unaware of the fact that she had already been targeted by one of the largest powers in the world and been deemed some kind of divine messenger and divine beast, Scaly once again opened her eyes inside the colorful dreamscape. Finding herself once again on top of a floating island amidst the sea of colorful clouds.
The main difference this time around was that the small floating island was far from uninhabited, as there were countless unique life forms wandering around the small floating island peacefully.
One particularly unique creature that almost seemed to have a body made of colorful clouds along tubular mouth that picked up and swallowed small motes of light floating everywhere on the small floating island, ended up becoming the first dreamscape native outside of the dream cloud whale that she inspected properly.
[Dream Grazer, lvl 12]
[Description: A unique lifeform born from the amalgamation of dream fragments. Harmless and doesn’t pose any threat. Spending most of its time wandering aimlessly while eating any dream fragments it encounters along the way.]
Outside of the fact that this dreamscape native wasn’t a threat to her, the thing that Scaly found most interesting was the description of this strange looking creature, as it directly implied that the small motes of light that the dream grazer was swallowing were in fact dream fragments.
As for what these dream fragments were... Scaly had no clue, but the fact that they were fragments meant that dreams that weren’t fragments existed somewhere inside the dreamscape.
In fact, looking at how the dream grazer was made up from the same colorful clouds that were ever present throughout the sky of the dreamscape, she guessed that those colorful clouds might in fact be made up of dreams that hadn’t shattered into countless small fragments.
The problem with this was that she had no real way to prove any of this and could only glance at those colorful clouds from afar. Not daring to jump off the floating island and venture into the sky of the dreamscape. Knowing full well how dangerous and difficult it was to move through the sky of the dreamscape from previous experience.
Speaking of moving through the dreamscape, the floating continent she had seen only in the distance in the past was now far closer to her current location as she had ascended far above where she had been upon first entering the dreamscape. Her current floating island being level with the massive floating continent, if not slightly above it in elevation.
The problem was, she was still quite some distance away from the floating continent and had no clue how she could reach it without spending weeks if not months drifting slowly through the sky of the dreamscape.
She could return to the material plane again, but with those adventurers having likely already reached the mountain top from which she entered the dreamscape, she decided against it. Instead feeling far more optimistic about finding another way to reach the floating continent.