Sweeping through the helpless dream bears trying to escape in a panic, Scaly didn’t take long to take care of all of them–or most, as some lucky ones managed to escape in time, as she simply didn’t have the time to chase every single one of the dream bears down amidst the thick foliage of the forest that started close to the section of the floating continent she found herself.
Still, the sheer number of dream bears she ended up hunting down easily numbered in the dozens, far exceeding what she had originally anticipated from the few dream bears who had first emerged, as it had by now become clear to her that she hadn’t just ended up encountering a small family of dream bears, but had instead ended up running into a rather sizable group of dream bears that should have numbered a little over a hundred with a few that could have posed a significant threat to her had they managed to work together with the now dead elder dream bear to fight her.
However, with every single one of the dream bears having entered a state of fear and panic following what they assumed to have been her, easily taking care of the strongest among them, she was able to easily deal with the dream bears that might have originally posed some level of threat to her. Making significant progress towards reaching level 40 along the way.
Name: Scaly
Race: Dreamscale Dragon
Dragon blood: 31% (Uncommon)
Level: 39/40, 78%
Mana Heart: Second Circle
STR: 1047 |VIT: 2417 | DEX: 1349 | M: 4182
A quick glance at her status excluding her skills quickly revealed that her experience that had originally just barely been enough to scratch 3%, had shot all the way up to 78% after the slaughter of the dream bears came to an official end. Taking her extremely close to reaching the limit of her current evolution.
If everything went well, she might end up encountering another group of dreamscape monsters that would be able to take her the last bit of the way to level 40. Allowing her to reach the point of undergoing her sixth evolution, something she was already starting to look forward to considering how long she had already been stuck at her fifth evolution compared to any of her past evolutions.
Although... Considering that it would only become more difficult to reach the limit of her future evolutions, she had a feeling that she would soon enough feel nostalgic about how fast she was currently improving.
After all, even if she considered her current progress slow when compared to the past where she barely needed a few days to undergo her first evolution, it was extremely fast in the eyes of other monsters and adventurers who might spend years making the same level of progress she made in a few days.
Part of this had to do with others not being willing to risk their lives constantly like she had essentially been doing, while another part had to do with her constantly being able to find somewhere filled with monsters suitable for her to hunt down while rarely ever encountering a situation where she had to retreat without gaining anything in the process.
In a way, her first entry into the dreamscape and encounter with the dream cloud whales could be considered one of the few times she had to retreat without gaining anything in the process from the encounter... And even then, she was fully set on taking revenge on those dream cloud whales in the future when she became strong enough and gained better control over movement through the sky of the dreamscape.
Internal monologue aside, Scaly didn’t linger around the dead bodies of the dream bears for long before starting to move deeper into the forest of the floating continent.
Not because she wasn’t tempted to snack on the dream bears, but because she had already bitten into one of them out of curiosity and soon enough came to face a similar situation as when she had eaten the giant ants and decided to never ever try to eat any dream bears again in the future. Starving or not.
...
At the same time Scaly was making her way deeper into the forest covering a large portion of the floating continent that she could see, outside the dreamscape, the group of people from the Holy Light Church who had attempted to intercept Scaly had returned to the nest of the giant ants and found themselves kneeling in front of none other than the powerful figure, whose spiritual projection Scaly had seen being swallowed only seconds after it chased her into the dreamscape.
However, compared to before, it was clear that the other party had suffered some kind of injuries, as he sat silently with a clear bloody wound on his chest that had soaked through his formerly pristine ornate white robe.
Still, none of the five kneeling figures commented on this, as they silently waited for the person to respond to the information, they had just conveyed regarding what had happened to Scaly.
"The divine beast returned to the dreamscape... How troublesome..."
In the end, the man with the blood wound silently muttered a few words to himself with a clearly troubled look appearing in his eyes.
Having already suffered inside the dreamscape chasing after Scaly once, it was clear that he was feeling rather uneasy with the knowledge that the divine beast had once again escaped into the dreamscape.
The only positive was that the divine beast hadn’t ended up in the lower and more dangerous part of the dreamscape but had entered what was generally considered the surface of the dreamscape. The safest portion of the dreamscape, that could be travelled relatively safely by someone at the S Rank in terms of strength.
Problem was, after the injury he had suffered from the brief encounter with a dream cloud whale that had destroyed his spiritual projection and ended up causing lasting damage to his physical body, he had no way to enter the dreamscape in his current state... And he also knew that the other cardinals from the church weren’t available at the time and couldn’t rush over to this part of the world and take up the task he had failed to complete and reach the divine beast.
In other words, the cardinal only saw one way to solve this problem that stood before him before the divine beast disappeared completely from his senses and became impossible to track down in the short term... And that was for him to rely on the five people kneeling in front of him.
Of course, unlike him, who had a way to force his way into the dreamscape, these five had no way to enter the dreamscape on their own and had to rely on an established dream gate, a special gate constructed by the Adventurers Guild that allowed one to directly enter the dreamscape.
The problem was, entering the dreamscape through such a gate came with significant risks, as death inside the dreamscape would mean true death. Unlike what he had ended up facing when his spiritual projection had been destroyed, where all he needed was to recover his strength for a few weeks.
Fear of death alone was far from enough reason to stop people from rushing into the dreamscape. Instead, what generally kept most away from directly entering the dreamscape was the simple fact that without learning dream magic, one would suffer a significant reduction in strength.
But outside of this, there was also the fact that the dreamscape hid beings far beyond comprehension, some even transcending what was considered the mortal realm. Beings that even a cardinal like himself feared.
For this reason, the dreamscape was normally avoided by everyone outside of the Adventurers Guild who had established a few smaller outposts to gather some special resources that could only be found within the dreamscape.
In a way, this was a testament to the Adventurers Guild’s dedication to exploration, while also being a clear sign that those from the Adventurers Guild weren’t entirely of sound mind to enter such a dangerous place willingly and even establish outposts in such a place.
Although... In situations like the one he was currently facing, the cardinal felt thankful that the Adventurer Guild had been crazy enough to expand all the way into the dreamscape in the past when they created the first dream gate.
Without that, it would have been impossible for those below a certain level like the five kneeling before the cardinal to ever step foot inside an internal realm like the dreamscape that was normally inaccessible without learning unique magic like dream magic and figuring out the correct way to shift into the dreamscape from the material plane... And even if one could enter the dreamscape, most who entered the dreamscape for the first time would end up in the sky of the dreamscape where movement was close to impossible, something that often resulted in death for the early explorers of the dreamscape.