Freezing on the spot as she felt the countless eyes belonging to the dream worms slithering around on top of each other in front of her, Scaly understood that her only choice to get out alive of her current situation might be for her to escape to the material plane as fast as possible before any of those dream worms got the chance to get anywhere near her. Understanding full well that she stood absolutely no chance in the face of so many dream worms even if she was fully recovered, let alone in her current exhausted and injured state where the only real advantage she had was the fact that she could fly.
Hm? That is...
But as she was about to use the gate of dreams to escape from the dreamscape, she noticed an opening a few hundred meters above her leading directly to the surface, with a few trees barely visible thanks to their roots sticking out through the side of the hole alongside a bit of light streaming down from above.
From activating her dream magic to escape, Scaly quickly decided to focus on escaping through the passage above her instead, as it would ultimately be safer than ending up somewhere random within the material plane. After all, she remembered the fact that she should still be somewhere inside the mountain range. Meaning there was a good chance that escaping to the material plane would place her face to face with a monster of unknown strength.
As for the dream worms all around her... They were still some distance away from her and hadn’t yet reacted to her appearance-
Whoosh~
Giving her the chance to move first, as she used all her strength to flap her wings alongside a push from her wind magic accelerating her even faster towards the hole above her-
Rustle~! Rustle~! Rustle~!
Something that finally seemed to wake up the dream worms that had only been observing her, as they all came rushing towards her from all directions. Moving along the side of the underground space to corner her from above and below at the same time, though, with her already being close to the hole above, she barely managed to slip past two dream worms who reached the hole above around the same time as her.
BANG!
Resulting in the unfortunate pair of dream worms colliding midair with each other instead of her, as the two dream worms over a hundred meters long fell towards the dream worms slithering around below.
Rumble~
Still, she wasn’t out of danger just because she made it into the somewhat narrow passage leading to the surface, as she already heard the familiar digging sound of dream worms coming from either side of her. Making it more than clear to her that she didn’t just have to worry about dream worms from below but also had to worry about dream worms from the side and potentially even above.
The situation was far optimal, as she began seriously considering using the last bit of her mana to try and use the gate of dreams to escape into the material plane.
However, she realized to her dismay that she didn’t have the mana to do so after having used her wind magic to boost her own speed to the point where she had just barely been able to rush into the passage leading to the surface before it had been blocked off by the two dream worms that had ended up slamming into each other.
In other words, she was locked into the choice that she had made and didn’t have the option of backing out now that she had decided to stay in the dreamscape and attempt an escape from the countless dream worms that she could see surging up towards her from below. Rapidly enlarging the relatively small passage into a more than a hundred-meter-wide passage in the process...
Rumble~ Bang!
And as she saw the sky of the dreamscape emerging at the end of the somewhat narrow passage, a massive dream worm burst forth from the side of the passage. Blocking her path entirely with its massive body in the process.
[Dream Worm, lvl 108]
And from the level of the dream worm blocking her path, she was almost certain that it would be impossible for her to try and force her way through the large body that looked like a massive circular log blocking her path by using her claws.
Having no mana for the gate of dreams to escape the dreamscape, it was essentially a dead end for her-
Rumble~
Or that would have been the case if a random dream worm didn’t pass right by her at that exact moment. Carving out a brand new passage that moved around the massive dream worm blocking her path while barely missing her in the process.
[Dream Worm, lvl 56]
The dream worm in question being on the smaller side. Meaning that the passage that had been dug out by it was just barely enough to fit her flying comfortably inside it as the dream worm now moving forward ahead of her carved a path forward without even realizing that it was helping her escape from the dead end that she had found herself in, a clear sign that this dream worm wasn’t the brightest among its fellow dream worms, as it could have easily doomed her if it had just stopped or adjusted its angle of attack ever so slightly.
After all, she hadn’t even sensed it before it had already moved straight past her. Meaning that it could have easily swallowed her without her even realizing what had happened. Unfortunately, it was rather clear that it hadn’t expected her to come to a sudden stop, causing it to miss.
Not that she had much to complain about, as part of the passage dug out around the larger dream worm soon enough connected back to the original passage leading up to the surface. Allowing her to leave the tunnel being dug out by the weaker dream worm, as she didn’t exactly trust it to continue forward towards the surface nor remain ignorant of her following behind it for long.
Rumble~
And, indeed, almost the second she moved out into the original passage leading to the surface, the weaker dream worm she had followed around the larger dream worm blocking the original passage came to a stop before suddenly changing direction to move back around towards her-
Whoosh~
But of course, it was far too late for it to regret things now, as she had already used what little mana was still left in her body to further enhance her speed, as she flew upwards at what was almost certainly the fastest speed she had gone on her own without taking into account what had happened not long ago when she had been launched flying by the combined attack of the adventurers.
Feeling the air rushing past her as the tree roots that had only barely been visible before now began blocking part of the passage, Scaly felt herself becoming increasingly excited. Knowing that the second she got to the surface and took to the sky, there would be no way for the dream worms to chase after her any longer.
Powerful as they were, they didn’t have wings like her and couldn’t fly. At most having some ability to launch out of the ground after her, but something like that didn’t worry her in the slightest given that their speed would be far inferior to hers after she took to the sky.
The surface! Hehe~ I’m safe!
And the second she officially flew out from underground, she felt an overwhelming feeling of excitement as she began rapidly ascending into the sky to avoid a potential attack from the dream worms chasing her from below in case, she was too close to the ground.
However, as if by fate, right next to the hole in the ground connected to the dream worm nest, the group of adventurers that had chased her not long ago happened to be walking by on their way back to the outpost.
"Huh? Isn’t that the dreamscape dragon that escaped from earlier...?"
"Hm? Indeed, it is... And from the looks it’s injured..."
"I don’t think we should worry about that! Don’t you feel the ground shaking?"
A few immediately noticing her before one drew attention to the increasingly shaking ground beneath their feet-
RUUUUMBLE-! BANG!
"D-d-d-d-dream worms!"
And as if they followed the same string of fate in helping Scaly escape from potentially being targeted by the group of adventurers, several massive dream worms burst forth from the ground. Instantly throwing the group of adventurers about to target the injured Scaly into a panic, as they found themselves scrambling to get out of the way of the towering worms.
Not much different from Scaly herself, the adventurers also understood that they didn’t stand a chance against these monsters that normally secluded themselves beneath the surface and rarely ever interacted with the world above...