As panic engulfed the adventurers below, Scaly made full use of the opportunity that had been given to her. Using what little strength that she had left to flap her wings in the opposite direction of the chaos below. Not planning to stay around to see what was going to happen between the adventurers and the dream worms, as she was currently too exhausted and injured to take advantage of the battle below.
Unfortunate as it was that she couldn’t take advantage of the chaotic struggle, there was nothing she could do about outside of feeling depressed that she didn’t have some magic ability that would allow her to instantly recover her strength.
Speaking of which, she did want to learn an ability to heal herself after she had seen several adventurers use magic to heal themselves, but no matter how she tried to heal herself with magic in the past, she had never succeeded in coming up with a magic capable of healing her injuries.
Still... Seeing the panicked adventurers below and how some of them sprang into action to heal those injured by the emergence of the dream worms, Scaly once again felt the desire for healing magic that she had felt in the past.
The difference this time around being that she was in the worst state she had been in since her time in the Howling Caverns Dungeon and would need a considerable amount of time to fully recover. Far longer than what was needed for her mana to recover.
In other words, she once again had an opportunity to try and learn healing magic.
Although she had decided not to focus on too many kinds of magic, healing magic was special because she didn’t normally have the chance to practice it without being injured, while at the same time also being a magic that could increase her safety.
But all that aside, before she had the chance to attempt learning healing magic, that she had remembered existed thanks to the adventurers, she had to find somewhere safe to recover that wouldn’t end up being found by another dreamscape monster the second she closed her eyes.
A task that was far more difficult than she originally anticipated because of her increased size making past hiding spots impossible to use.
But as luck would have it, after flying for a little over ten minutes in her exhausted state above the open blue colored grass field that she had found herself flying through, Scaly found a small hill with a cave just large enough for her to squeeze inside and seal off the entrance to prevent any dreamscape monsters from attacking her while she was recovering.
And with how she had essentially been flying on fumes when she spotted the small cave, she didn’t hesitate for even a second before she descended and sealed herself off inside the small cave. Barely blocking the entrance properly before she felt the built-up exhaustion overwhelming her.
Falling into a deep sleep, that in turn helped her body start the recovery process. A process that would undoubtedly take a long time considering how she had ended up using every little bit of strength she could muster to first escape from the adventurers and then the dream worms followed by her taking advantage of the two parties clashing with each other to slip away.
All she hoped for as she drifted off into a deep sleep was that none of those troublesome adventurers or dream worms ended up finding her while she slept. After all, though she was far stronger following her sixth evolution, everything had a limit and she had already reached that limit and would just resign herself to fate if that really did end up happening.
...
Around the same time Scaly found herself a temporary shelter to recover from her injuries hopefully without being disturbed in the process, the adventurers that had helped her hold back the dream worms and prevented them from sneakily chasing her from below waiting for her to land, were all still scrambling to put up some resistance in the face of the massive dream worms-
"Where did all of these dream worms come from!?"
"I don’t know! Just get out of here!"
"Push them back! We need to get through, or we will be crushed by these damnable worms!"
Resistance that was far from optimal, as most of it boiled down to them yelling at each other trying to push past the seemingly endless swarm of dream worms surging up from below...
"Aaah-! My leg!"
Something that soon enough resulted in the first adventurer suffering a serious injurie that almost ended his life on the spot, as his leg was swallowed before being cleanly bitten off by a newly emerging dream worm. Only barely surviving the encounter because of the fast movement of a nearby companion who pulled him out of the way before he was swallowed up by a second dream worm.
The entire sequence of events only caused even more panic, as the adventurers all understood that they could very well end up in a similar situation.
"This can’t go on..." Seeing all of this playing out, the leader of the group of adventurers who had found himself preoccupied dealing with a powerful dream worm that had decided to target him at the start, threw forth a violent fist that directly knocked aside the more than one hundred meter long dream worm before rushing ahead of the group of panicked adventurers. "EVERYONE! FOLLOW ME!" Yelling out loudly across the chaotic battlefield before taking charge of the situation and charging straight into the squirming mass of dream worms encircling them.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Using his powerful strength to directly knock aside the dream worms blocking the path forward, a move that almost instantaneously galvanized the panicked adventurers into following him. Soon enough forming back together into a single group that pushed through the squirming mass of dream worms before any casualties appeared.
The fact that they had been about to chase after Scaly and try to hunt her down having entirely disappeared from their minds, as the sole focus became for them to get out of their current precarious situation safely.
Not just because their lives were more valuable than potentially hunting down a unique dreamscape dragon, but also because the dragon in question had long since disappeared and wouldn’t exactly be simple to track down. That and, they all felt excited thinking about how they could brag to their fellow adventurers when they got back to the outpost.
In a way, this excitement of surviving and bragging about surviving their current precarious situation, became the main driving force behind their push forward through the squirming mass of dream worms.
None of them wanted to waste even a second thinking about how unlikely it was for them to survive after being caught in the middle of a swarm of dream worms. Knowing from experience and what they heard from other adventurers that the situation they found themselves in was by far one of the deadliest situations one could encounter inside the dreamscape.
After all, the number and strength of the dream worms were downright terrifying and some even surpassed that of S Rank Adventurers.
The only positive about their current situation was the fact that they weren’t moving in a small group like they would normally do while exploring the dreamscape but instead moved in a large group of a little over a hundred people. Allowing them to work together and push back some of those terrifying dream worms.
Without numbers on their side, they would have long since been overwhelmed, but maybe the most important aspect of their survival amidst the squirming masses was the fact that the dream worms themselves showed little to no interest in attacking them. Instead, the dream worms seemed far more focused on squirming around each other.
In the end, because of the somewhat odd behavior of the dream worms, the group of adventurers ultimately managed to carve a path through the squirming mass of dream worms.
But as they got to safety, one of the adventurers couldn’t help looking back towards the squirming mass of dream worms. "What are they... Is this some kind of mating ritual" Muttering his internal thoughts out loud regarding the odd behavior of the dream worms.
A thought that many of the adventurers found themselves agreeing with, as it was the only real explanation they could come up with for the odd behavior of the dream worms... And to be honest, none of them intended to stay behind to find out just what these dream worms were up to. Fearing that doing so might end up with them attracting the attention of these dream worms. At which point it would be impossible for them to escape.
No matter what, they had survived and before anything else could go wrong, they all collectively decided to get as far away from the odd dream worms as possible and hopefully back to the safety of the outpost. Only inside the outpost would they feel any sense of safety after the sudden ambush they had just experienced...