Continuing further into the mist with the number of dead long-necked mist sheep only growing and Scaly becoming increasingly excited at the large number of mist sheep throwing themselves at her like free experience bags, Verdell began noticing that the dead mist sheep on the ground wasn’t made up of just their dead bodies and skeleton and now also included what looked like a thin blood vein that was barely visible from where he was sitting.

At first standing out, the blood vein connecting a few dead bodies soon changed and became thicker and more pronounced, as it seemingly split up and spread outwards. Expanding from a single vein into a massive network of blood veins connecting all the dead bodies on the ground, some kind of liquid that just looked grey thanks to the grey sun above flowing through the veins in the direction that the two of them were moving.

By the time Scaly began noticing the odd blood veins on the ground, they had already converged together into a single large vessel that connected to countless smaller blood veins far beyond their limited vision.

If Verdell had only been partially convinced that the vast quantity of long-necked mist sheep had something to do with the Eternal Life Sanctum earlier, he was now fully convinced that the long-necked mist sheep had something to do with the Eternal Life Sanctum. After all, this kind of grotesque thing wasn’t something he could associate with the swirling sands dungeon that had been normal so far.

"Don’t touch the blood vessel! It might alert the thing connected to it ahead of time!" And because of this, he quickly stopped the curious dragon beneath him from poking a hole in the large blood vessel on the ground. Not wanting to risk alerting whatever waited for them at the end of this blood vessel before they even had the chance to figure out just what it was that was waiting for them.

Scaly, having already tried to inspect the blood vessel to no success, was more than happy to follow along with what he said. After all, though she was immensely curious about what would happen if she poked a hole in that large blood vessel, she was willing to hold herself back with the knowledge that she might be able to kill a far stronger monster by not alerting it to her presence ahead of time.

At the same time, poking the blood vessel wouldn’t reward her with any experience, so she was more than happy to ignore it for now.

In any case, she would always have the chance to poke it later after they reached the monster connected to this blood vessel that only grew larger the deeper into the mist they went.

One thing that did become clear rather fast as she was following the blood vessel, was the fact that the number of long-necked mist sheep they encountered decreased significantly and the few they did run into tried their best to avoid touching the blood vessel. Resulting in more than one long-necked mist sheep killing itself by abruptly stopping upon seeing the blood vessel. Only to trip over one of the small blood vessels and crash headfirst into her scales. Breaking their neck in the process.

Great as this was for her, as it essentially meant she had to do nothing to deal with these sheep, it also meant her scales were becoming increasingly dirty.

Although she couldn’t see much of the blood and other things that ended up coating her scales because of the grey sun above dyeing everything grey, she did at least begin to smell it after travelling along the blood vessel for a little over an hour.

And because of this, she decided to take a quick bath using her water magic-

Splash~

"Pueh~ Wha-where did all this water come from!?"

Getting Verdell to join her in the cleaning process, as he sprawled on her back for a few seconds before realizing she was the one who had conjured up the magic. Calming down, as he began using his fire magic to dry himself and his now soaked clothes off before he would have to fight alongside her.

Sizzle~

But unknown to the two of them, the blood vessel they had been walking beside so far didn’t seem to be waterproof. Sizzling violently in response to the water that had fallen on top of it before it began visibly shrinking, "huh? Stop! Stop using water magic! The blood vessel isn’t waterproof!" Something that was soon enough noticed by Verdell who quickly called out for Scaly to stop using her water magic to clean herself.

Huh? Not waterproof...?

Tilting her head in confusion at the sudden panicked voice from Verdell, Scaly glanced down towards the blood vessel that had originally been over two meters wide. Only to realize that the blood vessel had shrunk by more than half and was already close to bursting. Forcing her to stop using her water magic on her scales, as stopping even a second later might end up resulting in the blood vessel bursting. Not just ruining her cleanup but also alerting whatever awaited them at the other end of the blood vessel.

In the end, as everything quieted down with only the sizzling sound coming from the blood vessel cutting through the silence, Scaly and Verdell watched quietly, as the blood vessel that was about to burst at any second stabilized before slowly expanding back to its original size again.

Still, believing they might have already alerted the monster on the other end, the two prepared themselves for a difficult battle as they silently looked off into the mist hoping to catch sight of the powerful enemy before it emerged...

Rustle~ 𝐟𝗿𝐞𝚎𝚠𝐞𝚋𝕟𝐨𝚟𝐞𝕝.𝕔𝕠𝚖

And indeed, it didn’t take long before there was movement within the thick mist, causing the two to tense up preparing for the worst as a shadow soon enough darted out of the mist towards them at a terrifying speed before slamming head first into Scaly, who didn’t even have the time to react and fight back against the fast attack-

Bang!

[Gained 10.972 Exp]

""...""

But... The enemy in question turned out to not be some powerful monster, but was instead just a somewhat faster than normal long-necked mist sheep that had slammed into Scaly’s scales so fast that it had died on impact...