The appearance of a headless corpse of an Earthen Basilisk on a floor of the Shionel Dungeon came as a considerable surprise to Rui since he hadn't read anything about them being spotted in the Shionel Dungeon.
He also recalled being informed that Earthen Basilisks reproduced as much as they ate, thus it was extremely strange that the Shionel Confederation wasn't filled with Earthen Basilisks running around killing humans considering that the Shionel Dungeon had been open for nearly a year and a half.
On top of that, its size was truly shocking, Rui wasn't even sure that this monster would be classified within the Squire Realm. Perhaps only the most powerful Martial Squires had a chance of killing it because of its oversized vitals and weaknesses along with its big body that would probably make subterranean travel even harder.
That begged the next question. What happened to its head?
"It was eaten…" Rui murmured with shock. "By another creature."
When he observed the open wound where its head used to be, he could see that the uneven length surface indicated that something had feasted on the creature's carcass.
"Furthermore, there are wounds across its body. Claws and jaws have ravaged the creature."
Based on the size of the wounds, Rui estimated the size of the creature to be around the size of a building, which was still much smaller than the size of the Earthen basilisk. Yet this creature was able to devastate and kill the Earthen Basilisk.
Rui glanced around as he observed the land of the dungeon floor. The earth was dug up, highly uneven, and there were even large holes.
('That means it definitely attempted to use its subterranean advantage,') Rui noted as he analyzed all the data he had. ('Yet it still lost.')
Rui grew extremely paranoid as he swept his senses across the entirety of the floor once more, paying close attention to detail. For a moment, he thought that the predator might still be around.
He did not think that he would be able to beat a predator that mauled the Earthen basilisk so brutally. How on Earth could he? His little sword and pipe tactics probably wouldn't help in the least at this moment in a one-on-one. The best he could do was escape with Void Step.
('That creature probably isn't limited to the peak of the Squire Realm,') Rui figured with a heavy heart. A creature that transcended the limits of the Squire Realm was something he wanted to avoid. Yet he couldn't help but be curious as to how strong the creature was, and what kind of monster it was.
"Woah!" He heard Kane exclaim. "Its scales are made out of esoteric substances!"
Rui turned towards him, nodding. "The beast probably consumed an immense amount of vegetation containing dense esoteric substances in it. Causing it to grow and develop stronger scales. We can mine and harvest them from the corpse, I've verified that the area is safe, so go ahead."
"You're not helping?" Kane frowned.
"I'm keeping an alert eye on our surroundings with my Riemannian Echo," Rui told him. "If whatever killed it returns, I'll react to it immediately, and we can use Void Step to get the hell out of here immediately."
Rui refused to focus on anything else knowing that a creature this powerful was in the Shionel Dungeon and was even at their very location not too long ago. That was far too scary for him to ignore and he promptly took the role of a scout and a lookout. He did not mind if this may reduce their gains or lower gains, nor did he mind if took twice as long. He wanted to ensure that if the predator returned, the two of them would be able to Void Step away thanks to Rui's alertness.
"If I say red, then get to me reach out to me and use Void Step instantly, got it?" Rui told him, as he handed him the dimensional storage ring.
"Gotcha," Kane nodded as he got to work.
Although Rui did not help, he hovered very close to Kane at all times, to ensure that there was absolutely no delay in their reactions if Rui detected the approach of the predator. Kane immediately got to work as he quickly began extracting the scales and storing them in the storage dimension.
Rui on the other hand was extremely mentally alert, to the point that he was even straining himself to the absolute maximum, using the Mind Palace technique to read space curvature to an even large degree than he normally could although it was quite tiring. He was determined to make sure that he made it in time in case anything happened.
Eventually, a lot of time passed and Kane was finally done.
"Now we just got to pop these over by the burying spot and we're good," Kane replied.
"Hufff…" Rui heaved a heavy sigh. "Yeah, man, we need to reconsider our risk evaluation if there are creatures like these in the Shionel Dungeon."
He pointed to the Earthen Basilisk corpse, while also referring to the predator that killed it. "Floors have generally gotten harder the deeper we go. If there are floors that are even more dangerous, or infested with monsters this powerful, even we will have a hard time Kane."
"Yeah that sounds way too much," Kane smiled wryly. He was quite weak physically compared to normal Squire-level monsters, against final-boss Squire-level monsters, just a simple attack from them might utterly annihilate him. A single grade-ten-level technique or two was not enough to give him confidence against such creatures. Thus he did approve of Rui considering being even more careful with deeper and potentially more dangerous floors.
Rui, instead, was a little hopeful that these two creatures were outliers. A dungeon filled with such creatures was closer to a Senior-level dungeon than it was to a Squire-level dungeon, in which case Seniors would be able to approach much closer than they currently could, thus he wasn't too very concerned.
