Chapter 747: The Obsidian Hollow Serpent Lair

Looking at Honeybun’s shell that had changed color to a rich gold, Moon couldn’t help but pause for a moment.

"Did you... did you change your shell during that last moment?"

Without any command from Moon, in the instant of crisis, Honeybun had chosen to switch his transformation, dropping the speed form and shifting back to his defensive gold shell precisely when the serpent’s constriction threatened to crush it. The near-impenetrable armor had reformed, and the serpent’s crushing pressure, which could have shattered the jade shell, had met the gold fortress instead.

Moon stared without blinking.

He adapted on its own mid-crisis, he made the call to swap forms and prioritize defense. Could he have survived on his own, even without my Raiju? Did he complete the transformation in time to tank the pressure, and my attack was just insurance? Or did my intervention buy him the exact window he needed to finish the shift?

He couldn’t be sure which. The two had happened almost simultaneously, and his focus was on stopping whatever the Serpent had intended to do.

But either way, the answer left him deeply impressed.

Either he tried to save himself and I just helped, or he read the danger and reacted fast enough to use the window I created. Both of those are extraordinary for a creature his age.

A proud grin spread across his face. You keep surprising me, Honeybun. Every single fight, you show me something new.

He reached the turtle and knelt beside him, checking him for any sign of injury or harm. The gold shell was intact, the crushing attack having found a fortress instead of a fragile speed-form.

"Good instincts," Moon murmured, resting a hand on the warm golden shell. "Switching forms in the middle of that, under that kind of pressure. You saved yourself, I’m sorry I intervened, I just wanted to make sure you are safe. That’s exactly the kind of thinking that keeps you alive out here."

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Moon glanced at the serpent, dead at last, and watched as Honeybun lifted its head toward its fallen opponent, then turned back to him.

He’s upset.

Moon understood the emotion radiating through their connection immediately. Honeybun had fought the entire battle, taking the serpent on at both close and long range, switching forms, adapting its tactics, grinding the ancient beast down from start to finish.

And then, right at the end, Moon had swept in and landed the final blow himself. To the little turtle, it felt like its victory had been snatched away at the last second.

Moon knelt beside the golden shell, his voice gentle.

"Hey. It’s okay, buddy. You did great, start to finish. That whole fight was yours. The serpent was already on its deathbed, I just stole the last hit because I wasn’t willing to gamble your life on whether you’d be able to do it in time kr nkt. You earned that kill. Every bit of it." He paused, then added, "But I understand you. So here’s a promise, next fight, I won’t intervene. Not unless you’re genuinely about to die. It’s all yours. Deal?"

Hearing the reassurance, Honeybun visibly brightened, the disappointment draining out of its posture, satisfaction settling back in.

Moon smiled and shook his head wryly.

Terrifying enough to kill Surpasser beasts, and it still sulks like a kid who didn’t get to blow out the birthday candles.

It was a good reminder. For all its monstrous strength, Honeybun was still, at the end of the day, a newborn.

"Now go on, eat your prize. That serpent’s bound to be a good meal, and you earned every bite." He patted the golden shell, and the turtle trundled over to its reward, tearing into the massive corpse with evident satisfaction.

Moon turned to Mirage beside him. "You hungry too?"

Mirage nodded, releasing a soft neigh.

Moon summoned one of the remaining Surpasser-rank corpses he’d bought from the Trading Center and set it down, letting the white steed eat its fill.

While his two companions feasted, Moon used the time to explore the serpent’s lair.

A beast that had killed everything unfortunate enough to wander into its basin, that had ruled this dead place for long, was certain to have accumulated the spoils of all those kills.

The serpent itself couldn’t use cores or treasures, but the remains of its countless victims would have piled up somewhere, and an ancient predator’s hoard was always worth investigating.

He made his way deeper into the basin, walking between the towering natural pillars, and found what he was looking for near the center, where the serpent had made its true den.

A vast depression in the stone, sheltered beneath an overhang, and scattered across its floor, glinting dully in the twilight gloom, were cores. Hundreds of them.

Moon’s eyes lit up.

He began to collect, and the haul was staggering. The serpent had devoured prey across every tier, and the cores reflected it.

First-star cores by the dozen, the remains of the weakest creatures to blunder into the basin.

Second and third-star cores in heaps. Four-star cores scattered generously throughout, the beast having killed plenty of powerful prey over the centuries.

And here and there, gleaming brighter than the rest, five-star cores, the condensed essence of powerful creatures that had tried to challenge the serpent’s domain and failed.

He swept through the den methodically, storing everything, and did a quick count as he went.

By the time he’d cleared the hoard, the number nearly made him laugh.

Almost a thousand cores.

A thousand.

He stared at the emptied den, then at his storage ring.

These are just the ones it hadn’t swallowed, piled up in one place. First-star to five-star, hundreds of each. This is a fortune on its own, and that’s before the serpent’s own corpse, which is Surpasser-tier material.

The cores would sell for an enormous sum, and stock the base’s needs a few times over. A single ancient beast’s lair had just handed him a windfall rivaling what B-Rank gate produced.