Hal never got to witness the final moments of the battle.

The moment he saw the serpent's failed attempt, he immediately bolted towards Tiki Island.

This also allowed him to accidentally escape the effective range of the white-scaled beast's outburst.

With everything that had happened, there was a decent chance that he could now enter the entrance of the temple.

Still, he wasn't sure if what he was doing was correct, cursing repeatedly in his mind as he swam as fast as he could, even using [Knockback] on himself to gain more distance.

One of the beasts was probably about to die, and from what Hal witnessed just a few seconds ago, it would be the serpent.

But then, he sensed something behind him.

'Damn it! Already?!'

With a snap of his fingers, he cast [Illuminate], gritting his teeth as the Sea Dragon's open maw greeted him.

'Tch!'

Hal quickly cast [Blink] to dodge, ready to fight the guardian to the death.

He even summoned another [Luminous Wisp] to give himself a fighting chance.

To his confusion, the Sea Dragon…didn't turn?

It merely continued plummeting with open maws.

Hal's brows furrowed, but he didn't let his guard down.

It was then that he sensed another presence behind him, zooming in at horrifying speeds.

Hal was caught off guard.

The moment he turned, the beast was already in his face.

He locked eyes with it.

Realizing it was the white-scaled serpent, Hal's brows rose in surprise.

He detected no hostile intent in its eyes, only delight, curiosity, and exhaustion.

So, his instincts didn't scream at him to make a defensive or evasive move, allowing the horrifying sea beast to simply pass him by while looking straight in its massive eyes.

Hal was frozen for two seconds before he managed to regather his wits.

He then turned around, watching the irregular swimming motions of the white-scaled serpent as its blood flowed through its wounds and into the waters.

Since it was confirmed that the beast wasn't hostile towards him, Hal suddenly felt bad for it.

Such grievous wounds…

It would be difficult for the serpent to survive, but if this were the case, why didn't the impending death reflect in the narrowly victorious beast's eyes?

It even seemed like it had a goal, which was why it was chasing after the Sea Dragon.

And then it struck him…

Was the Sea Dragon trying to flee or…

'Was it already dead?'

Hal wasn't able to observe the two beasts enough, and so he quickly chased after them.

He was also headed in that direction anyway.

Hal swam as fast as he could, but how could he be a match for aquatic beasts?

Thanks to [Luminous Wisp], a huge portion of Tiki Island was illuminated, and he could at least see the white-scaled serpent in the distance.

A huge crash that confirmed everything then happened.

The Sea Dragon was on the brink of death, at the very least, since it wouldn't smash headfirst like that otherwise.

The white-scaled serpent soon caught up, however, noticing that its adversary was still breathing.

It quickly chomped at the exposed throat, completely shattering the damaged scales and tearing a chunk of flesh off.

In the next moment, a notification that made Hal's heart race appeared:

[Congratulations! You've earned 70,000 Chaos Points!]

It was his largest point earnings to date, but more importantly, this assured him that the guardian had perished.

The temple was certainly open now.

With the once-lush forest now nothing but dead trees and budding corals, it wasn't too difficult to spot the runic entrance, but Hal wasn't in a rush anymore.

He first swam and positioned himself closer to it, so that if the serpent suddenly went crazy and attacked him, he would have the option to either fight it or flee to the safety of the entrance.

He then turned to watch what the white-scaled aquatic beast would do to the Sea Dragon's corpse.

The demonic whispers of greed fleeted in his mind.

'The serpent is spent, kill it…' but Hal firmly brushed them off.

Only if his safety was assured would he go near the fallen beast.

The white-scaled serpent did most of the work, so the Sea Dragon's corpse rightfully belonged to it.

Hal slightly grimaced at the sight of the victorious aquatic beast brutally tearing off parts of the flesh in the fallen dragon's head.

It was breathing quite heavily, evident in the massive amount of bubbles released by its gills.

However, the white-scaled serpent was fully focused on what it was doing, seemingly searching for something.

Its face brightened up, and the beast began backing up, smashing its head against the dead dragon's.

Hal was bewildered.

What the hell was it doing?

Did it not want to live anymore, or something?

If so, then he would gladly help it so that he could harvest its corpse.

The look in its eyes didn't seem to reflect its desire to perish, however, further perplexing Hal.

'What is it trying to do?' he pondered with furrowed brows.

The serpent bashed its skull another time, then another, before it stopped.

It tried to chomp on the dragon's head this time.

…and wailed in agony as a few of its sharp teeth broke.

The serpent hissed, seemingly pondering what to do when it noticed the human creeping closer.

It tilted its head.

The beast was now looking at Hal with a bit of wariness, clearly unwilling to share the corpse.

Only when he attacked the Sea Dragon's head with a [Glacial Shard] did the serpent understand.

Like earlier, the human was trying to help it, though it didn't know why.

The human gave it food when it couldn't hunt, teamed up with it to defeat its hateful adversary, and was now attempting to crack the skull with magic.

The serpent seemed delighted, appreciating his help.

And so, for an entire hour, the two worked together to crack the Sea Dragon's skull open.

Hal didn't know what the beast was looking for, and the serpent didn't know why the human was helping.

Yet, they worked together in mutual understanding that the other party was not a threat.

The skull finally cracked after a little over an hour of hard work.

Then, with one final clash of heads, it split in half, revealing a core the size of a swiss ball.

Hal froze at the sight, and the hairs on his body stood on end.

As it turned out, the Sea Dragon was a Megala Deora.

He couldn't help but thank his lucky stars that the serpent was there to help him out.