On the cliffside, watching the recommended team lose a member, Noah clenched his fists tightly. They had only been fighting for half a day, yet the recommended team had already lost one combatant—this truly exceeded his expectations.
However, Noah did not lose his composure. Though deeply shocked, he immediately ordered the artillery team to fire shells to provide cover for the lance user's withdrawal. A group of medics, along with the cats, had long since prepared stretchers and were ready to begin treatment at the first possible moment.
The Ancient Wyverian girl's teammates escorted the lance user away. Having lost her partner, she could only quickly join the support squad to fill the vacancy left by the lance user.
In an instant, the battlefield was down two hunters, one of them a lance user, which once again greatly increased the defensive pressure on the recommended team.
Darren, who had split a tentacle apart with a countered Rising Slash, did not follow up with an Aerial Cross Slash. Instead, he rapidly retreated, freed his left hand, and quickly made several hand signals.
The gunlance user, who had rushed forward to provide close defense for Darren, halted his steps. Although he could not fully understand the reasoning, as a former kingdom hunter his body reacted immediately. He swiftly exchanged positions with the Ancient Wyverian girl, shifting from the combat squad to a member of the support squad.
This was a contingency plan they had prepared in advance. After all, during hunts, the ones most likely to run into trouble were the primary defenders. Darren's hand signal meant that the defenders of the support squad and the combat squad were to switch places, allowing the combat squad's main defender a brief opportunity to catch their breath.
Only this time, the one who had run into trouble was the support squad's lance user, and the one filling in was the Ancient Wyverian girl—a Sword and Shield user. Was such a decision really appropriate?
Whether it was the gunlance user or the command platform observing the battle, none of them could understand Darren's arrangement. After such a swap, wouldn't the combat squad's safety be reduced?
Yet after the exchange was completed, the subsequent unfolding of the battle left everyone utterly astonished.
Without the gunlance user's protection, the combat squad was indeed repeatedly pushed to the brink of danger under Nakarkos's relentless attacks, but individual capability was, at that very moment, completely unleashed.
Although the Ancient Wyverian girl and the bow user did not deliver particularly eye-catching performances, Darren and Aiden could be said to have come alive all at once.
Gritting his teeth, he forced his way through Nakarkos's elemental energy bombardment and charged straight to Nakarkos's main body.
With no need for excessive communication, Aiden took the lead and proactively took on the task of dealing with the scattered tentacles, creating a more suitable attacking space for Darren.
Darren put away the Greatsword. With wind seemingly at his feet, he narrowly and repeatedly dodged streak after streak of attacks, forcing himself to run and leap his way beneath Nakarkos's main body. He drew his weapon and immediately launched into a rapid barrage of Charged Slashes.
For normal hunters, even with "Concentration 3," completing three stages of fighting-spirit charging still takes around two seconds.
Back when the Huntsman was young, he could compress it to close to one second, and that alone was enough to let the Huntsman take on the main role in several battles against Elder Dragons.
But Darren?
With Concentration 3, before each swing he could rapidly complete three stages of charging, and his attack frequency was even faster than an ordinary Greatsword user swinging without charging at all.
You have to understand: for a Greatsword user, fighting-spirit charging places a severe burden on the body. Three charges not only require the hunter to focus the strength of their entire body, but when the slash is released, it can make the muscles throughout the body wail.
Therefore, even a legendary hunter like the Huntsman, in combat, would usually slow down a little after completing a full set of True Charged attacks, then look again for an opportunity to charge.
But the Darren of right now—beneath his armor, the seemingly unremarkable muscles subtly swelled, his whole body flushed red, veins bulging, blood rapidly supplied to his entire body under the powerful contractions of his heart.
Three charges, one slash—then three charges, one slash again. Every slash could break through the defense of the tentacles on Nakarkos's main body, hacking open streak after streak of bloody gashes.
Although wounds like that were nothing to a body as massive as Nakarkos's, when you keep slicing flesh with a small blade, even the smallest amount of bleeding becomes shocking once it accumulates.
For a time, simply because of Darren alone, Nakarkos's attention was drawn over, and everyone else's pressure dropped drastically!
"T-This! Is he even human? Even when the Huntsman was young, he couldn't have done it to this extent, right?"
On the cliffside, the impatient hunter watched Darren's fighting below, and his blood boiled.
He had never seen anyone, when facing an Elder Dragon, manage to break the encirclement of two top-tier squads by the strength of a single person, nor had he ever seen one person single-handedly draw all of an Elder Dragon's attention away from everyone else.
Looking at that deep-crimson Radiant Fire Wyvern armor, the impatient hunter wished he could draw his weapon right now and fight shoulder to shoulder with Darren!!
Noah's mouth fell slightly open, and for a long time he could not close it.
They were both Greatsword users—and both geniuses.
He had originally thought that compared with the hunters of the recommended team, his own strength was only slightly inferior, and that the gap between them was at most like the gap between his grandfather, the Commander, and the Huntsman.
Having grown up under the Huntsman's instruction, Noah had always believed that the Huntsman represented the pinnacle of hunters. Even the Admiral, with that inhuman physique, was at best evenly matched with the Huntsman.
Noah, who had always taken the Huntsman as his goal, finally understood at this moment what it meant to be outmatched by someone beyond oneself.
Every slash Darren swung seemed to strike directly at Noah's heart, showing him what a true legendary-level hunter was, and showing him why the Fifth Fleet—with multiple recommended teams ready—had delayed its departure for a full week just to wait for this one man.
This was strength.
Darren's performance inspired everyone on the battlefield. Even the Ancient Wyverian girl had to admit that this hunter, whom the Boss Fire Wyvern had singled out for close observation, truly possessed extraordinary strength.
This was an Elder Dragon—not some ordinary monster!
Originally, in the Ancient Wyverian girl's mind, once the battle dragged on, it would definitely be the hidden-hand team led by Aki that stepped in to handle things. Hunters alone could at most weaken Nakarkos.
She had already prepared herself to withdraw directly once the fight reached a certain point.
But judging by the current situation, the hunters' side seemed to have a real chance to fight!!
As Darren began to exert himself, the situation on the battlefield started to change. The geniuses of the recommended team no longer hesitated or held back. Although their individual strength allowed them to forcibly form coordination with their teammates, this was still a temporary team-up. It was better to fight with individual performance as the main focus and coordination as a supplement.
After this shift in mindset, under intense pressure, the recommended team hunters who had begun to fight timidly regained a smooth combat rhythm.
Time slipped away just like that amid the tense and thrilling battle!
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