"Alright."
Isis rolled over and jumped down from the woolly camel's back.
A height of over three meters meant nothing to a hunter. Even in full armor and gear, it wouldn't have been challenging for Isis, but the ground below wasn't solid rock... it was nearly semi-fluid fine sand.
This made her landing rather awkward, her body sinking into the sand like a nail, with most of her lower legs buried. If Altaïr hadn't prepared anti-sinking leg wraps for her in advance, she would have sunk even deeper.
Quickly pulling her feet out, Isis felt somewhat embarrassed.
In the northern part of the Great Desert, near the vast region where Val Habar was located, the sand wasn't this fine and soft. Many areas were simply gravel deserts, and outsiders like her could adapt after a while.
But here in the sand sea, it was different. Without the proper techniques, it was difficult to walk steadily on this fine yellow sand.
This was one of the main reasons Altaïr had left her behind to guard the camels. Since she wasn't yet accustomed to moving in the sand sea, it was best to stay put and hold the position.
"Watch your step!"
With those words, Altaïr charged toward the rapidly approaching Cephalos.
He deliberately stomped his feet harder than usual. To the vibration-sensitive Cephalos, this was nothing short of a provocation, forcing them to attack more urgently.
This was a little trick taught to him by the seniors of Desert Fins.
The method worked. When he was just twenty or thirty meters away from the Cephalos, one of them could no longer resist, leaping out of the sand and lunging to bite.
If it had been over half a year ago, when he had just become a full-fledged hunter, facing multiple Cephalos at once would have left him flustered. But now was different from back then.
As the Cephalos lunged at him, Altaïr lowered his body and dashed forward a few more meters. The moment the Cephalos was above him, his blade left its sheath.
Step Slash.
It wasn't just an improvement in experience and skill; the sharpness of Iron Gospel was on a completely different level compared to the initial Hunter's Dagger. As a strictly defined heavy weapon, the power of the Long Sword far surpassed that of the nimble Sword and Shield.
The alloy-forged tip of the blade easily pierced through the Cephalos's chest scales. As the two passed each other, the blade cut deeper. By the time the Cephalos landed on the ground, its chest to lower abdomen had been completely sliced open.
A mass of foul-smelling entrails spilled out of the wound along with blood. The Cephalos whimpered and collapsed, twitching and struggling.
Altaïr paid no further attention to it. It would never get up again; in less than two minutes, it would be dead.
As for the remaining ones, Altaïr initially intended to raise his left arm and pull the trigger to fire the Sonic Bomb pre-loaded into his Slinger, but after a moment's hesitation, he decided against it.
The noise frequency emitted by a Sonic Bomb when detonated was extremely high, far beyond the upper limit of human hearing, so it had little effect on people.
But the two woolly camels would likely be frightened by it. Since the situation wasn't urgent, there was no need to use the Sonic Bomb yet. Spotting the dorsal fin gliding beneath the sand, Altaïr broke into a sprint once more, swinging his Long Sword to slice through the sand and sever most of a Cephalos's dorsal fin.
"Screech...!"
The Cephalos, writhing in agony, leaped out of the sand. Instead of immediately pursuing it, Altaïr swept his Long Sword horizontally, repeating the same motion to slice off another Cephalos's dorsal fin and force the second Monster out of the sand.
These two Cephalos had undoubtedly locked onto him, but that was fine. With his newly equipped weapon, if he couldn't handle two Cephalos, he might as well stop wielding a Long Sword altogether to avoid embarrassment.
However, two other Cephalos had circled around him from a distance and were now heading toward the woolly camel behind him, which made him somewhat anxious.
Isis was stronger than him; on rocky terrain, he wouldn't have given it a second thought. But on this unstable sand, where outsiders could barely keep their footing, facing Monsters that excelled at ambushes, he couldn't help but call out a warning:
"Watch out, two are heading your way!" Altaïr shouted over his shoulder. "Use Sonic Bombs if you have to!"
"Understood!"
After responding loudly, Isis chose not to engage directly. Instead, she raised her large shield and stood guard beside the woolly camel, her eyes fixed on the two dorsal fins.
One of the Cephalos launched a frontal assault, bursting out of the sand and lunging to bite.
Isis immediately raised her shield, adopting a Defense stance. She tightened her limbs and core muscles, lowering her center of gravity drastically.
Her Defense posture seemed overly rigid, causing the Professor on the woolly camel's back to frown slightly.
A standard Defense stance required some flexibility to absorb impact effectively. Isis's posture seemed less about Defense and more like...
Her next move provided the answer.
Just as the Cephalos's shovel-like head was about to clamp down on her shield, Isis actively pushed forward with a shoulder jolt and a forceful step.
"Thud!"
Not only did the Cephalos fail to break through the shield's Defense, but it also recoiled from the impact, its head and neck snapping backward from the counterforce.
"Perfect Guard," the Professor murmured to himself.
For an experienced Tank, timing the moment of impact with precision wasn't difficult when prepared. Pushing the shield forward at that exact instant was what defined a Perfect Guard.
However, executing a Perfect Guard required one crucial condition: the confidence to repel the Monster's attack, or at least neutralize most of its force.
After all, the Perfect Guard stance wasn't as stable as a conventional Defense posture. Even with perfect timing, if the counterforce was insufficient and the Monster's attack overpowered the shield, the consequences could be severe.
Clearly, Isis had absolute confidence in her strength. At least against a Monster like the Cephalos, she had no fear of losing in a clash.
And indeed, facing the Cephalos staggering backward from the impact, Isis swung her shield aside, let out a sharp cry, and took a large step forward. Channeling power from her waist and legs, she forcefully slammed down with the Gunlance in her left hand.
"Haah!"
The Cephalos, still reeling from the earlier impact, was struck headfirst into the ground.
The heavy blade split its skull, and the crisp sound of cracking bones made it clear to everyone present that this creature wouldn't be getting up again.
Just then, the other Cephalos lunged from the side. Compared to humans who appeared to have little meat, prey of the woolly camel's size was far more appealing to them.
The Professor on the camel's back had already prepared to use a Sonic Bomb.
As a scholar who spent years traversing the wilderness, he was even more familiar with using such tools than hunters. Even if Isis couldn't return to defend in time, he could still protect himself.
But Isis didn't know this. Seeing the cunning Cephalos about to bypass her defensive front and attack her companion behind her, she grew extremely anxious.
The drawback of a large shield became apparent at this moment. Relying solely on sidesteps, she couldn't possibly return to defend in time.
In this "critical moment," a strange idea popped into Isis's mind.
Without time to consider its feasibility, her body moved before her brain could react.
While sidestepping with all her strength, she adjusted the angle of her Gunlance and continuously pulled the trigger.
"Boom! Boom!"
During the sidestep, with her feet unable to gain proper footing, firing the cannon at this moment would push her body backward due to the recoil, but she intended to use this to her advantage.
The sidestep, which would normally only cover one or two meters, turned into a three-to-four-meter slide-jump propelled by the cannon's recoil. In just a few moves, she quickly returned to the side of the two camels, barely blocking the attacking Cephalos.
Not intending to give the Cephalos any opportunity, Isis raised her shield into a Defense stance while activating the mechanism. With a low hum, the Gunlance's barrel turned red-hot.
The Cephalos slammed headfirst into the shield, feeling as if it had hit a massive rock. Shaking its head, it was about to launch a further attack when a blazing flame erupted from the barrel.
"Wyvern's Fire!"