Looking at Bazelgeuse, Teostra saw a familiar shadow—himself.
Both possessed means of attacking enemies by relying on close-range explosions and their own resilience, though this strange wyvern was clearly more specialized in that regard.
However, this feeling wasn't exactly pleasant. Just as humans might dislike those who are too similar to themselves, dragons were no different.
While those two clashed with explosive fervor, on the other side, Asterion was in the heat of battle against Nergigante.
Truth be told, Asterion suddenly realized that the situation he faced now wasn't all that different from how "Simian Wyvern" hunters hunted monsters. Both needed to minimize the probability of taking damage as much as possible; the only difference was that Asterion could tank a few more hits.
When facing Elder Dragons like Kushala Daora or Teostra, whose power manifested in altering the external environment, it was manageable. The current Asterion could tangle with them, wrestle a bit, and compare raw physical strength. But against a guy like Nergigante, whose Elder Dragon power was entirely allocated to melee stats, it was better not to take risks.
With his mental focus at its peak, Asterion continuously dodged Nergigante's furious barrage of paw swipes and spike projectiles using evasive maneuvers, side steps, and Foresight Slashes. He constantly sought openings to thrust or execute horizontal slashes and rising cuts with his tail blade, every move methodical and disciplined.
At this moment, a faint red glow enveloped Asterion's sword-tail. Both the hardness and sharpness of his blade scales had significantly improved—the most direct evidence being that when Asterion slashed now, he could finally sever those pitch-black, hardened spikes on Nergigante's body.
This increase in attack power forced Nergigante to become somewhat more cautious; he now had to block or dodge, rather than simply ignoring Asterion's attacks to rush in for the kill like before. This, in turn, alleviated some of the pressure on Asterion.
I want to Helm Break.
From the moment the tail blade first glowed red, Asterion had wanted to execute a Spirit Helm Breaker—to jam his massive sword-tail viciously into Nergigante's body and then violently detonate the spirit energy wrapped around it!
Helm Breaking was an addiction.
Asterion had to use immense willpower to suppress this impulse because landing a Spirit Helm Breaker was actually quite difficult. Nergigante's movements were far more agile, rapid, and versatile than in the game, and the cost of whiffing a Helm Breaker was simply too high.
Nergigante possessed high combat instincts and intelligence. Once he realized he could no longer easily shrug off Asterion's cuts to his spikes, the consequences of a mistake would be unpleasant.
Yet even so, Asterion was gradually falling to a disadvantage. His serrated blade did indeed pierce Nergigante's body, but Nergigante seized the opportunity to plaster a paw onto him, his sharp claws forcibly carving four deep gouges across the surface of Asterion's body.
The carapace and blade scales covering his body failed to stop Nergigante's razor-sharp claws. While the blade scales detonated and burst, the wounds they left on Nergigante were far from fatal; they healed before much blood could even flow.
Firing on all cylinders and showing his true colors, Nergigante displayed shocking combat prowess. No longer sparing his internal bio-energy, he was like a mass of infinitely regenerating flesh. No matter how much damage Asterion dealt or how grievous the injuries, Nergigante recovered at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Elder Dragon blood spilled as if it were free, dyeing Asterion's side of the battlefield crimson. It was a gruesome sight.
Asterion was already drenched in sweat, under massive pressure. It had to be said—Nergigante truly earned his place on the food chain by putting other Elder Dragons on the menu. Ecologically, he stood higher than standard Elder Dragons like Kushala Daora and Teostra, and his combat power was indeed superior.
Dancing between Nergigante's continuous swipes, Asterion hadn't taken a direct hit, but his movements were certainly not as swift as they were at the start. Massive amounts of thermal steam were venting from the exhaust ports at the end of his tail, acting like a train's smokestack.
Asterion realized that the "rocket-powered Great Sword" mechanism he had designed for his tail wasn't entirely practical. After prolonged, high-intensity combat, his body generated too much heat—so much that he didn't even dare cover the exhaust ports to charge up.
If he dared to cap them, the exhaust pipes would explode; there was simply too much heat to vent.
It got to the point where Asterion had to play a dangerous game: capping them for a split second and then immediately opening them, borrowing just a tiny bit of steam propulsion while ensuring he didn't blow out the chamber.
As his tail blade sliced past Nergigante's flank once more, Asterion turned only to helplessly watch the fresh wound knit itself back together. Suddenly, a continuous stream of white lines, accompanied by a booming roar, rained down upon Nergigante!
"We're here to help you, meow! Boss Glavenus, meow!!"
A tiny figure popped out from who-knows-where, bouncing left and right off the surrounding cliff walls with extremely agile movements, before finally leaping up and bringing a sword down onto Nergigante!
Clang!!
A loud sound of deflection rang out. However, as the figure bounced off and landed smoothly, Asterion recognized who it was—the Commander's muscular Palico partner, Dot.
The little guy was holding a Palico-sized Great Sword, ready for battle.
The Hunters are joining the fight?
Asterion paused for a moment. Just then, several red munitions traced arcs through the sky and fell—Boom! Boom! Boom!!!
Cluster Bombs!!
Looking toward the origin of the arcs, Asterion saw Caly crouching on a hillside, cradling a massive Heavy Bowgun.
Wait, aren't you a Long Sword main?? Where did you get a Heavy Bowgun??!
Did you just betray the church of the Long Sword like that??
Hunters typically carried out missions in squads of four. That meant if you saw one Hunter, there were usually three others lurking nearby—a classic "Simian Wyvern: Rajang Subspecies" ambush!!
While Asterion was distracted, the Commander was already swinging his Switch Axe, hacking it into Nergigante's tail. The man definitely had some brute strength; Nergigante's raised tail was actually forced down a few inches by the sheer weight of the blow.
A total of two humans and one cat. The Commander and the Sword Master launched attacks from Nergigante's left and right, while Dot wove through Nergigante's legs, hacking left and right with his Great Sword. That cat was a bit wicked—thankfully, Nergigante didn't have testicles.
This was the first time Asterion had seen Hunters fighting in coordination. They seemed to have adopted a configuration of two melee and two ranged, with the ranged weapons providing cover for the melee attackers. Asterion noticed two lines of fire keeping the Commander and the Sword Master alive from a distance, though he only saw Caly and couldn't locate the remaining Hunter.
Caly was obviously the one with the least technical finesse, just clicking and booming with the Heavy Bowgun or spraying bullets like water. The other Hunter, however, was impressive. Whenever Nergigante got annoyed and tried to ignore injuries to bite one of the little bugs buzzing beneath him, a bullet would appear at exactly the right moment, striking a vulnerable part of Nergigante's body—like the eyes.
It didn't blow the eye out, but the pain interrupted Nergigante's movement, allowing the Commander and the Sword Master to escape the danger zone.
Damn, there's a precision sniper too?
To accurately snipe the eye of a Nergigante thrashing in a violent, unpredictable rage from a long distance—that shooting technique could be called godlike.
Just like that, despite the Hunters' stamina and strength being far inferior to Nergigante's, they forcibly pinned him down through sheer coordination.
The Commander and his team vividly demonstrated to Asterion how the "Simian Wyvern species" managed to survive and reproduce in this cruel nature, and even thrive.
"Don't just stare! Boss!!"
The Commander's face was flushed red from exertion, his voice strained as he shouted urgently.
This sudden four-dragon free-for-all had indeed exceeded the Hunters' imagination. Especially since two of them were confirmed Elder Dragons. From any perspective, the Research Commission shouldn't have participated in such a meaningless battle; observation would have been the standard protocol.
But the Commander ultimately decided to join the fight, because their old friend, Asterion, was one of the combatants.
He had to help out.
In the Commander's words: "How can we watch Boss Glavenus fight alone and just leave? Whether the Research Commission can open up a path in the New World might depend on Boss Glavenus's Grimalkyne tribe."
There was friendship, and there was interest, but mostly the former. For the Sword Master, who understood the Commander's personality well, the only thing to say was, "As expected of you."
Asterion wasn't just watching—er, at least not intentionally sitting back while the Hunters fought for their lives. He was looking for an opening.
An opportunity for a Spirit Helm Breaker!!
Nergigante, annoyed beyond measure by the Hunters, was now furious to the extreme. All he wanted was to kill these disgusting little bugs buzzing around him. And that was exactly the moment Asterion had been waiting for!!
The moment Nergigante turned his back!!
Anthropomorphic Beast Arts — Dragon Helm Breaker!!!
Without hesitation, Asterion twisted his body and thrust his tail blade out. The sword pierced directly into Nergigante's back, but that wasn't the end of it! Putting all his strength into the tail, Asterion—the entire dragon—flipped and vaulted into the air!
Leveraging the tail embedded in Nergigante's flesh and his own massive weight, he vaulted upward, then ripped the blade out mid-air!
"It's the Spirit Helm Breaker!" The Sword Master's pupils contracted, and he shouted with rare excitement, "Commander!!"
"Oh!! I know!!"
They were old friends for years; a single shout was all it took for the Commander to understand what the Sword Master meant—to create an opening for Boss Glavenus, of course!
As veteran Hunters, who didn't know what the Spirit Helm Breaker feared most?
In an instant, both the Commander and the Sword Master clung close to Nergigante's body. Even though the beast was thrashing his claws in agony from Asterion's strike, they ignored the risk, solely to pin Nergigante in place.
This was the chance Asterion had been waiting for!
It was hard to imagine how a behemoth weighing dozens of tons could leap into the air, and even harder to imagine such a behemoth adjusting its posture in mid-flight to align the sharpest edge of its tail blade perpendicular to the ground—and drop!!!
Crack-boom-crack-boom-crack-boom-crack-boom!!!
When Hunters used Long Swords to release the spirit energy wrapped around the blade, it only produced a continuous, dense crackling sound. But with Asterion's massive blade weighing dozens of tons, it was completely different. The spirit energy wrapped around the blade scales emitted sounds like explosions!
"He did it!!" The Sword Master... although his face couldn't be seen, tears were streaming down his old cheeks.
He never thought a monster could actually learn a Hunter's swordsmanship. The last time he saw Asterion, he was still just a Glavenus, unable to imbue energy into the blade no matter how he tried.
Now, he clearly saw that the light wrapped around Asterion's serrated blade had shifted from pale red to pale yellow. The Sword Master couldn't imagine how much effort Asterion must have put in, in places unknown to him, to master this technique—he loved those who worked hard!
Er, hard-working dragons included.
"Don't zone out! Master!"
The Commander charged out from the side, using his shoulder to brace his Switch Axe in Axe Mode, barely managing to deflect Nergigante's smashing tail to the side.
"Apologies." No longer distracted, the Sword Master gathered his focus, gripping his Long Sword and dodging.
Nergigante... had likely gone mad.
Asterion's Helm Breaker was the most severe injury he had sustained all day. It didn't just damage the carapace and the muscle beneath; it had wounded his internal organs.
The rage from being harassed by little bugs, the rage of being unable to eat, the rage of wounded Elder Dragon pride, the rage toward Asterion for dealing such damage, the rage at the world—Nergigante lost his reason.
First, he furiously flapped his wings, scraping and destroying the surrounding environment. A pair of razor-sharp foreclaws tore rocks to shreds, and his tail hammered madly against anything it could touch.
Finally, Nergigante simply took flight. But unlike the last time they met, Nergigante didn't fly away. Instead, he beat his wings and shot straight up into the sky.
"ROAR!!!" (DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE!!!)
Overflowing killing intent felt like it wanted to explode the entire planet. Like a demon blotting out the sun, silhouetted against the light, Nergigante spread his wings and dove!!
Dive! Spin!! Thrust!!!
In this moment, Nergigante seemed to transform into an infinitely sharp drill. The pitch-black, hardened spikes covering his body became countless razor blades, shattering everything in front of him!!
Thorn-Shattering Extinction Spin: Heaven!!
The official name of this move was very cool; Asterion remembered it clearly. He had been guarding against this specific move for a long time—it was the ultimate technique Nergigante used only when the spikes all over his body reached their hardest state.
When Nergigante shot into the sky without flying away, Asterion realized something was wrong. The Hunters, seeing this move for the first time, were completely unprepared. Asterion didn't want these people, who had come with good intentions to help him and even assisted his successful Helm Breaker, to get hurt.
In that electric instant, Asterion violently twisted his body and swung his tail. The sharp serrated blade forcibly scooped up a massive slab of rock from the ground. Asterion charged forward, bracing the rock slab diagonally at his side.
"ROAR!!" (Get in!)
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