However, much to Asterion's regret, for some unknown reason, he still couldn't directly detonate an area spanning dozens of miles like a Teostra could.
If it was just breathing fire, too many Wyverns could do that.
Perhaps his output was insufficient?
Or maybe he lacked the necessary organs to generate force?
In short, Asterion, who had excitedly charged up the hill preparing to scorch a few miles of land to test the waters, found that he couldn't easily influence the surrounding natural environment on a large scale like a Teostra at all. It was truly disappointing for a dragon.
He also couldn't release blast powder to attack like a Teostra. That powder was actually Teostra's aging body tissues, released through its mouth or gaps in its carapace during combat—quite in line with Capcom-style science.
Asterion, having not eaten the Teostra's carapace or other body parts, didn't know how to evolve that kind of shell capable of turning into blast powder. If he really could release blast powder, it would feel a bit like a proper Deviant monster: a Hellblade Glavenus.
Unfortunately, he couldn't.
For a while, Asterion didn't even dare to wander around or poke his head out above ground, terrified that Nergigante was still patrolling the southern part of the Wildspire Waste. After all, he had scavenged the most valuable trophy from the Teostra's corpse—normally, that Teostra should have been devoured completely by Nergigante alone.
He wondered if that guy would lack the energy to develop... well, Asterion didn't care.
Without any profit to be made, he had no intention of fighting a great battle against Nergigante.
This feeling of holing up in the nest, eating and waiting to die, was actually quite nice. The food hunted previously was enough for him and the Grimalkyne tribe to last a long time. As time passed, the plants the Grimalkynes had sown during the rainy season also reached their harvest day.
The vigorous vitality of the New World made plants grow much faster than in the Old World. Five harvests a year was not a dream—of course, that referred to plants in the Ancient Forest, not the countryside of the Wildspire Waste where bioenergy flow was blocked.
But even so, the fresh green vegetables were enough to enrich Asterion's meals. The plan to hide from Nergigante's search ironically allowed him to take a proper rest for the first time since he was born. No need to run for food, no need to fight for evolution; he even put aside the matter of opening a path to the Ancient Forest area.
Every day was just eating and sleeping, or messing around with the Kulu-Ya-Ku brother. That bird thing was getting smarter and smarter; not only was its speech becoming more fluent, but its way of thinking was also gradually breaking away from the low-level pleasures of eating and sleeping... hmm, something seemed wrong?
Whatever.
In short, when Asterion stepped onto the surface again, the sun in the Wildspire Waste was blindingly bright.
"A dragon in the mountains knows no passage of time, nor what year it is tonight"—Asterion really wanted to recite a poem like that, celebrating the success of his great evolution and his current leisurely days.
If he hadn't seen that guy in the sky, screaming honk-honk while diving towards him.
Dun-dun! Dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun-dun! Dun-dun!
It's here, it's here! The mysterious music that automatically plays in the mind!!
Asterion almost put on a mask of agony. There was absolutely no need to doubt; looking at the Bazelgeuse's straight diving trajectory, Asterion knew that guy's target was definitely him. He wanted to turn around and go back underground immediately, but he didn't want the empty-handed Bazelgeuse to mark this location.
After all, this really was his home, and the cats were active all around.
Boom!!
A Bazelgeuse's entrance can never be separated from explosions. This guy forcibly smashed himself onto the ground. To prevent this crude landing method from hurting himself, the Bazelgeuse even triggered an explosion just before impact as a buffer.
This guy was domineering to the core.
"Hrooar!!" (Finally! Found you!!)
That short roar sounded filled with countless intense emotions to Asterion. It was hard to imagine that on the Bazelgeuse's ugly face, where all five features were scrunching together, one could see a kind of...
Well, an expression mixed with anger and excitement—perhaps in his little eyes?
"Roar." (You're still alive?)
Compared to the Bazelgeuse's enthusiasm, Asterion's greeting was a bit unfriendly.
It wasn't surprising. The Bazelgeuse had "I'm here to cause trouble" written all over him from head to tail. The reason Asterion hadn't attacked before he landed wasn't out of friendliness, but because he couldn't suppress the urge to curse at him a couple of times first.
"Hrooar!!!" (You are purely a bastard! Bad dragon! Stupid dragon!! Why did you run away!!)
Uh, it sounded like the Bazelgeuse was full of resentment towards Asterion for leaving him there to face Nergigante alone. This resentment even overshadowed his battle lust to beat the hell out of Asterion.
It was just that the words the Bazelgeuse shouted were somewhat "refined." To a guy like Asterion who had spent his previous life intensely surfing the internet, they had zero lethality.
"Roar?" (So how did you survive?)
Since the Bazelgeuse didn't intend to start fighting immediately upon meeting, Asterion was also a bit curious about what happened after he ran away back then—he had thought Nergigante would take his anger out on the Bazelgeuse, turning him into a skewer of seared blasting scales or something.
"Hrooar!!" (Of course, by fighting!!)
The Bazelgeuse gave Asterion an irrefutable answer.
"Hroooar hrooar!!" (Cowardly dragon! Weakling! Why did you sneak away!!)
The Bazelgeuse was still condemning him.
"Roar roar! Roar roar roar!" (Correction: I didn't run away secretly. I ran away openly and above board. You saw it, but you were still eating there.)
"Hrooar!!" (You ate first!! We were still fighting! You took a bite out of him!!)
The Bazelgeuse was anxious. For a dragon as simple, honest, and kind (the last point is doubtful) as him, Asterion's conduct was truly a bit too "un-dragon-like," to the point where he didn't even want to fight immediately upon meeting.
"Roar roar roar!" (You are a mature dragon, you have your own understanding. Whether to run or not is your own business.)
Asterion felt no guilt regarding the Bazelgeuse's accusations. He simply ignored monsters he didn't like.
"Hrooar!!" (Clearly, you were fighting very comfortably too!!)
"Hrooar!!" (We defeated them together!! We even killed one!!)
The Bazelgeuse narrowed his eyes. He seemed to be reminiscing about that day's battle, cooperating intimately with this strange dragon in front of him, and even defeating the Spiky Dragon that he could never beat when he was alone.
"Roar roar! Roar roar roar!!" (The battle is already over! I never thought about being teammates with you for a lifetime!)
Asterion widened his eyes and roared. He felt this Bazelgeuse seemed to have some subtle expectations of him—especially with these strange words.
"Roar roar roar!!" (Fighting isn't happy at all! What I want is valuable food! Evolution! Not inexplicable battles!!)
Shaking his head, Asterion felt he was probably being a bit silly. How could a normal dragon have a conversation with a battle maniac? They weren't on the same wavelength.
"Hrooar." (No, fighting is the best.)
When words don't agree, half a sentence is too much. Especially for a dragon like the Bazelgeuse who could smell a battle from miles away; Asterion's pursuit was something he couldn't understand at all.
Flinging his tail violently, he threw out a large amount of blasting scales, plastering Asterion's face with a chain of explosions. Not knowing how to talk to Asterion, the Bazelgeuse chose to act directly.
Like sudden relief from constipation, after deciding to make a move, the Bazelgeuse felt his brain, which had been knotted to the point of spasms, suddenly clear up.
This suited him better.
And Asterion had no intention of holding back either. Even though they had cooperated tacitly when fighting Teostra and Nergigante together, and had saved each other's lives many times—sure enough, this way of interacting suited dragons a bit better.
The blade scales on his sword-tail popped out again, his knotted muscles vibrating at high speed. If he found an opportunity during the battle, Asterion prepared to cut the Bazelgeuse down directly; he was actually quite interested in the blasting scales on the Bazelgeuse's body.
Boom!
Boom boom boom!
Constantly bombing everything around with blasting scales, this Bazelgeuse's stamina was simply frighteningly high. From the start of the battle until now, the explosions he released hadn't stopped. Relying on these dense and high-power explosions, Asterion couldn't do anything to him for a while.
As expected of a veteran who had survived and escaped from the hands of an angry Nergigante multiple times. One could only say that with the Bazelgeuse's style of conduct, being able to live this long and grow this big relied purely on strength.
But Asterion had new tricks.
Horizontal slash, thrust, fire sweep—follow up with fire sweep—Great Fire Breath!!
Suddenly displaying a skill that had never appeared in the previous two battles, while the Bazelgeuse was completely unguarded and before Asterion retracted the sword-tail he had swung out, he abruptly opened his mouth and spewed fire at the Bazelgeuse who was close at hand!
Glavenus zero-delay jet flames. Zero seconds warm-up, instant fire tongue, a full one thousand three hundred degrees Celsius high temperature, letting the fire purify everything!
The Bazelgeuse was completely unprepared. After all, having gone through two great battles, he thought he already understood this strange dragon with the sharp tail very well. He knew how he dealt the most damage and knew his habitual attack methods.
Therefore, even when Asterion's head briefly approached him after a tail swipe, the Bazelgeuse didn't panic at all, because he knew this strange dragon preferred to use his tail to launch attacks—and then he got sprayed in the face.
"Hrooar!!!"
The scorching flames even charred the scales on the Bazelgeuse's scalp. As a fellow fire-element monster, and one accustomed to trading injuries with explosions, this bit of fire wasn't enough to burn a hole through the Bazelgeuse's head, but it was enough to enrage him.
WAR!!
—This battle raged from daylight until nightfall.
Just like setting off firecrackers for the New Year, the Bazelgeuse's explosions rang out forcefully from day to night. It was unknown where he got so much stamina to continue secreting blasting scales while maintaining high-intensity physical combat.
Panting heavily, Asterion's gaze was locked dead onto the Bazelgeuse. That guy's club-like head was faintly flickering with a layer of bewitching purple-blue light, as if the Bazelgeuse's brain had been heated up; even those scales on his scalp that should have been silver-gray were faintly burned dark red.
This Bazelgeuse should have already approached the limit of his body. At any moment, under the accumulation of bioenergy, he might step into the next level—Seething Bazelgeuse.
Even more troublesome... and the meat quality is better too?
Asterion just felt that he seemed to have lost out again. He had wasted a day of hunting time fighting a powerful monster for nothing, and even lost a lot of stamina and bioenergy due to the battle.
He was tired.
The Bazelgeuse was tired too.
The Bazelgeuse had just wanted to run and charge over to hit Asterion with a Wyvern rush, then ruthlessly wrap him up with his wings for a wrestling explosion, but unfortunately, the Bazelgeuse, who was already so tired he was delirious, almost tripped while running. Asterion dodged for nothing.
Thud!!
Finally, with a heavy sound of falling to the ground, the Bazelgeuse seemed to have finally collapsed from exhaustion. He lay there stiffly, half a wing still covering his body, only his torso rising and falling rapidly—a look of being completely out of breath.
Theoretically speaking, this was an excellent opportunity, but Asterion did not approach rashly—he was afraid this Bazelgeuse was pretending to be done for.
Yes, pretending.
Asterion had thought this kind of high-level technique only existed in a smart head like his own, possessing wisdom from a past life, but he hadn't expected to be taught a harsh lesson by the Bazelgeuse just now.
That guy pretended to collapse from lack of stamina due to over-secreting blasting scales. When Asterion thought he saw an opening and charged over, the guy lunged directly from the ground, hugged Asterion's thigh, and delivered a head-and-tail double explosion—it was simply an unforgettable memory, making Asterion never dare to believe any monster's knockdown again.
Constantly steadying his breathing, Asterion supported himself with his sword-tail and sat on the ground. His tail pipe was emitting steam rapidly again.
After sitting for a while and seeing the Bazelgeuse still lying there like a dead dragon refusing to get up, Asterion simply lay down on the ground too.
The moon had risen early. Even though the sky hadn't turned completely dark yet, the moon's brilliance was barely visible under the illumination of the sunset glow.
Even the sounds of chirping insects had disappeared due to the fierce battle earlier. Aside from the wind that never ceased, the only things left in this space at this moment seemed to be the heavy breathing sounds of two dragons.
"...Roar." (I hate Elder Dragons.)
When the orange-red sunset glow completely disappeared behind the distant hills, out of the blue, Asterion suddenly spoke.
Since the Bazelgeuse decided to carry on playing dead to the end, he couldn't be bothered to move either. He might as well lie there and have a good rest.
The starry sky tonight was very bright, illuminating the surrounding stones, which had been burned black or glowing red, as if it were daytime.
"...Hrooar." (Then you should fight even more.)
The Bazelgeuse's way of thinking was always so simple and direct. For things he liked, he had to fight; otherwise, he couldn't express his love. For things he didn't like, he had to fight even more; only then could he make the things he disliked stop appearing in front of him.
Fighting was the highest standard of his dragon life. He had even evolved an instinct to detect the aura of battle from a long distance for this purpose—truly fantastical.
"Roar roar, roar roar roar." (Mindless fighting will only get you killed quickly. Sooner or later, you'll run into a dragon you can't beat... why don't you understand, you blockhead?)
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