Looking at the Odogaron that had taken a wary stance against him, Andrew could clearly feel the corrosion of Ether energy upon it.
Under normal circumstances, when a hunter encountered an Odogaron in the wild, they would leave each other in peace. As long as one didn't attack first, there would be no problems.
However, the Odogaron Andrew faced had its aggression and desire to attack everything around it amplified many times over. And Ether corruption always began by affecting the mind.
The most obvious symptom was the amplification of all kinds of negative emotions—be it irritability, rage, pessimism, or nihilism, they would all begin to manifest significantly after a period of Ether corruption. The symptoms of Ether corruption were already starting to appear in this Odogaron.
Seeing that Andrew had no intention of leaving and was instead continuing to approach, the Odogaron locked onto him as an enemy and fully entered a combat state. Or rather, the battle lust that had been gradually cooling down instantly reignited within its body.
As if charging up, the Odogaron first lowered its head, then threw it back, unleashing a deafening roar that felt powerful enough to shatter everything around it.
ROOOAR—!
Such a massive and terrifying roar made even Caesar, who was dealing with the small, constantly appearing Ethereals in the distance, feel an involuntary shiver. She ignored the Ethereals that couldn't even dent her shield and glanced back worriedly toward Andrew's battlefield, unable to suppress the anxiety welling up inside her.
But amidst the deafening roar stood Andrew's completely unfazed figure.
Seeing the Odogaron lower its head, Andrew, the veteran hunter, knew instantly that the beast was preparing its signature opening roar.
Without pausing his advance, he rushed in front of the Odogaron and delivered an Advancing Slash, the powerful vertical chop instantly leaving a gash on the beast's right foreleg.
But such a minor wound couldn't affect the Odogaron's movements. Its lowered head began to rise, and just as it reached its highest point, the deafening roar erupted.
For Andrew, however, the wind-up for this move was ridiculously slow—slow enough for him to follow up with a Rising Slash. As its head had just begun to lift, the Advancing Slash had already landed, immediately followed by a Rising Slash. By the time the Odogaron's head was halfway up, the primary goal of those two slashes had already been achieved.
"Foresight Slash!"
The moment the Rising Slash animation ended, Andrew swiftly pulled his tachi back, assuming the Foresight Slash stance.
As the roar hit, Andrew's successful Foresight Slash granted him immunity to the stun, even without earplugs, and he simultaneously swung his tachi with force. A horizontal slash added a crossing wound over the gash from the Advancing Slash, immediately followed by the final part of the counter: the Spirit Roundslash. The sweeping tachi sliced across the Odogaron's lower leg, parting its red hide and drawing fresh crimson blood.
Although the wounds weren't deep, taking three hits during a single intimidation roar was enough to send the Odogaron into an immediate rage. An Odogaron already in its second phase, now combined with an enraged state, could be considered the beast in its strongest form.
Facing Andrew, the Odogaron aimed its head, took a slight hop back to create distance, and then lunged with a bottom-to-top bite, its jaws opened to their absolute limit. The biting motion resembled an uppercut, striking fiercely toward Andrew, but its wide-open maw full of sharp teeth made it clear this was far deadlier than any punch. Empowered by its second phase, the force of the upward bite scraping along the ground was so immense that it kicked up a huge cloud of dust. If an ordinary person were hit by that, it would be an instant goodbye to this world.
But Andrew wasn't the least bit flustered. With an almost casual grace, he took a small hop to the left, tachi in hand, perfectly evading the bite's attack range. Although this attack could have been easily countered with a Foresight Slash, Andrew had no intention of doing so. The reason was simple: he knew the move the Odogaron loved to combo into right after this bite.
Now on the Odogaron's left side, Andrew aimed his tachi at its firm, muscular foreleg and landed a Thrust followed by a Rising Slash, successfully carving another gash into its left foreleg.
The Dullahan Tachi, which had already reached a yellow charge by the end of the fight with Corrupted Overlord - Pompey, had now been charged again by the successful Foresight Slash at the start of this battle, and was now glowing with a brilliant crimson light. The sharp, eye-catching gleam of the blade made its danger obvious to anyone who saw it. This was also the first time Andrew had brought the Dullahan Tachi to a red charge since crafting it. His previous opponents had all been defeated long before he needed a red charge. Now, he could finally say he'd met his first opponent worthy of his full strength.
An aura of sharpness radiated from the blade. Empowered by the red charge, the two slashes Andrew dealt to the left leg caused even more damage than the three wounds on the right foreleg.
And the next move was the second part of the Odogaron's lightning-fast three-hit combo.
Seeing its bite miss, the Odogaron quickly hopped back to create distance from Andrew again, simultaneously adjusting its position to face him head-on. Immediately after, the Odogaron raised its right claw, lunged forward, and slammed it down viciously at Andrew, its talons spread wide like a fan of sharp longswords. Its four walking claws and two dewclaws—six talons in total—formed a wide net, completely enveloping Andrew under their threat.
Faced with this incoming claw swipe, Andrew unhesitatingly went for another Foresight Slash. A single step back caused the Odogaron's claws to swipe through empty air. From Andrew's perspective, he could even see the fleshy pads hidden between its talons.
The tachi, pulled back behind him, lashed out the instant the Odogaron's attack missed, carving another deep wound into its right foreleg. With the tachi at a red charge, the damage from this Foresight Slash was no mere shallow cut. Though the wound cut deep into its muscle, causing immense pain, it didn't hinder the Odogaron's movements. Instead, it only fueled its ferocity.
Seeing that both its bite and claw swipe had failed to hit their target, it immediately changed tactics.
The Odogaron abruptly reared up, standing erect like a human. But this was no pet dog pouncing playfully on its master. A beast of this size pouncing on someone would be no joke, and the Odogaron had no such gentle intentions.
Using gravity and the force of its lunge, the Odogaron slammed its foreclaws into the ground while closing the distance to Andrew, then immediately followed up with a tail-whip that used its entire body.
This tail-whip caused the Odogaron to rotate its body in mid-air, like a backflip, its thick, powerful tail swinging like a massive longsword with its body acting as the hilt. Graceful, yet deadly.
The immensely threatening tail-whip smashed into the concrete ground, creating a large web of cracks, with the point of impact shattering into countless small pieces. The deafening crash was easily on par with the Odogaron's earlier full-throated roar, but the threat posed by the attack was on a whole other level.
But all of this was within Andrew's control. It wasn't even enough to cause the slightest ripple in his composure. To remain calm in battle—that was the most profound and important lesson Andrew had learned from the Sapphire Star.
_____
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