Bai Chen stood before the colossal titan—an ancient mountain of molten stone and cracking plates of magma.
Information flickered across his vision.
Level 82.
Fire / Rock typing.
A trait granting Ground typing.
Ancient Dragon Blood adds the Dragon typing.
A creature bearing four full attributes in one body.
And sealed within it—its crown-ranked ability, Volcanic Shell.
Bad news: Zorah Magdaros was absurdly powerful.
Good news: it's a "late-age seal," much like Cosmog's Legendary Seal, which had locked away the majority of that power.
Its danger level had fallen from 13 to 11.
A system prompt appeared.
[Hunt Mission Activated — First Wild Elder Dragon Victory]
[Objective: Capture or defeat Zorah Magdaros within 3 days]
[Failure: Zorah escapes]
[Reward: 150,000 Skill Proficiency, Blank Ancient Dragon Gene Egg ×1]
The reward was intoxicating.
But Bai Chen understood—earning it would not be easy.
He looked behind him. Indeedee, Tinkatuff, Cosmog, Zinogre, and Basarios waited silently.
They obeyed only him—not the Commander.
│ "Begin," Bai Chen said. "Indeedee—Psychic Terrain."
│ "Fuu~."
Indeedee lifted her hands; pink energy rippled outward, tinting the entire battlefield in a warm psychic glow.
Hunters nearby startled at the sudden shift in the air—until they noticed who cast it. Then they forced themselves to refocus.
Boom—!
The first cannon fired, signaling the start of the battle.
Heavy ballistae and siege cannons roared to life, bombarding the distant Elder Dragon.
Bai Chen and Indeedee used psychic force to load and aim volleys of cannon fire, unleashing a steady rain of explosions against Zorah Magdaros.
Tinkatuff and Cosmog hauled ammunition like a disciplined support crew.
Zinogre and Basarios held position, waiting for the boarding phase.
Explosions blossomed across Zorah's massive shell.
The beast roared—those bombs hurt.
Slowly, painfully, it pushed forward.
Bai Chen watched its movements, expression calm.
This behemoth moved slowly—painfully slowly.
From entering cannon range to reaching the gate would take twenty minutes… enough time for half the stockpiled ammo to be spent.
Below, several hunters loading ammunition froze when ten cannons near them suddenly loaded and fired themselves.
They looked up in shock.
│ "Don't freeze," Bai Chen called, waving a hand. "There are more cannons that need crews."
That snapped them out of it. They didn't know how he was doing this—they only knew now wasn't the time to ask.
Minutes passed.
Cannon barrels glowed red, distorted by heat, forcing Bai Chen to slow his firing rate.
And Zorah Magdaros began to retaliate.
Acid-winged wyverns surged overhead—a living tide.
Hunters tensed, but Bai Chen had already spoken.
│ "Zinogre—handle them."
Zinogre dropped his mini-form, thunder erupting from his body.
│ "Awooooo—!"
He leapt atop the barricade, lightning splitting the sky.
And then—
Ten-Thousandfold Thunderclap.
A storm of divine lightning tore through the air, shredding the flock of Acid Wingdrakes instantly.
Hunters gaped, speechless.
Was this… really something a Zinogre could do?
With the skies cleared, cannon fire resumed at full force.
Then, Bai Chen stiffened.
Heat surged from Zorah's throat.
│ "Magma breath incoming!"
Zorah's jaw glowed molten red, aiming directly at Bai Chen's platform.
│ "Indeedee—assist!"
Together, they seized a boulder the size of a cottage—twenty cubic meters—and wrenched it off a cliff edge.
Gravity did the rest.
Boom—!
The falling boulder slammed into Zorah's snout, forcing its jaws shut and cancelling the breath attack.
The danger spike in Bai Chen's mind vanished.
He resumed bombardment.
Minutes bled away.
More cannons melted into unusable slag.
│ "If ours are empty… then we borrow theirs."
Bai Chen casually teleported distant ammunition to his side.
A dozen cannonballs rose into the air behind him, suspended by psychic force.
│ "Fire."
They shot forward like railgun rounds, detonating across Zorah's shell.
Hunters across the wall stared.
He was manually firing cannonballs by hand—
—and achieving higher accuracy than the cannons.
│ "Is he… still a normal person?" someone whispered.
But there was no time to dwell.
Zorah's HP dropped below half.
It slammed into the reinforced barrier—shattering it easily.
The Commander shouted:
│ "Prepare for boarding! Launch the binders—NOW!"
Hundreds of massive, barbed ballista bolts were fired, embedding into Zorah's shell and anchoring to steel mounts along the cliffs.
But Zorah's strength was too great—some mounts tore free.
This shouldn't be happening.
In the original timeline, Zorah was weakened enough that binders held.
But because Bai Chen had sped the fight, Zorah had conserved more strength.
It was about to break free.
Bai Chen's eyes narrowed.
He kicked off the wall, levitating toward the Commander.
│ "Commander! Reinforce every binding mount! I'll stop Zorah myself!"
The Commander stared.
│ "You… have a way to halt an Elder Dragon!?"
Bai Chen raised his Dynamax Band.
│ "To stop a Behemoth—"
│ "—You use another Behemoth."
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