Thin trails of blue smoke rose from its body as the Seregios propped itself up with its Wingtalons, struggling to stand.
Sajji hadn't expected the lightning strike to be this effective.
It was true that he had used a similar method to kill a Nerscylla before, but that Nerscylla had already been on the brink of death from severe wounds. Furthermore, in terms of both physical size and sheer vitality, a Seregios stood on an entirely different level than a Nerscylla.
According to his original plan, if he could draw down lightning to leave the Seregios in a state of paralysis for a brief moment, buying some time for Lady Shalan to treat the boss, it would have been more than enough.
Had the lightning failed to strike, or if the effect had been lackluster, he had even planned to blow his horn to lead the enemy away using his own body as bait.
Who could have guessed that this bolt would nearly strike the Seregios dead...
It was a pity that of the Lightning Rods he had prepared in advance, he could only find this one usable one. Otherwise, a few more hits might have actually finished the beast off.
Seeing Altaïr sprinting toward them with his Dual Blades in hand, the heart that had been stuck in Sajji's throat finally settled back down.
"The Rathalos Express and the Rakna-Kadaki Express have both been destroyed, meow! That was the only Ammo for the Zinogre Express, meow!" he shouted to report the situation to Altaïr.
Falling from such a height, it was a stroke of luck to find anything useful at all.
"Don't worry! Leave the rest to me!"
Altaïr's objective was clear as he charged straight for the Seregios's hind legs.
The Seregios shook its body violently several times, finally shaking off the muscle spasms and paralysis.
Seeing the Hunter, who should have lost the ability to move, suddenly restored to full vigor, the Seregios was naturally consumed with rage. It pivoted its body and swung its massive tail, seemingly intent on crushing the Hunter in a single blow.
Faced with the incoming attack, Altaïr instantly deduced the Seregios's true intent.
Perhaps he hadn't realized it himself, but during that previous life-and-death clash, it wasn't just the activity level of his fighting spirit that had broken through; even his processing speed had significantly accelerated.
His eyes darted rapidly as he suddenly shifted direction.
Reaching a large tree just a second before the tail arrived, he lunged upward, kicking off the trunk for leverage. This propelled him nearly a meter higher into the air, allowing him to evade the heavy Tail Swipe with a back-check jump.
His speed didn't falter upon landing as he continued his charge toward the Seregios a few meters away.
Meanwhile, the Seregios used the momentum of its tail swing to leap into the air, spreading its wings to stabilize itself while using the inertia to retreat backward.
Altaïr certainly remembered this move: a horizontal tail sweep followed by a repositioning leap, leading into a wide-range bombardment of Bladescale. He had suffered a major setback from this very combo earlier.
With his jumping ability, a simple back-jump would have cleared the low-sweeping tail; why bother kicking off the tree trunk for leverage?
The reason was speed.
By using that extra push, he was able to maintain his high-speed sprint upon landing, staying hot on the heels of the Seregios as it maneuvered through the air. He closed the distance back to its front the moment it touched the ground.
The Seregios hadn't even noticed the Hunter had reached its underside. After landing, it continued its rotating momentum and whipped its tail violently, showering a large area ahead with Bladescale.
To make it easier to launch the scales, this particular tail swing was not aimed close to the ground. Using the inertia of his dash, Altaïr ducked into a low slide, slipping beneath the dragon's tail just before those Bladescale could be fired. While successfully evading the sweeping barrage, he reached the space between the Seregios's legs.
Rising with a Sliding Slash, he immediately followed up with a Demon Flurry Rush to repeatedly carve into the Seregios's ankles, simultaneously adjusting his positioning to the optimal point where he could strike both legs at once.
Then came a full-power Blade Dance!
Under the ultra-high frequency of the slashes, the Seregios's ankles were ground into a bloody mess. Dragon blood stained the Hunter's armor, and a fierce but scattered Spirit began to coalesce at an alarming rate.
Archdemon Mode activated!
"Gaoooo!!"
Altaïr's Blade Dance continued. The Seregios, finally reacting to the pain, realized the Hunter had crawled beneath it. It hurriedly lifted one hind claw and prepared to lash out backward.
"Got greedy, meow," Shalan muttered from a distance, licking her paw as she watched the battle.
It was extremely difficult to interrupt the momentum of a Blade Dance to dodge. In her view, completing one round of the dance had been enough; starting a second one so recklessly was far too aggressive.
However, just as she was preparing to provide emergency support, Altaïr's response exceeded her expectations.
As if his feet had tripped and he was about to fall, his body tilted at an incredibly awkward angle, twisting his waist to shift the powerful, hard-to-break inertia of the Blade Dance into a horizontal rotational force.
Like a high-speed spinning top, his entire body slid backward several meters, narrowly evading the Seregios's clawing strike.
A deep blue aura of Spirit then flared upon his blades; Blue Demon Mode activated.
"Meow?"
Shalan paused in her tracks, blinking in surprise. "Switching from Blade Dance into an Advancing Slash to use the momentum for repositioning, meow?"
For a Dual Blades user, this was a highly advanced technique. The key lay in the precise control over the timing of the transition and the inertia of the movement.
Even she had only witnessed similar techniques from one or two renowned Dual Blades users.
But unlike those masters, Altaïr's grasp of timing and movement clearly wasn't that refined yet; the fellow had managed it purely by relying on his own absurd physical coordination to force the twist.
"He really is a ridiculous guy, meow..."
Naturally unaware that "Lady Shalan" was critiquing him, Altaïr decisively deactivated his demonization state after using the backward "Advancing" slash to timely evade the attack.
Adjusting breathing and heartbeat while in Archdemon Mode to recover stamina, and continuously accumulating Spirit while in Demon Mode to trigger Archdemon Mode...
As long as one mastered this cycle, a Dual Blades user could maintain high-intensity combat for long periods.
"Reeeeee!"
Having temporarily forced the Hunter away from its feet with the backward kick, the Seregios took the opportunity to turn around. Pressing its body low and exerting force through its back, it suddenly lunged forward, thrusting its sword-like single horn toward the Hunter.
Stepping back into a slide, Altaïr easily evaded the headbutt, but he did not relax. Instead, a warning bell rang in his mind.
From the engagement so far, he had noticed that this Seregios's attacks possessed incredible continuity.
One move was often followed by an even deadlier follow-up, much like the Bladescale barrage that immediately followed the jumping Tail Swipe. A swipe like the one just now didn't even count as a real move and wasn't worth considering.
Take this headbutt, for instance; the movement was telegraphed and large, yet the actual attack range was mediocre, creating a jarring sense of cognitive dissonance, like watching someone wind up for a haymaker only to throw a short, sharp jab.
Monsters didn't do meaningless things without reason; this was likely a "filler move" designed to set up a far more powerful follow-up.
Altaïr tensed his legs slightly, bracing himself for the subsequent assault.
Just as he expected, the Seregios did not stop after the headbutt missed. It used the momentum to tuck its wings and leap into the air. As its wings furled and unfurled, its body, reflecting the piercing sunlight, spun fluidly through a full rotation in mid-air.
Before that golden glare and the dance-like grace of the movement, the Hunter's attention was inevitably diverted for a split second.
In that fleeting moment, the Seregios snapped its wings wide, and the Wyvern Claws hidden behind them kicked downward in a savage strike.
Altaïr was profoundly grateful he had prepared himself early. The moment the sharp talons lunged, he pivoted with explosive force, his body entering a high-speed spin once more. In the blink of an eye, he performed a Sliding Slash five or six meters to the side, narrowly evading the deceptive strike.
The razor-sharp Wyvern Claws plowed a furrow over a meter deep into the earth. Carried by its immense inertia, the monster lunged forward another two body-lengths before it managed to come to a halt.
Having survived the brush with death, Altaïr charged once more, closing the distance at full speed.
His previous setbacks had taught him one absolute rule: Never! Under no circumstances could he let the Seregios open up the distance!
That timely decision saved his life once again.
Before the Seregios could even stabilize itself after the missed spinning kick, it beat its wings violently, soaring nearly twenty meters into the sky.
Its body coiled to Charge, then, propelled by its wings, it dove back down to earth, aiming a full-strength kick at the Hunter.
The power and speed of this strike far surpassed the previous mid-air spin-kick. Forget a direct hit, even a glancing blow would surely result in shattered bones and torn tendons.
Facing the Seregios as it hurtled toward him like a meteor, Altaïr made a split-second judgment.
Run backward? Evade to the left or right? None of those would work. Changing its trajectory mid-air was likely a simple task for a master of flight like the Seregios.
The only way was to run straight at it!
Whether the monster kicked toward the front-left, front-right, or further out in front, no matter how it adjusted its strike, the momentum would always be forward.
If he could reach the space beneath or even behind it before the attack landed, even the most ferocious kick would find nothing but air!
Without a moment's hesitation, Altaïr entered Demon Mode once again.
Demon Mode, Archdemon Mode, and Blue Demon Mode; with these multiple states stacked, his explosive speed reached an unprecedented level.
In a literal flash, he vanished from the Seregios's line of sight, darting directly beneath its massive form.
With that, he had successfully evaded the Seregios's long-plotted combo.
But dodging alone would not kill the Monster.
As the Seregios streaked over his head, Altaïr raised his arm and fired the Clutch Claw, latching onto one of its hind legs.
The massive force transmitted through the cable nearly dislocated his shoulder.
He reeled himself in, closing the gap instantly. At the exact moment the monster's kick struck the empty earth and it tilted sideways, off-balance and exposing its underbelly, Altaïr launched his entire body into a high-speed aerial spin.
Transforming into a whirlwind of blades, he began his Midair Spinning Blade Dance at the wound on the Seregios's leg, carving a path through the thigh, belly, and chest, all the way to the back of its neck.
Countless narrow gashes connected into a single line, nearly splitting the Seregios open from throat to tail.
Already off-balance from the missed Charged kick, the Seregios took the heavy blow and lost all stability, crashing to the ground with a pained wail.
Twisting in mid-air to adjust his posture, Altaïr landed, kicking up a cloud of fallen leaves as he spun through several rotations to fully bleed off the inertia of the Midair Spinning Blade Dance.
The poorly healed wounds on his legs tore open under the extreme strain, and his muscles and heart screamed in warning from the frequent use of Demon Mode.
Ignoring the dire signals coming from every part of his body, Altaïr flourished his Dual Blades and charged toward the struggling, downed Seregios once more.
He had one goal: to finish it with a final Blade Dance.
(Translated by yourtl.app)
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TL NOTES — LORE SECTION
Some terms and creatures referenced in this story may be unfamiliar to readers new to the Monster Hunter universe. The following entries provide additional context.
SKILLS & TECHNIQUES
Advancing Slash — A Dual Blades technique used to reposition during combat by converting the inertia of a spinning attack into a directional sliding movement. Shalan identifies Altaïr's improvised use of this technique, noting that it is considered a high-level maneuver requiring precise timing and body control.