Charging head-on at an enraged Monster was not exactly wise, and that last furious assault had done enough to vent her pent-up anger. Isis forced herself to calm down and began circling her target.
The ground was now coated in bubbling slick fluid from the Mizutsune's constant movements, making it a poor place to launch an aggressive offensive. Isis moved cautiously, trying to shift the battlefield.
But the Mizutsune, still seething after the beating it had just taken, clearly had no intention of letting the Hunters slip away so easily.
Its long, sinuous body twisted like a coiled spring, muscles tensing as it gathered power, and in the next instant, it shot forward, spiraling through the air like a drill.
Isis had never seen a charge attack like this before, but she had to admit that, aided by the slick fluid, the Mizutsune's explosive burst of speed rivaled that of many large monsters built purely for running on land.
With a Gunlance user's pitiful mobility, dodging such an attack was no easy task. So Isis chose a different approach.
The slippery fluid coating the ground was not entirely a disadvantage for her, it seemed.
She kicked off, sliding sideways as her Gunlance fired repeatedly. The slick ground offered almost no friction, making running extremely difficult, but when combined with the recoil from the Gunlance's shelling...
She could slide around! So that was what Mr. Az meant by "move like an octopus"! Now I get it!
With a combination of side-slips and shelling, Isis dodged the Mizutsune's spiraling charge in the blink of an eye, covering a great distance. But the Mizutsune's furious assault was not about to end so easily.
Realizing its attack had missed, it twisted its body with snakelike speed, its massive tail, deceptively beautiful yet packed with raw muscle, sweeping horizontally toward the Hunter's evasive path.
Ever vigilant, Isis immediately raised her Large Shield to protect herself. But instead of planting herself in a Defensive Stance to brace for impact as she usually would have done...
She kept her shield steady while stepping backward, retreating with the blow.
This was a defensive technique rarely used by Tanks: by retreating in the direction of an incoming attack at the moment of impact, a Hunter could effectively bleed off part of the force.
The trade-off, however, was a high risk of losing balance, or even being sent flying.
"Boom!"
Even after doing everything she could to absorb the impact, a powerful blow still reverberated through her shield and arm.
The slick fluid covering the ground worked its magic once again. Isis felt the scenery around her blur backward, and in a single instant, she was sent sliding nearly ten meters away.
The stable lower body she had forged through rigorous daily training kept her from falling during that long slide. Isis flexed her shield-bearing right arm and looked up, an odd expression on her face.
This skating-like combat experience felt both bizarre and novel to her.
While Isis and the Mizutsune circled each other in this slippery dance, Nymera was far from idle.
She used her Wirebug to constantly adjust her firing angles, the roar of the Valkyrie Fire in her hands almost never ceasing.
Nearly all the Flaming Ammo she carried had been unloaded into the Mizutsune's left foreleg.
A Mizutsune covered in thick, slippery mucus was not particularly vulnerable to fire under normal circumstances, but under Nymera's relentless assault, the secretion there could no longer be replenished fast enough to withstand the searing Flaming Ammo.
Scorched again and again by the high heat, the once-tough, gleaming white scales gradually charred yellow and grew brittle.
Sensing that the moment was right, Nymera ejected the Flaming Ammo magazine and pressed two especially large Bowgun Ammo rounds into the chamber.
They were Sticky Ammo, the most powerful conventional ammo type.
Typically used to target a Monster's head, it shattered carapace and delivered concussive force to the brain. Its internal delayed fuse allowed multiple Sticky Ammo rounds to be fired first, then detonated simultaneously for a more pronounced effect.
Her reload complete, Nymera launched a Wirebug, using a spinning aerial maneuver to close in on the Mizutsune chasing Isis.
The slick ground let her slide even faster, sending her shooting past the front of the Mizutsune like a shadow. At the closest point to its foreleg, she pulled the trigger repeatedly, sending both Sticky Ammo rounds from her chamber flying.
At such close range, she no longer had to worry about the Sticky Ammo's slower projectile speed or the Mizutsune's nimble movements causing her to miss.
The two Sticky Ammo rounds embedded themselves precisely in the joints of the Mizutsune's left foreleg.
But this was not enough.
Arcing her spinning maneuver around behind the Mizutsune, Nymera reloaded and repeated the tactic, landing two more Sticky Ammo rounds precisely on its foreleg.
To execute her plan, she had deliberately extended the fuses on these Sticky Ammo rounds, waiting for the right moment to detonate them.
The Hunters were slippery and difficult to catch; the attacks it managed to land rarely did significant damage, and their assault never let up. The already furious Mizutsune grew increasingly agitated.
Watching the two Hunters weave back and forth before its eyes, the Mizutsune finally lost patience. Coiling its long body to gather strength, it prepared a wide-ranging Tail Sweep to deal with these two annoying nuisances in one stroke.
Seeing this, Nymera's eyes lit up. She quickly swapped to a Spread Ammo magazine and shouted, "Here's our chance! Get ready!"
Isis had been about to create distance, but she chose to trust Nymera's judgment. She halted decisively, slammed the spear-like tail of her Gunlance into the ground to chamber fresh shells, then loaded a Wyrmstake Blast steel spike, filling her Gunlance's entire ammunition capacity.
Meanwhile, Nymera used a Wirebug maneuver to get right in the Mizutsune's face.
Just as the Monster's pent-up power reached its limit and it launched its spinning Tail Sweep, Nymera locked her muzzle onto its foreleg and squeezed the trigger.
Bang! The Spread Ammo erupted from the barrel, detonating the Sticky Ammo rounds embedded in the Mizutsune's foreleg joint all at once.
RUMBLE!!
A deafening roar of explosions swept across the area.
With its body coiled like a spring, the Mizutsune should have been bracing its weight on all four legs as it released its power in a single instant. But the sudden blast mangled that foreleg into a bloody mess. If its bones had not been so tough, the joint might have been blown apart completely.
Moreover, the ground was already slick with its own slippery mucus, so the Mizutsune's attack posture collapsed instantly. The power it had mustered for a vicious Tail Sweep became its greatest obstacle, throwing its balance off instead.
It was sent hurtling away by its own momentum, rolling several times across the ground before barely coming to a stop, writhing and struggling as it let out waves of pained wails.
Isis's eyes lit up instantly. With a cheer, she sprinted forward at full speed to the Mizutsune's head, bringing her Gunlance down without a shred of mercy.
The sharp crack of a giant blade cleaving through scales and flesh rang out. Having put all her strength into the swing, Isis immediately pulled the trigger.
Amid the roaring gunfire, scattered shells burrowed point-blank into the Mizutsune's wounds, and she used the recoil from the shelling to hoist her Gunlance back up.
Overhead slam, upward slash, horizontal sweep, Full Burst! After that entire combo, she brutally drove the blade deep into a wound on the Mizutsune's face.
She had no idea what monster had left those crisscrossing claw marks, but she certainly was not going to pass up the chance to target an open, vulnerable wound.
With the muzzle pressed hard against the Mizutsune's left eye socket, where the eye could no longer open, the Wyrmstake Cannon roared to life, blasting a thick steel stake straight into the depths of that socket.
"SCREEEECH!!!"
The steel stake pierced that fragile eyeball. Overwhelmed by the unbearable, searing pain, the Mizutsune's body convulsed violently as it wailed in agony.
But Isis showed no mercy in the heat of battle. Right after the Wyrmstake Cannon, she immediately activated the Wyvern's Fire, which had just finished cooling down.
BRRRMMMMM!!
Scales and carapace scattered in all directions as surging explosive flames blasted the left side of the Mizutsune's face into a mangled mess of blood and flesh. The steel stake already embedded deep in its eye socket was driven even farther inward by the force of the explosion.
The eye, already badly injured, ruptured completely.
If, at the start, the Mizutsune had merely suffered a wound to its left eye, a long period of rest might have allowed it to recover fully.
After the Wyrmstake Blast had bored into its eyeball, given a Monster's powerful regenerative abilities, there was still a sliver of hope that its sight might return.
But now, with the entire eye blasted apart by Wyvern's Fire, this Mizutsune was, without a doubt, doomed to remain a one-eyed dragon for the rest of its life.
Isis swung her Gunlance around for a Quick Reload, ready to continue her fierce assault.
Nymera also locked her Valkyrie Fire onto the Mizutsune's exposed, soft underbelly, unleashing a torrent of Spread Ammo at a staggering rate of fire.
Fighting a Monster of this caliber left no room for the concept of "letting it go." You either found a chance to withdraw mid-fight, or if an opportunity to slay it on the spot arose, you could not afford to hesitate.
If you wavered, you would be the one paying the price.
However, the vitality of a Large Monster like the Mizutsune was leagues beyond anything like a Yian Kut-Ku.
Under the dual shock of a ruptured eyeball's blinding pain and the threat of death, the Mizutsune, which had been on the verge of weakening, suddenly flipped over and sprang up.
Swinging its massive tail to force the nearby Hunters back, the Mizutsune flared its now-pale fin membranes and released over a dozen giant bubbles, each nearly the height of a person, isolating itself from the Hunters.
After pinning the two Hunters, halted by the wall of bubbles, with a death glare from its single remaining eye, the Mizutsune twisted its slippery body and fled the area at incredible speed, escaping toward the coast.
Isis and Nymera exchanged a look.
Both had felt it in that Mizutsune's gaze: a chilling, bone-deep hatred and murderous intent.
Letting a creature like that escape did not bode well.
"After it!"
(Translated by yourtl.app)