Faced with a colossal fireball capable of killing it instantly, the blind Mizutsune displayed extraordinary reflexes and agility.
At the last instant before the colossal fireball engulfed it, the Mizutsune twisted nimbly. With the aid of its mucus and foam, it slid backward like a slippery fish and opened some distance.
The maneuver saved it from being killed outright, but the searing heat and concussive force released when Dragon Blast detonated were no joke.
Scales across its head and chest lay shattered and charred black. The intense heat had also scorched away large patches of its deep purple fur, which was saturated with slick fluid, leaving the Mizutsune in a sorry state.
"Tch." Isis clicked her tongue, feeling a twinge of regret.
She should have played it safer, found a way to knock the Mizutsune down, then activated Dragon Blast and ended the fight in one decisive blow.
But regret would accomplish nothing now. Isis cleared those distracting thoughts from her mind, brought her Gunlance down to complete the reload, and ejected the heat canister to accelerate cooling.
Dragon Blast was fundamentally different from an ordinary Wyvern's Fire. If she failed to vent the waste heat, the barrel would soon be at risk of exploding.
The Mizutsune had expected satisfying revenge, only to take a vicious beating from the outset. It panted heavily.
By now, it understood that it was not the only one that had grown stronger over the past two years. The two Hunters who had blinded its left eye had become far more formidable as well.
The fury of revenge boiled in its mind, and the ghostly flame in its empty eye socket continued to burn fiercely.
But it forced itself to calm down.
Through battle after battle against powerful Monsters, the Mizutsune had gradually come to understand something.
Compared with Monsters of the same caliber, it had no advantage in strength or defense, and head-on combat was not its forte.
Speed and agility, together with its unpredictable foam, slick fluid, and bubbles, were its true strengths.
At first, the Mizutsune had not regarded the two Hunters as opponents of equal standing. It had believed its greatly enhanced strength would make revenge easy.
Now, however, it realized that it needed to adopt a different fighting style.
The style it knew best.
With a low growl, the Mizutsune's glands secreted a large quantity of slick fluid. As it twisted its body, friction against its finlike spines and mane whipped the secretion into a huge mass of milky white foam.
The slick foam eliminated the friction between its body and the ground. Undulating like a snake, the Mizutsune instantly accelerated beyond the speed of most terrestrial Monsters.
A sliding charge!
As the Mizutsune hurtled toward her, Isis chose not to risk a head-on collision. She immediately sidestepped and fired a shell, using the recoil to extend her dodge and clear the charge a heartbeat early.
But the Mizutsune's assault did not end there.
After its first charge missed, the Mizutsune flipped around and swept its enormous tail through a tight arc, completing a U-turn in an instant. Almost without pause, it charged Isis again.
Faced with one charge after another, Isis remained calm and continued timing her sidesteps carefully.
Although Demon King Tyrant was a Wide-type Gunlance, it had an astonishing shell capacity of six rounds.
She refused to believe the Mizutsune could chain six charges together...
As it turned out, even though this Mizutsune was sturdier than an average member of its species, five or six consecutive charges would have been absurd.
After three long, straight-line charges, it stopped and panted as it steadied its breathing.
Isis had never truly been in danger throughout the sequence, yet her expression turned grave.
She had realized the true purpose of her opponent's actions.
A direct hit that sent the Hunter flying would be ideal, but even if Isis dodged every charge, the Mizutsune's effort would not be wasted.
Its repeated charges had crisscrossed the ground with foam-slick trails.
Isis could no longer skirt around the foam-covered areas as she had before. The moment the foam touched her boots, she would lose her footing while moving, which was extremely dangerous.
Avoiding all the foam was now unrealistic. Like knives cutting a cake, the foam trails divided the forest clearing into many small sections.
She could not confine herself to one tiny patch. That would be no different from standing still and taking a beating.
Fortunately, Isis and Nymera had come specifically to Hunt the Mizutsune, so they had not arrived unprepared.
During the pause before the Mizutsune's next attack, Isis pulled out several sealed bottles of Cleanser and fitted them to her Slinger.
The Slinger could even launch cacti, so firing a few glass bottles smaller than her fist should pose no problem. Probably.
Once ready, she charged toward the Mizutsune, which was stretching its body a short distance away.
The cunning Mizutsune still refused to meet her head-on.
Sensing the approaching Hunter through sound and vibrations, it immediately spun into a backflip and lashed its long tail. The mucus flung from its body trapped air and formed several enormous bubbles nearly two meters across, which drifted down toward Isis.
"I knew it!" Isis cursed under her breath.
She had figured out the Mizutsune's plan. It meant to coat both Hunters in foam by any means possible, impair their mobility, and only then launch its true assault.
If this had been their first encounter with a Mizutsune, the ploy might truly have caught them.
But now that they were on guard, such petty tricks would not work so easily!
Isis stopped, raised her muzzle at the transparent bubbles drifting toward her, and fired. "Boom!"
This time, she left the muzzle brake unlocked instead of concentrating the muzzle flash, allowing the fine shrapnel to spread outward.
Several dozen meters separated Isis from the Mizutsune. At that distance, the shrapnel from a Wide shell could not harm the Monster, but the scattered fragments were more than enough to rupture the fragile bubbles.
"Boom! Boom!"
Two of the seemingly harmless bubbles actually detonated, blooming into twin clouds of pale blue fire and smoke in midair.
Isis's gaze hardened.
This creature was exceptionally cunning, even mixing explosive bubbles among the ordinary ones...
The entire cluster burst in an instant. Unwilling to accept the failure, the Mizutsune lashed its tail again and scattered another wave of bubbles, which Isis dispelled in the same fashion.
"Graaooow!" Realizing that the tactic was pointless, the Mizutsune roared furiously and leaped into the air.
As it scattered yet another wave of bubbles, it lunged straight at Isis with outstretched claws.
Isis's expression darkened.
By sheer chance, the creature had found a blind spot in her technique. To shatter the bubbles with Wide shelling, Isis had to leave the muzzle brake unlocked and therefore could not use the shelling recoil to reposition.
Storm Retreat alone was no solution either. Foam covered the ground, making it easy to land in a slick patch, and any bubbles she failed to destroy at once would continue to accumulate and compound the danger.
She had no choice but to shell the bubbles, then immediately enter Defensive Stance to receive the attack.
The Mizutsune's claws slammed into her shield with the full force of its pounce, staggering Isis backward. A devastating somersaulting tail slam followed immediately, forcing her to retreat even farther.
At that moment, her foot suddenly slipped...
Under the Mizutsune's relentless assault, Isis had finally stepped onto the slippery foam that now covered nearly the entire battlefield.
She immediately fired a Cleanser with her Slinger, dissolving the foam clinging to her battle boots, but the process inevitably left an opening.
The Mizutsune sensed the instant of disorder in the Hunter's footwork. It tensed, drew back half a step, then transformed its long, slender body into what looked like a massive drill and hurtled straight at Isis.
Isis knew this was one of the Mizutsune's most powerful attacks, but at that moment, all she could do was steel herself and block with her shield.
At that critical moment, a gray blur streaked up from behind Isis, caught hold of her, and dragged her clear of the Mizutsune's spiraling charge in the blink of an eye.
"Hibiki?!" Isis stared in shock at the Palamute, who had the hem of her clothes clenched between his teeth and was dragging her along.
Hibiki skidded to an abrupt halt, tongue lolling as he panted. He kept glancing back at Isis as though urging her to climb onto his back.
Isis was puzzled.
Hibiki was an experienced Palamute. Under normal circumstances, he would never seize a Hunter and drag her around without a clear command, since doing so would disrupt the fight.
Isis had given no such order. Could it have been... Nymera?
As if confirming Isis's guess, Nymera, drawn along by a Wirebug, swept through a wide, fan-shaped maneuver and slid into position in front of the Mizutsune, cutting off the creature's pursuit.
During the slide, foam had already smeared Nymera's unarmored legs and even the rest of her body, but she did not care. If anything, she looked exhilarated.
"When it comes to sliding, I am every bit as skilled!"
Wielding Fäulnis/Vertu, the Chaotic Gore Magala Light Bowgun she had switched to at some point, Nymera streaked across the Mizutsune's front while unleashing a Rapid Fire barrage of Pierce Ammo. Round after round bored bloody holes into the wounds across its chest.
"How about I take the front this time?
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