Clang! Clang-clang—clang! Clang!!
Heavy metal impact sounds rang out one after another—sometimes fast, sometimes slow, sometimes dense, sometimes sparse.
Among Glavenus, there is also the concept of varying blade speeds. Constantly changing the rhythm of attack to force the opponent to reveal a flaw is nothing strange.
The Acidic Glavenus's situation was becoming increasingly difficult. Asterion wasn't surprised that he could defeat it; more importantly, he had finally found the technique to utilize life energy through swordsmanship—a technique unique to Glavenus, unrelated to the experience of hunters.
This was a duel between two swordsmen.
The clash of swordsmanship with the Acidic Glavenus—which had begun with the thrill of seeing a worthy prey—acted like a whetstone. It allowed Asterion to perfectly combine the knowledge he had learned from hunters with his own physique. From this perspective, the Acidic Glavenus was practically Asterion's benefactor.
An opponent of the same body type with similar attack patterns... this kind of pure swordsmanship duel was something other monsters could never provide Asterion.
Asterion's tail blade, forged from massive amounts of iron ore and Machalite Ore, was currently wrapped in a faint layer of red light. In this dim cave, the dancing red phantom lines looked like the eyes of a Nargacuga leaping in the dark.
Red Glare Meteor!
Uh, me-meteor?
The Acidic Glavenus's heavy tail, wrapped in acidic crystals, had been hacked into a pitted mess. Whether it was the blade edge or the spine, it was currently covered in large and small holes, or smashed and twisted to one side.
If not for the Acidic Glavenus tirelessly secreting acidic crystals to thicken its tail blade, it would likely have snapped long ago.
Conversely, Asterion's tail blade had almost no damage at this moment—except for those dents left by savage impacts before it was sharpened.
The qi—or rather, life energy—condensed on the tail blade fulfilled its mission well, making Asterion's tail harder and sharper.
The more he fought, the more exhilarating it became; the more he slashed, the smoother it felt. Many of Asterion's twisting straight thrusts were like an antelope hanging by its horns to sleep—seamless and traceless—inadvertently breaking through the Acidic Glavenus's defensive stance.
The swordsmanship Asterion displayed now... even if the Sword Master were dragged here, he absolutely wouldn't recognize a trace of his own teachings. This was by no means swordsmanship used by hunters, nor did it have any relation to the techniques hunters were accustomed to.
Every spin meant a slash. Whether it was a horizontal cut or a vertical cleave, it meant the whole dragon was dancing—yes, dancing!
Spin, jump! But every cut could precisely hack toward the enemy's fatal spots. This was a dancing sword art, unique and unparalleled, a sword art suited only for the Glavenus body!!
Another vicious straight thrust—Spirit Thrust!
Accurately piercing the Acidic Glavenus's hind leg as it scrambled to defend, and amidst the Acidic Glavenus's dumbfounded expression, Asterion leapt from his spot, flipped, and twisted high into the air—nearly hitting the cave ceiling—and fell!!
Anthropomorphic Beast Art: Dragon Helm Breaker!!!
The suddenly falling body, the suddenly falling tail blade!
Clangclangclangclangclang...
A series of dense and ear-piercing metal impact sounds rang out. The life energy wrapped around Asterion's tail blade was suddenly released during this descent, transforming into the purest destructive power, so much so that the original faint red light turned into a faint yellow light.
Crack—Clang!
"Roar!!!"
The massive body stumbled from the hit. The Acidic Glavenus roared because of Asterion's violent attack, a roar of pain—and even more so because of that crisp snapping sound.
Before Asterion could even retract the tail he had swung, a segment of yellow-green, cold-gleaming tail blade spun in mid-air, then stabbed deeply into the ground.
Tail cut!
The Acidic Glavenus's tail blade had been severed!!
"Roar!!!"
When its pride and joy, its tail blade, was cut off, the Acidic Glavenus roared again. But this time, beyond the pain and anger, there was a touch more panic.
It knew it had lost.
Its orange eyes stared dead at Asterion for a moment. An Acidic Glavenus that could survive to this size knew when to retreat. Thus, without lingering too long, it quickly fled along the path it came from.
Asterion didn't chase.
It was rare to encounter kin—well, a subspecies, but it let him fight to his heart's content nonetheless, and he had even sharpened a sword art unique to himself in the process.
A hearty duel of swordsmanship—it was probably a swordsmanship duel, even if the guy opposite him didn't have much martial ethics in the middle of it.
Luckily I don't have much martial ethics either, or I'd be in trouble.
But what excited Asterion most was that he could now "level up the gauge" as well. Without sparing another glance at the fleeing Acidic Glavenus, Asterion positioned his tail blade diagonally in front of him, carefully examining the layer of faint yellow light upon it.
He kind of wanted to say thank you to the Acidic Glavenus... as a reward, he wouldn't kill it this time.
It was a wonderful feeling, consuming his own stamina to attack, then channeling the life energy within his body through those attacks to attach it to the tail blade—Asterion waited quietly like this, waited, and after a good while, the faint yellow light finally vanished.
But that life energy existing on the tail blade didn't return to Asterion's body. It was as if the moment it was released, it no longer had anything to do with him, returning to nature after dissipating.
Shaking his head, Asterion didn't dwell on this point. After all, the life energy consumed to level up the blade wasn't considered much to him and was still within a bearable range.
Even human hunters could level up their gauge multiple times in a single battle, utilizing their own life energy in combat; otherwise, they wouldn't be able to defeat or kill large monsters and establish a foothold in nature.
Every move of the lifeforms living in this world was inseparable from the circulation of life energy; it was just called by different names.
Without a single bit of waste, Asterion ate the Acidic Glavenus's severed tail in one go. This was finished ore, refined and forged; not a speck could be wasted.
After the Acidic Glavenus retreated from this area, Asterion found an Odogaron within his kin's territory. After hunting and eating it, his objective in coming to the Rotten Vale was temporarily achieved.
With no time to mourn for the Odogaron, Asterion had already locked onto his next target—Seregios!
But first, he had to find a way back to the surface.
Looking blankly at this stone cavern that had been destroyed beyond recognition, especially the seven or eight pitch-black holes on all sides leading who-knows-where, Asterion felt a bit numb.
Three hundred and sixty-five miles of road?
Seregios did exist inside the Wildspire Waste. Back when Asterion was still small and weak, he had found many golden scales on some rocks—thin and sharp, each piece like a razor blade.
For this reason, there was a time when he would specifically avoid the places where he found these scales while out foraging, because the Seregios species had exceptionally bad tempers and loved to torture their prey—strange thing, why aren't there any large monsters with good tempers?
Everyone's temper is pretty bad, so what's there to say? If we meet, we fight, end of story.
Fierce and combative, highly aggressive, with a strong sense of territory—they wouldn't go soft even on their own kin. A Seregios driven out of its habitat had to find a way to survive on its own, or it would be ruthlessly eliminated by nature.
But to be honest, up until the moment Asterion spent a massive amount of time traveling north to the Rotten Vale, he had never actually seen a live Seregios, only confirming the existence of this dragon through the scales left on the rocks.
According to the plan Asterion made before leaving his underground nest, he should have slaughtered a few Seregios on the way to the Rotten Vale, eaten them, and absorbed enough evolutionary trait information before entering the Vale.
Prey on Seregios first, then Odogaron. The next evolution Asterion mapped out for himself required the physical traits of these two dragons. After hunting enough traits and accumulating sufficient life energy, he would complete his new evolution within the Rotten Vale, and finally go send the old Kushala Daora on its way.
Simply a perfect plan. Asterion couldn't help but applaud himself.
But it was a pity. As the saying goes, plans can't keep up with changes; Asterion's plan went bankrupt perfectly.
The reason was simple: he couldn't find where the Seregios were.
As a member of the upper ecological tier of large carnivorous monsters, Seregios rivaled monsters like Rathalos and Astalos. But compared to Rathalos, the Seregios's cruel and combative personality meant they couldn't live in harmony with their own kind, let alone other monsters.
As everyone knows, monsters with tags like that often die easily, and their numbers are fewer... the Glavenus knew this from deep experience.
Anyway, fighting is cool, fighting until death is just as normal as eating and drinking for a Seregios. What it loves is its life.
Plus, the Seregios is a winged Flying Wyvern. A land-dwelling dragon walking on the ground at least leaves a footprint to track, but a Flying Wyvern—where are the tracks to trace when they fly through the sky?
Truly despicable, you winged bastards!!
Only when he truly left his familiar comfort zone did Asterion viscerally understand just how vast the Wildspire Waste really was. The desert area he once thought was occupied by Diablos was actually just a small sand sea.
And passing through that sand sea, further out was a wasteland full of rugged rocks, and walking further still was desert, wasteland, desert...
God knows where those Seregios flew to while he was walking all that way, rarely encountering an oasis or a place with sufficient plant life—it was just too hot here.
Asterion didn't dare to change direction casually to search, terrified that he would accidentally lose his bearings and drill into some boundless great desert, dying of heat and thirst and turning into dung for other dragons.
Even if he didn't turn into dung, turning into a dried corpse wouldn't do either.
Asterion, who had watched so many documentaries in his past life, knew all too well the consequences of losing one's way in a desert.
He could only keep moving forward, forward, and forward again in the direction he started with, not daring to circle toward other places, afraid of getting lost in the depths of the Wildspire Waste.
A mountain looks close but walks a horse to death.
Fortunately, Asterion finally crossed the Gobi Desert and arrived at an entrance to the Rotten Vale. At that time, he had zero intention of continuing to look for Seregios; instead, he dove underground as if he'd been saved.
Don't ask, asking just means it's cool; ask again and it means there's underground water to drink heartily.
Awesome!
Honestly, if not for the dream of becoming a Forbidden Species shining ahead, and the desire for evolution constantly lingering in Asterion's heart, he actually kind of wanted to live out his days in the flower field swamp area... no worries about food or drink, plenty of ore, suitable temperature, and even Palico chefs making gourmet food.
As long as his luck was good enough not to run into an Elder Dragon or a special monster like Deviljho, a normal dragon's life would just be like that.
There was absolutely no need to risk his life and endure a harsh environment to come to a place like this.
Cursing and swearing the whole way as he searched for a path back to the surface—complaints aside, cursing aside, Asterion's pace would absolutely not stop—it was just that thinking of the high heat that seemed capable of melting a dragon made his scalp tingle a bit.
Friends who are often trapped in underground caves and can't find the way surely know: the planet has gravity. You just need to distinguish which way is your head and which way is your feet, then charge blindly in the direction of the top of your head, and you're done.
Hm? What? No road? It's a dead end?
Ha, thought it was a big deal. When there's no road, just open your big mouth and chew a path out, it's truly simple and easy.
Chewing and swallowing the rock chunks in his mouth, watching the sunlight shine in from the crack broken open in front of him, Asterion felt somewhat teary-eyed.
Boom!!
In a position this close to the surface, there was nothing more to say. Asterion gathered his strength and, with a sprint, smashed through the final layer of rock wall, arriving on the surface!
Ah! The sun!!
So blinding!!
A world of vast whiteness. Asterion had to squint to adapt to this long-absent sunlight. Only after a good while could he see everything around him clearly again.
Well, the Rotten Vale now had another passage leading to the Wildspire Waste. As the saying goes, modifying nature is also a meaningful part of a dragon's life; no need to thank me.
Even the wind blowing past the tip of his nose was a dry wind carrying sand. Asterion squinted in satisfaction; he felt that the pervasive smell of rot in the Rotten Vale, which had almost pickled him into being seasoned, was going to be blown away by this clean wind.
In the distance, he could see a few large and small Apceros fleeing in panic toward places further away, probably frightened by the commotion of Asterion violently bursting out of the ground.
Hmph, trying to escape?!
Nothing more to be said. Asterion took large strides and chased after them. The rock ground, scorching hot from the sun, awakened his memory. This was the familiar feeling!
Eat!
The taste of Apceros meat was the unforgettable taste of home. Asterion swallowed two of them down, skin and bone included, not wasting even the fresh blood inside the Apceros—the familiar taste was still the best.
And after eating and drinking his fill, Asterion once again returned to the problem that had troubled him a month or so ago.
Seregios! Where on earth are you?!!
You weren't in the Wildspire Waste at all! Where did you hide?!
Asterion was worried... he didn't know for the umpteenth time how much he longed for the day he'd have wings. If only he had wings, his search range and mobility would increase exponentially, completely incomparable to now.
Pity he couldn't fly—at least not currently.
With no other way, Asterion could only take action to find a temporary foothold in this area for himself, and then search for traces of Seregios activity.
Since Apceros could live here, it meant that food in this area was at least plentiful, which meant Seregios might come here to hunt.
It wasn't a wild guess. Asterion suddenly stopped in his tracks. He stared at the Apceros corpse in front of him. It hadn't rotted, but the fresh blood flowing onto the rocks had already dried—more importantly, there was a scale pinning the Apceros firmly to the rock, severing its spine and all signs of life.
A golden scale, thin, and sharp as a razor blade.
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