Unlike the looser operational model of the Old World, where a maximum of four Hunters were deployed at a time, the current Elder Dragon Research Commission moved with the precision of an elite special forces unit.
After all, many of the Commission's investigations required massive amounts of manpower to advance simultaneously. Compared to the Hunters of the Old World, they felt much more like a regular army.
Whether willing or not, life always urges us forward. Mission areas that once required Hunters to lug heavy packs across grueling, long-distance treks could now be reached swiftly aboard an airship.
The third-generation airship, utilizing the latest jet-propulsion technology, was the crystallization of the engineers' blood, sweat, and tears. Compared to the primitive airships of the past, which relied heavily on Paolumu air sacs and unpredictable wind directions, its current flight speed was at least three times faster than it had been twenty years ago.
The howling of the fierce wind whipping past the gunwales, combined with the constant vibration and hum of the jet engines, left little to complain about—aside from making one slightly worried it might suddenly explode.
As long as they weren't unlucky enough to encounter some bizarre monster attacking the vessel mid-flight, the Hunters could rest and build up their strength in the spacious cabins. Spared from the exhaustion of the journey, they could throw themselves into the hunt in peak condition—fast, safe, and incredibly convenient.
Of course, this comfort was predicated on not straying into uncharted routes or entering the territory of highly territorial Flying Wyverns. If they truly angered those overlords of the sky, the firepower currently equipped on the airship would be no match for such agile creatures. If the air bladders were ruptured, the entire crew would plunge to their deaths.
The Siren of the Skies
"ROOOARRR!!!"
The roar arrived long before the dragons themselves. Wherever the Bazelgeuse brothers went, they announced their presence as if carrying blaring speakers. First came that highly recognizable, piercing roar that sounded exactly like an air-raid siren, followed immediately by a deafening, ceaseless barrage of explosions.
Even the clouds in the sky were shattered by the shockwaves generated by the blasts.
As the Hunters rushed onto the deck, braving the fierce winds at the bow of the airship to observe the distant battlefield through telescopes, everyone's breath caught in their throats.
There were no longer any wastelands or canyons left there; the original landscape had long been obliterated under a devastating onslaught. In its place was a terrifying sea of fire roiling with an eerie blue glow. The flames of the elder Bazelgeuse seemed to have intensified in power once again.
Even from such a vast distance, the Hunters could still faintly feel a wave of heat drifting over with the wind.
Through the lenses of their telescopes, they could clearly see new explosions constantly erupting at the center of that ghostly blue inferno. Rows of blasting scales rained down like a torrential downpour, blossoming into expanding flowers of destruction the moment they touched the ground.
At the dead center of that sea of fire, which looked hot enough to melt and burn right through solid rock, two colossal monsters were locked in a primitive, brutal melee.
Ignited soil surged into the air, and rocks were crushed and melted. Even though one of the monsters—covered in sharp spikes—was being roasted by the flames to the point where its flesh turned a well-done white, it didn't show even the slightest hint of flinching.
On the contrary, its fanatical display in battle and the absolute madness and savagery behind every strike made it look several times more frenzied than even the elder Bazelgeuse.
"Is that... Nergigante...?" Aiden muttered, clutching his telescope so tightly his knuckles turned white. He swallowed hard and took a sharp breath. "That way of attacking with total disregard for its own injuries... it's completely trading life for life. It's insane. It's almost like—"
"Like a demon, right?" Crossing his arms, the Admiral's bulging muscles looked as formidable as ever as he chimed in with a grim expression. "Nergigante is exactly that kind of Elder Dragon, kid. Don't be fooled by its current wretched state. Keep your eyes on its wounds."
"They've already healed?!" Looking toward the spot the Admiral indicated, Eileen let out a sudden gasp. "That speed! How is that even possible?!"
A Terrifying Vitality
Though they were too far from the battlefield and the limited magnification of their telescopes prevented them from seeing finer details, the Hunters still witnessed a sight that made their skin crawl.
Nergigante's broad wings and the off-white spikes on the backs of its stout foreclaws had just been blasted to splinters by the elder Bazelgeuse's horrific explosions. Even its shell and parts of its flesh had been blown away, exposing the crimson meat beneath.
Yet, after only a few breaths, those bloody wounds closed up. The flesh knit back together, and new spikes sprouted rapidly like bamboo shoots after a rain.
It wasn't just the spikes; even the flesh torn open by the Bazelgeuse, or the charred shell fragments and scales, rapidly peeled off and shed. These were fresh wounds inflicted mere moments ago, yet they couldn't even last five seconds before completely restoring themselves amidst frantically writhing muscle fibers, leaving behind nothing but a faint smear of blood.
"Exactly. Compared to other Elder Dragons, Nergigante doesn't possess the special ability to alter the surrounding environment on a massive scale," the Admiral explained in a low voice to the rookies who, despite being battle-hardened, had never fought a monster like Nergigante. "But nature is fair. As compensation, Nergigante possesses a much purer talent—a hyper-regeneration capability that far surpasses any other Elder Dragon!"
"No matter how severe the injury, as long as the bio-energy within its body isn't depleted, and as long as it isn't instantly killed and stripped of its vitality, Nergigante can continuously regenerate mid-combat, growing wilder and fiercer as the battle rages!"
"That was already decades ago..." The Admiral's voice dropped, filled with genuine nostalgia. "A conflict erupted between Nergigante and the Azure Star Dragon over the immense bio-energy contained within the dying Elder Dragons that crossed the sea during the Elder Crossing. We observed two major wars between them alone."
"Back then, the Azure Star Dragon still needed the Bazelgeuse as an ally to fend off Nergigante. During their second great war, the two dragons joined forces to completely defeat Nergigante, and it was from that moment on that Nergigante vanished entirely."
"Anyone who didn't see it with their own eyes could never imagine just how resilient a monster's vitality could be. Back then, whether the Azure Star Dragon used its blade-tail to slice through Nergigante's shell and flesh, shatter its bones, or even cleverly pierce its tough underbelly to directly destroy its internal organs—"
"Fatal injuries of that caliber are something that neither Flying Wyverns nor Brute Wyverns—or even ordinary Elder Dragons—could ever survive. It would have been enough to kill them multiple times over."
"But Nergigante still lived?" a nearby Hunter carrying a Heavy Bowgun couldn't help but interject. "It could recover from injuries that severe??"
Even to these elite Hunters with extensive hunting experience, the regenerative abilities described by the Admiral seemed far too exaggerated. It sounded exactly like those third-rate horror stories old Hunters told in taverns after having a few too many drinks, meant to scare rookies who had just entered the trade.
Stories about monsters reduced to tattered chunks of flesh and bare skeletons that could still move, or creatures that could fully recover even after their internal organs were destroyed... did that make any sense?
That wasn't even a living organism anymore! It completely defied common sense!
"No wonder it's classified as an Elder Dragon. Only an Elder Dragon could possess such an abnormal recovery rate, right?" Sophia, who had been holding her pen and taking notes the entire time, couldn't help but bite her lower lip and say.
"Spot on! This is precisely why Nergigante can view other Elder Dragons as mere prey. Don't look at me now, but I was on that battlefield back then, too. I even helped the Azure Star Dragon deal effective damage to Nergigante!" The serious expression vanished instantly as the Admiral suddenly grinned with pride, laughing heartily, "Come on, look at this!"
The Spoils of War
As he spoke, the Admiral reached back and unsheathed his weapon, gripping it with both hands and slamming it violently down onto the deck!
Thud!!
The heavy, sharp tip of the weapon instantly punched a hole right through the deck. Setting aside the inevitable reckoning the engineers would demand from the Admiral later, the Hunters gathered around were already utterly captivated by the weapon.
—Only a Hunter truly understands a Hunter. Because they were all masters of their respective armaments, they could appreciate the extraordinary nature of the Admiral's Switch Axe all the more.
Its appearance was rugged to the absolute extreme, practically the definition of savage. It bore no elegant engravings or exquisite decorations. Several wrist-thick bands of an unidentified black metal were spiked across both sides of the Switch Axe's heavy mechanical chassis like a beast's ribcage, giving it an aesthetic resembling something made by a Greenskin.
The dual edges of the Switch Axe were by no means smooth, conventional blades. Instead, they were formed by rows of densely packed, colossal spikes. The bases of these spikes possessed a deep, obsidian blackness; the color gradually faded as it extended outward toward the tips, ultimately culminating in an off-white, blackened hue along the cutting edge.
These were all Nergigante spikes. Rather than an axe or a transformed sword, it resembled a saw explicitly forged to tear through flesh. Yet, no one dared question the sheer hardness and sharpness of those spikes.
"The Admiral is still as incredible as ever," Aiden murmured, scratching his head as he eagerly leaned closer to inspect the Switch Axe, even reaching out to touch it. "Could it be—is this a weapon crafted from Nergigante materials? This is way too cool!"
"Exactly!" The Admiral beamed with even greater pride. "The last time Nergigante showed its face, it was utterly defeated by the Glavenus g—er, I mean, by the Azure Star Dragon. Back then, the Azure Star Dragon unleashed an astonishing surge of power, completely severing the entire lower half of Nergigante's body along with its tail!"
Pausing, the Admiral's gaze turned solemn once more.
"But that's where the most terrifying part lies. Even after suffering a fatal injury where its entire lower body vanished, Nergigante didn't die on the spot. Instead, relying purely on its remaining forelimbs and wings, it managed to force itself into the air and fly away from the battlefield, covering an immense distance."
"We subsequently dispatched multiple squads to search deep along its flight path, but we never found its corpse. Because of that, the Commander has always believed that Nergigante was still alive. It's just that recovering from such a catastrophic injury requires an enormous amount of bio-energy and time, which is why it missed the subsequent Elder Crossings."
"Half its body?!" Aiden exclaimed, his jaw dropping as if listening to a myth. He clicked his tongue in disbelief. "Losing half its body, with its organs spilling out all over the place, and it could still take to the skies and escape? That vitality is just terrifying. No wonder it's called a demon... But Admiral, is there a possibility that the Nergigante you saw back then actually died, and we just couldn't find its body? Could the one we're looking at right now be a completely different Nergigante?"
"We did consider that possibility," the Admiral nodded, acknowledging Aiden's theory, before shifting gears. "But on the other hand, so many years have passed, and we've expanded our exploration across the Wildspire Waste and the Ancient Forest. Yet, we've never found any Nergigante skeletons, feeding marks, or any traces of its activity. So, the likelihood of that theory is quite low."
"Judging purely by its size and combat style, this Nergigante fighting the elder Bazelgeuse isn't much different from the fellow in my memories. In fact, it's even a bit larger... maybe it put on some weight over the years?"
The man actually had the mind to crack a joke.
"If it's the exact same one... could it be here for revenge?" Sophia's hand, which had been writing nonstop in her notebook, suddenly halted. She looked up abruptly and said, "It has already been proven that Elder Dragons possess extremely high intelligence, and they might even pass down unknown knowledge through their lineage. So, holding a grudge would be perfectly normal, wouldn't it?"
"Back then, the Azure Star Dragon and the elder Bazelgeuse teamed up to defeat it. So now, taking advantage of the Azure Star Dragon's absence, it's back for vengeance. Hunting down an isolated enemy makes perfect sense."
"If that's truly the case, we need to get there as fast as possible!" Eileen turned immediately toward the captain steering the ship, her empathy driving her. "The elder Bazelgeuse isn't an Elder Dragon, after all. No matter what, it's been the guardian of our frontline research base! Thanks to its presence, everyone's investigations have been shielded from monster harassment, allowing us to conduct our research in peace for so long. We can't just sit by and watch!"
"Can we go any faster, Captain?!"
"Admiral?" the captain looked over.
"Full speed ahead!" Flashing a wild, battle-hungry grin, the Admiral didn't hesitate for a second. He strapped the Nergigante Switch Axe back onto his shoulders and bellowed:
"We can't let our old friend vanish just like that. Everyone, prepare for battle!!!"
"Yes, Admiral!!"
Choosing not to linger at the edge of the battlefield, the airship flew straight toward the epicenter of the clash between the two colossal beasts.
"Bring us in!!"
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