A! Perfect! Landing!
The tearing howl of the gale in his ears ground to a sudden halt, replaced by the harsh, piercing screech of combat boots scraping violently against scorched bedrock. The moment the Admiral made contact with the ground, the muscles in his legs coiled tight like steel cables, and he rolled forward repeatedly to dissipate the immense momentum.
After using this death-defying method to buffer his deceleration, he finally landed safely on the ground—but that did not mean he was out of danger.
Nergigante only needed to worry about getting hurt, while the Admiral had far more to consider.
Lest anyone forget, the ground was covered in eerie blue flames. In this realistic world, there was no such thing as "friendly fire immunity." The earth-shattering explosions caused by the Bazelgeuse and the lingering blue fire adhering to the ground were absolute death sentences, even for a battle-hardened veteran hunter.
It could only be said that scholars and technicians would always be the hunters' strongest backbone. During the previous large-scale investigation of the Ancient Forest, the rookies of the Fifth Fleet had hunted down a vast number of blue-mutated monsters.
Thanks to these materials, the technicians and smiths were able to repeatedly forge, smelt, and test until they finally developed a smithing process capable of effectively blocking the erosion of this specific energy.
What the Admiral wore at this moment could be called the pinnacle of the entire Elder Dragon Research Commission's technology. Not only did it effectively guard against underworld-element energy damage, but it also possessed incredible Fire Resistance. Having downed a specially crafted Cool Drink beforehand, he suffered no damage even as he stood directly amidst the eerie blue flames.
In fact, it was actually quite comfortable.
That was enough. In a battle against large monsters, what humans needed most would always be an opening to deal damage.
The commotion of the Admiral dropping from the sky didn't cause the Bazelgeuse to hesitate for even a fraction of a second. Even though its blue-mutation was flawless, the utterly explosive, raging instinct unique to a Seething Bazelgeuse still flooded the creature's mind.
At this very moment, in its combat state, the concept of companions or helpers didn't exist in its mind; there was only the enemy ahead that needed to be blown to pieces.
Compared to the somewhat brain-dead Bazelgeuse, Nergigante actually found a brief moment to ponder a philosophical question like "who is killing whom," but the Bazelgeuse wasn't about to miss such an opportunity.
Seizing the opening as Nergigante turned its head, the Bazelgeuse powerfully drove its hind legs forward, slamming its massive body into Nergigante like a runaway heavy tank!
Slinger lines stretched taut in mid-air as heavily armored hunters clung to the slender talons of Wingdrakes like dumplings dropping into a pot, rapidly repelling down from the airships high above.
These Wingdrakes were truly suffering. Though they had undergone specialized training, being forced to airdrop hunters less than a hundred meters away from a powerful Elder Dragon still scared them out of their wits.
The moment the hunters decisively released their Slinger ropes some ten-odd meters above the ground, the Wingdrakes let out sharp shrieks of pure relief. Abandoning all semblance of formation, they flapped their wings and fled into the distance without a single backward glance.
"Don't pull such dangerous stunts, Admiral!!"
A hunter with a Charge Blade strapped to his back adjusted his center of gravity in mid-air. The instant his feet touched the ground, he executed a flawless break-fall roll, using the momentum to stand firmly upright before turning around to yell at the nearby Admiral.
"Everyone's going to worry!!"
"Bwahahahaha! My bad, my bad!" The Admiral's laughter boomed like thunder. Though he was apologizing, there wasn't a shred of remorse in his voice; instead, he sounded immensely proud. Laughing heartily, he morphed his Switch Axe into Sword Mode. Dark red energy surged from the phial, casting a conspicuous crimson glow across the blade.
"To cross blades with this fellow again on this soil after all these years... this feeling of my blood boiling is truly exhilarating—Watch out!!"
The Admiral's laughter cut off instantly, his roaring shout warning the hunters who had just touched down around him.
In less than two seconds, the battlefield shifted dramatically. Nergigante displayed a reaction speed completely unbefitting its massive frame. With its two muscular forelimbs, it firmly locked down the massive head and neck of the charging Bazelgeuse, sinking its razor-sharp claws deep into the gaps between its scales. At the same exact moment, it abruptly unfurled its broad wings without a single shred of warning!
They were a pair of immensely oppressive wings, entirely different from those of ordinary Flying Wyverns. For instance, a Rathalos's wing membranes were actually quite thin; not only did light pass through them, but they could also be easily pierced and torn by hunters' weapons.
But Nergigante's wings were solid slabs of pure muscle. The thick membranes blocked out almost all light, covered in a hardened stratum of keratin, while the wing bones and dorsal surfaces were densely packed with bone spikes as sharp as daggers.
Without any wind-up motion, Nergigante violently twisted its torso and hips, sweeping its outspread wings along the ground like two colossal iron brooms!
Screeech!
A violent gale erupted. Faced with this absolute physical might, the hunters who had just landed around Nergigante and hadn't even had time to form up were swept away like autumn leaves and debris caught in a hurricane, utterly powerless to resist!
"Urgh!!"
Eat when you're hungry!
Dull impacts and muffled groans echoed one after another. Even though the spikes on Nergigante's right wing had been hacked into a ragged trench by the Admiral's brutal crash-landing earlier, reducing its lethality, such brute force was still not something humans could directly oppose.
To say nothing of Nergigante's left wing, which remained completely intact.
A few unlucky hunters had their bodies pierced by the spikes in an instant. Fortunately, their armor offered enough protection to prevent more severe trauma, leaving them looking bloody and battered but alive as blood splattered across the field.
Propping himself up with his beloved Great Sword, Karl gritted his teeth as he watched his comrades screaming and flying backward. It was hard to imagine that a monster's wings alone could possess such terrifying power.
The Admiral's intel was a bit off... or perhaps it was just a matter of personal perspective. When sharing information on Nergigante, the Admiral hadn't mentioned that this dragon's physical strength far surpassed that of other monsters.
Purely from physical sensation, Karl felt that getting smacked by Nergigante's wing was comparable to being rammed by an Anjanath—both were lethal threats if one caught you off guard or if your body was too fragile.
"I can take it! I can take it!!"
Roaring at the top of his lungs, while the others were being swept away, the Admiral—who was well-prepared for Nergigante's combat style—did not take a single step back. Completely ignoring the tip of the wing sweeping toward him, his entire body launched forward like a compressed spring!
The glowing red blade in his hands traced a blinding arc through the air, slicing precisely into Nergigante's hind leg muscles, which were exposed as it exerted force—Slash!!
In Sword Mode, the Switch Axe—infused with Dragon element energy—instantly carved through Nergigante's hardened spikes and shell, tearing open a massive wound. Blood erupted like a fountain, immediately vaporizing into a crimson mist in the scorching air.
But he wasn't done yet!!
A Switch Axe was no ordinary weapon. If a weapon like the Great Sword relied on its own sharpness and weight, combined with the hunter's own life energy to deal massive damage—
—then a modern hunting weapon like the Switch Axe relied on high-tech phials.
The phials within a Switch Axe could be loaded with various elemental energies. Naturally, axes crafted from different monster materials required their corresponding elemental energies. In short, this energy would empower both the axe and sword blades during combat.
Fundamentally, this was an act of using a monster's own energy to strike back at it. The damage output of such a modern weapon was hard to compare with old-era weapons like the Great Sword or Long Sword, which relied purely on the hunter's personal skill level.
This world was, after all, physical and objective. It would not bend to personal will, nor was there any rule stating that human strength and life energy were inherently superior to monster energy.
A harsh reality was that weapons like the Switch Axe, which harnessed monster energy via phials, often dealt higher damage than an ordinary Great Sword or Long Sword.
For the aging Admiral, such a weapon was the finest tool available—just like right now!
True Amped Element Discharge!!
The Dragon element energy derived from Nergigante detonated inside its own body! Thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud! BOOM!!!
No Switch Axe hunter could ever resist a moment like this. Not! A! Single! One!
Anyone who could resist must have a willpower forged in rehab.
The boiling dragon blood dyed the Admiral's entire face crimson, yet there wasn't a trace of fear on his countenance. Instead, his fanatical expression was intense enough to reduce a rookie hunter to tears.
"I withstood it, Nergigante!!!" the Admiral bellowed. "I am not the same man I was thirty years ago!!!"
Thirty years ago, the Admiral had only two people and a cat at his back. Thirty years later, he was backed by six entire elite hunter squads.
Even their gear was incomparably more powerful than it had been thirty years prior. The term "Ape Dragon" was merely a joking moniker Asterion used. An individual human's strength was indeed minuscule, but with the innovations in weapon smithing technology, the evolution of tactics, and the boon of teamwork, the power humanity could unleash was enough to forcefully bridge the chasm of species and sheer size!
As Nergigante felt the searing pain in its hind leg and roared, intending to repeat its old trick and sweep away these annoying, lethal flies with its wings once more, it suddenly found its movements completely locked down.
Three Lancers wielding tower shields had silently and fluidly advanced into the blind spot of its left wing. Driving the spiked bottoms of their massive shields deep into the ground, they threw themselves into a deep lunge, bracing firmly behind their defenses.
When Nergigante's wing swept around, the immense force slammed into the shield formation, triggering a deafening metallic boom. The impact caused all three Lancers to cough up blood as their feet plowed three deep grooves into the earth—yet, not once did they drop their guards or retreat. They stubbornly used their Lances to jam the angle of Nergigante's wing extension.
"This is a joint hunt, boy!"
Throughout the long and death-filled investigation of the blue-mutation phenomenon in the Ancient Forest, the rookies of the Fifth Fleet had paid a price in blood, but they had also transformed at an astonishing rate.
They gradually grew accustomed to the strengths and weaknesses of the New World's fauna, even mastering extreme environmental combat coordination tactics that they might never have needed back in the Old World.
Consequently, the hunters scattered across the battlefield did not interfere with or accidentally injure the Bazelgeuse; instead, they seized every available gap to supplement the Bazelgeuse's damage output.
For example, just now, when Nergigante delivered a colossal slam that sent the Bazelgeuse staggering backward and prepared to pounce and finish it off, several Flash Pods detonated precisely in front of Nergigante's eyes with a blinding glare.
The brief blindness forcefully broke its pursuit momentum, buying a precious two seconds for the Bazelgeuse to readjust its footing and avoid taking severe damage.
It was getting beyond annoying.
Nergigante was currently filled with an overwhelming sense of frustration. Its predatory intelligence told it that the only thing that truly needed to die was the disgusting dragon in front of it that kept exploding, since the Bazelgeuse was capable of inflicting far greater damage than the hunters.
Yet, its direct assaults on the Bazelgeuse were constantly interrupted by those tiny, bothersome pests. Furthermore, whenever it turned its wrath upon those insects, the loathsome creatures would seize the chance to flee or strike from another direction to distract it.
From its back to its legs to its feet, these disgusting pests were practically everywhere. There wasn't a single moment of peace!
Could a dragon not just get a clean, satisfying fight?!
A contest to determine both superiority and survival!
Sigh, maggots.
Exquisite coordination and top-tier equipment gave the "Ape Dragon" species a combat capability truly worthy of the name. Karl spotted the perfect opportunity while Nergigante's wing was jammed by the Lance wall and its front was occupied by the Bazelgeuse.
Taking a deep breath that made his lungs feel as if they were being ignited by the scorching air, his muscle fibers throbbing with strain, Karl swung his fully charged Great Sword with immense force. The blade sliced through the air with a roaring whoosh, the massive centrifugal force spinning his entire body through a half-circle in mid-air. He flawlessly fused his body weight, momentum, and total physical strength into this single strike—True Charged Slash!!
This incredibly heavy blow slammed squarely onto the back of Nergigante's right forepaw, which it was using to brace against the ground!
CRACK!!!
It broke.
The spikes there had remarkably been on the verge of turning completely black, but they weren't black enough, nor were they hard enough. They stood absolutely no chance against Karl's strike, which carried the full brunt of his concentrated strength!
The dark spikes were cleanly severed, and the sharp Great Sword carried through without losing momentum, biting directly into the flesh beneath.
"ROAR!"
You made me bleed!!
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