When its indestructible spikes were forcefully severed and shattered, along with a massive chunk of the muscle used for leverage on its right arm being sliced clean off, the excruciating pain and sudden loss of support made it impossible for Nergigante to maintain its balance.
With a roaring cry, the behemoth's massive body gave way to the imbalance and crashed heavily onto the ground, kicking up a wave of flames.
What else was there to say? Kick it while it's down! Take its life while it's vulnerable!
Our Bazelgeuse bro didn't care about things like martial honor or fair play. The moment its small, bloodshot eyes saw Nergigante hit the ground, it grew ecstatic. It lunged forward instantly, slamming its own head right against Nergigante's iconic pair of massive horns.
Truth be told, bizarre as it looked, the posture of the two monsters actually fit together quite well. Bazelgeuse's club-like head and neck—so thick there was barely any distinction between the two—slotted perfectly right between Nergigante's outwardly curving horns.
Especially the dense clusters of glowing blue blasting scales under its neck—they were pressed tightly right against the crown of Nergigante's skull and eyes.
Seriously, man, what else was there to say?
Boom! Instinct took over the brain; explosions replaced thought. At such close range, it was time to detonate!
Glowing, heating up, expanding————BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM BOOM!!!
Leaving Nergigante absolutely no time to buffer, Bazelgeuse detonated every single blasting scale under its neck at point-blank range! Full burst!!
The blinding light instantly stripped everyone of their vision. A terrifying shockwave, mixed with high-temperature glowing blue flames, formed a miniature storm of destruction centered on the point of contact between the two behemoths, rapidly expanding outward.
An explosion of this magnitude was so immense that even the hunters on the periphery—who originally thought they were in a safe position—were caught in the blast, the violent airwaves slamming into them like solid objects.
Fortunately, the hunters of the Fifth Fleet truly lived up to their reputation as a specialized combat fleet. Their sense of danger was remarkably sharp, and they executed the most appropriate countermeasures in the shortest time possible.
Some had already sheathed their weapons and rolled repeatedly into ground depressions the moment Bazelgeuse roared and lunged. Hunters like Karl, who held heavy weapons and couldn't possibly run out of the blast radius in time, simply lowered their center of gravity to the absolute limit, curling up entirely behind their massive tower shields or the broad blade of their Great Swords.
The gale raged, sending flying sand and gravel pelting against the blade in a dense, metallic clatter.
"An explosion of this caliber... Has Boss Bazelgeuse gotten stronger again?" Cowering directly behind Karl, Aiden clamped his hands tightly over his ears. Even so, the aftershocks of the blast made his eardrums throb with pain.
"How long has it even been? Why is he getting stronger so fast?!"
The last time they had seen him was during the hunt for the Savage Deviljho, and less than two months had passed since then. Why had Boss Bazelgeuse's power leveled up yet again?!
Aiden was practically screaming, and he had to; if he dropped his voice even slightly, Karl wouldn't hear a single word over the din.
Their makeshift shelter was Karl's Great Sword. Slanted and driven deep into the ground, the weapon's wide, thick blade not only perfectly blocked the lethal shockwave of the explosion, but also acted like a massive divider, forcing the rushing torrent of glowing blue fire to split in two right before them, roaring past their sides instead of engulfing them completely in a sea of flames.
"That tree!" Karl roared back, matching Aiden's volume. He didn't even dare glance back at Aiden, because he had to press his entire shoulder firmly against the inner side of the blade, his legs tensed and locked tight to withstand the continuous driving force, keeping their protective wall from collapsing.
With great effort, he freed a finger to point toward the distant sea. Though Karl's words at this critical juncture were incredibly brief—just a few syllables—the tacit understanding built over years of working together allowed Aiden to instantly grasp his meaning.
————Could the giant Nether-crystal Tree created by the Azure Star Dragon after killing Zorah Magdaros have enhanced Boss Bazelgeuse's power as well?
"That makes sense!" Aiden shouted in realization, dodging a flurry of debris. "After all, the source of this power is the Azure Star Dragon. It's only natural Boss Bazelgeuse could obtain it from hi———— Wait, an earthquake?!"
The earth was trembling.
No flightless terrestrial creature could feel the ground shifting beneath its feet without panicking.
At first, no one paid any attention to the tremor.
After all, with two behemoths blasting and thrashing around right in front of them, the hunters assumed the movement beneath their feet was just a physical illusion caused by being so close to Boss Bazelgeuse's explosions. Given the sheer intensity of the blasts, it was perfectly normal for the ground to shake.
But when the shaking showed no signs of stopping, and the tremors beneath their feet grew even more violent as the roar of the explosions subsided, even the most slow-witted hunter realized something was wrong.
The disasters that Astera had suffered were still fresh in their minds.
"Everyone, watch out! This isn't the aftermath of the explosion! It's an earthquake!!!"
In the distance, an experienced veteran hunter noticed the anomaly and bellowed a warning at the top of his lungs.
Karl violently pulled back his right foot and yanked his weapon free in one motion. His pupils dilated the instant he looked down—a bottomless fissure had suddenly split open across the rocky ground where he had just been standing!
The fissure hadn't split apart from the top down; rather, it had been forcefully burst open from the bottom up by some terrifying pressure, as if an unknown behemoth was about to erupt from the deep underground and rip through the surface.
When the crack first appeared, it was barely the width of a finger. But within two or three seconds, accompanied by the bone-chilling groan of fracturing rock strata, it widened enough to swallow a whole foot and continued to spread frantically outward.
"Everyone! Prioritize your own safety!" The Admiral's booming voice cut through the chaotic battlefield, instantly steadying the wavering morale of the hunters. "Watch your step! Do not fall in!!"
By now, the battle between the monsters no longer mattered. In the face of nature's irresistible and majestic power, remaining engrossed in a single fight would be the height of folly.
Whoosh!!
Right then, another fierce gale whipped across the battlefield. Dizzy from Bazelgeuse's explosions, Nergigante exerted its brute force and threw its head back, violently shaking off the heavy, massive head of Bazelgeuse that had been pinning it down.
Nergigante was finally free, but in its urgency to escape, it couldn't care less about pursuing or taking revenge. Instead, it instinctively beat its wings and forced itself off the ground. The airflow from its powerful wingbeats pushed the surrounding, burning blue flames outward like a tide, creating a flowing sea of azure fire.
"Watch out!! Nergigante is loose!!"
A hunter holding a Bowgun screamed, attempting to aim. But on a ground that was violently bucking, swaying, and liable to collapse at any second, let alone aiming, just managing to stay upright was an arduous task.
Yet, contrary to expectations, the hastily airborne Nergigante didn't immediately launch a diving counterattack against Boss Bazelgeuse from above as the hunters anticipated. It didn't even spare a glance at the hunters who had been buzzing around it like flies from the very beginning.
Giving its massive head a violent shake in midair, Nergigante flung away the thick blood pooling around its eyes, trying to clear a vision blurred by the concussive force of the explosions.
Its yellow, slitted pupils looked past the distant Wildspire Waste toward the extremely remote horizon. That was the direction of the ocean, where the faint silhouette of a giant crystal tree could still be seen standing tall above the water.
The earth continued to shake frantically, filled with the endless sound of rocks grinding and fracturing. The tremors showed signs of spiraling out of control, growing worse by the second. If anyone could stand at a higher vantage point and look toward the ocean right now, they would realize that the source of this land-tearing earthquake lay not beneath the waste under the hunters' feet, but from the far deeper depths of the distant sea.
"This is bad! An earthquake like this————I'm afraid another tsunami is coming!!"
The shockwaves from Boss Bazelgeuse's explosions didn't just affect the hunters on the ground; even the airship high in the sky was buffeted. It was only thanks to the helmsman's superb flying skills that the vessel maintained its altitude and avoided capsizing.
Sophia gripped the rough wooden gunwale with white-knuckled intensity. Leaning half her body out of the ship, she watched open-mouthed as the ground below fractured like a spiderweb, while the distant sea surface began to swell and bulge in a terrifying manner.
"Retreat, quickly!! Find higher ground to hide!! Run, hurry!!!" Her face turned deathly pale as the handler wished she could leap down to each hunter's side to warn them.
Her battlefield instincts and judgment were absolutely flawless—human strength was utterly trivial before natural disasters—but unfortunately, from such a distance, her voice could not pierce through the chaos below to reach the hunters' ears.
"Captain! Can we lower our altitude and pick everyone up?!" Seeing the worsening situation below, Erin was as anxious as an ant on a hot pan. Seized by a sudden idea, she rushed over to the helm and shouted to the captain, "Look at the state of the sea over there! A tsunami could hit at any second!!"
"Even if you say that... Nergigante is right there. If we fly too low and it notices us, we can't possibly protect this ship from a monster's attack on our own." It was clear the captain wanted to go down too, but his reason told him how perilous it was. Simply descending would show bravery but achieve nothing, only increasing pointless casualties.
"Please!!" Interrupting the captain before he could finish, Erin stared into his eyes and pleaded loudly, "You saw the tsunami at Astera too, didn't you?! We can't leave everyone in such a dangerous place!!"
"The tsunami is already here!!"
Amidst their argument, Sophia, who had been clinging to the gunwale all along, suddenly shrieked. She pointed a hand toward the ocean. As the captain and Erin rushed over, they saw a rolling wall of white surf steadily rising from the sea, surging directly toward the shore!
"Captain!!" Erin turned her head and shouted once more. "Those are our comrades down there!!"
"Alright! I get it!" Gnashng his teeth, the captain's expression turned resolute as he barked orders, "Everyone hold on tight! Prepare for an emergency descent to the ground! Let's get our partners aboard!!"
"Ohh!!!"
As the crew on the airship risked everything to lower their altitude for the rescue, the hunters on the ground had also noticed the rising wall of water in the distance. The current ruined state of Astera left even the inland hunters—who had never witnessed a tsunami before—utterly shaken, ensuring none of them let their guard down.
"Find high ground to take cover! Hold onto anything sturdy near you!!" Forgetting about Nergigante for the moment, the Admiral shouted at the top of his lungs as he ran.
Water moving at that speed carried an immense amount of kinetic force, let alone the various rock fragments, sand, and other debris churning within it. Even a dead fish caught in the momentum of a tsunami was enough to knock a person unconscious.
And in an environment swallowed entirely by water, losing consciousness usually meant death.
"Admiral! The airship is coming down!!" Just as the Admiral was growing desperate, a hunter pointed toward the sky and shouted in excitement.
"At a time like this?!" His immediate reaction wasn't joy, but worry. The Admiral knew all too well what kind of danger the airship was courting by descending now. He quickly looked up and saw figures by the gunwale waving their hands frantically, seemingly shouting something.
"...Good grief, we can't let their good intentions go to waste." Letting out a brief chuckle, the Admiral turned and roared to the others, "Everyone! Over here! Hurry up and get on board!!"
"ROAARRR!!!"
The Admiral's voice was instantly drowned out by a roar from Bazelgeuse. It wasn't an illusion; this roar sounded somewhat anxious, yet deeply thrilled.
Turning his head in astonishment, the Admiral saw that Bazelgeuse hadn't even taken flight to pursue Nergigante hovering in the sky. Instead, it threw its head back, staring directly toward the incoming tsunami.
Those small eyes were fixed unblinkingly on the horizon, making it instantly clear to anyone that he was waiting for something.
————And what could Bazelgeuse possibly be waiting for?
Across the distant sea, a ring of light seemed to ripple out at extreme speed, vanishing in a flash. Had the Admiral not been staring intently, he would have missed it entirely. He knew what that was————that giant crystallized tree?!
There was no sound—or rather, sound couldn't travel that far in such a short amount of time. All the Admiral could see was a blue comet rapidly ascending from that direction, growing larger and larger————larger?!!
Whoosh! Whoosh!!
There was no need to watch any longer. In the sky, Nergigante abruptly spun around, beating its wings frantically as it fled deep into the heart of the Wildspire Waste!!
————
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