"It's undergoing metamorphosis! Stop it now!"
The well-traveled Wyverian hunter immediately judged Xeno'jiiva's current condition.
Unlike what they had initially assumed—namely, that the unseen mastermind intensifying the Elder Crossing was some unknown Elder Dragon that had lived for countless years—the Wyverian hunter had not expected that this creature was, in fact, merely a dragon that had only just been born.
The flame-like, folded wing membranes behind it, as well as the seemingly incomparably soft "feathers" on its tail, were in reality muscle tissues that had yet to be fully expanded and supported by blood.
Watching as its scales hardened and black spines formed within a brief span of just three seconds, every detail made it clear that the giant Elder Dragon before them—stretching over thirty meters in length—was adapting to its surrounding environment at an almost unbelievable speed.
Even without the Wyverian hunter's warning, Darren and the others instinctively sensed that something was wrong. After enduring the wind pressure, they once again launched themselves forward.
Xeno'jiiva's size was indeed enormous, nothing like that of a newly born creature. Yet when faced with Darren and the others' attacks, it appeared remarkably clumsy.
It could only swing its forelimbs—those it had barely learned to control with ease—waving them about to drive Darren and the others away as if swatting flies.
Even when the hunters' attacks struck with truly painful force, it merely moved forward unsteadily, its steps halting and awkward.
The pair of wings behind it, along with the unimaginably abundant energy within its body, were like mere decorations—completely useless.
But!
Faced with this kind of Xeno'jiiva, the hunters struck with increasing ferocity. They even went so far as to use extremely dangerous—but most efficient—dodging methods again and again when dealing with Xeno'jiiva's counterattacks, all to further increase the force of their own attacks.
"This thing—how is it growing this fast?!!"
The Bow user kept firing arrow after arrow, gritting his teeth as he stared fixedly at Xeno'jiiva.
Their attacks landing on Xeno'jiiva were like landing on a massive mass of energy. A wound that had just been torn open would be filled in the very next second by the abundant bioenergy around it, quickly completing its self-healing.
Although it was still far from Nergigante's kind of self-healing—one that was practically equivalent to taking no damage at all—at this critical, race-against-time moment, it felt especially disgusting.
What's more, the hunters had all noticed that this Elder Dragon's adaptability was outrageously excessive.
From being constrained and awkward at the start—unable to fully control even its own body—to now being able to use its hind limbs to support its body for rapid movement, using its forelimbs to deliver deliberate slaps and swings, and with its tail no longer limp and dragging on the ground, but instead showing attacks like tail swipes.
What made the hunters even more anxious was that the folds on Xeno'jiiva's wings, under the infusion of energy, were rapidly becoming full, and that pair of wings was also swiftly becoming stronger and more powerful.
Its body, which had originally been extremely transparent, gradually took on a three-dimensional solidity under the wrapping of deep azure scales. In some areas, the scales even began to shift from blue to black.
Such a state of metamorphosis was truly horrifying to behold.
"Put in a bit more effort—we can't let it escape from here. Otherwise, once its metamorphosis is complete, it will become a disaster for this world!"
The Wyverian hunter took the lead, displaying combat strength that was not inferior in the slightest to that of the recommendation team members. His coordination with the Radiant Crystal Butterfly was also extremely practiced, using it as a foothold to fly above Xeno'jiiva.
The sharp blade at the tip of the Insect Glaive traced streaks of bright light within the blue glow released by Xeno'jiiva as energy flowed through its body.
A large amount of Radiant Crystal Butterfly scale powder followed the Wyverian hunter's downward thrust, forcefully embedding itself into the base of Xeno'jiiva's wings and detonating amid its roaring cry.
Seeing Xeno'jiiva collapse in pain from that strike, several hunters threw themselves in at close range without regard for danger, determined to expand upon this hard-won result.
But then, the unexpected happened!
Whether it was because Xeno'jiiva had just begun to familiarize itself with the energy within its body, or because the Wyverian hunter's attack had drawn out its latent potential, no one could say.
All that could be seen was the energy surging within it, as its entire body radiated a deep blue glow—the manifestation of dense, pure bioenergy.
In an instant, this overwhelming energy was injected into its four limbs and its tail.
In that split second, all five of those parts became incomparably brilliant.
One forelimb slammed down viciously toward the direction from which the hunters were charging, while both wings exerted force and beat violently upward.
The Wyverian hunter narrowly escaped, using the Radiant Crystal Butterfly to pull away just before the wings closed.
At the same time, the hunters rapidly evaded Xeno'jiiva's heavy strikes.
Violent energy detonated at the point where Xeno'jiiva's forelimbs met the ground. Pure, high-concentration bioenergy, carrying searing heat, exploded outward, blasting the rocky surface to pieces. A deep crater appeared just like that.
For the hunters, this kind of attack was not particularly hard to evade. Even the subsequent explosion was once again avoided by these highly experienced hunters.
However, just as Darren took the lead in adjusting his posture and charged forward once more, with the other three hunters following close behind—
The spot where Xeno'jiiva had struck moments earlier trembled slightly.
And at that very moment, the archer happened to step on the edge of the crater!
Nearby, Aiden, who was holding up a small shield, was the first to sense the disturbance beneath his feet. A quick glance out of the corner of his eye revealed that the area around the crater had actually split open!
From within those cracks, deep azure light laced with faint streaks of red was surging outward.
It was simply like the image of a volcano just before an eruption, flashing through one's mind.
"Something's wrong! Watch out!"
Aiden instinctively sensed the danger. Before the energy could erupt, he leapt in a single bound toward the archer on the other side, swinging his shield with one hand while directly yanking the archer away with the other.
Boom!!
Exaggerated earth-vein energy erupted from the crater like a volcanic explosion, carrying overwhelming impact force and absolute, scorching heat.
An attack powerful enough to rival an Elder Dragon's breath slammed directly into Aiden and the archer, blasting both of them high into the air before they crashed heavily down in the distance.
No one could understand how Xeno'jiiva had managed to unleash such an attack. After all, other monsters—including Elder Dragons—would always show some visible movements when setting up delayed traps of this kind.
Yet this delayed eruptive attack, as perceived by the Wyverian hunter, was nothing more than a sudden explosion following the gathering of pure, high-concentration earth-vein energy.
Simply put, Xeno'jiiva had made nothing more than an ordinary strike, yet it had actually triggered the surrounding earth-vein energy, causing it to resonate in response to that blow.
This discovery made the Wyverian hunter freeze for a moment. He even began to doubt whether what they were fighting was truly a living creature—or the earth veins themselves.
"Cough, cough!"
Aiden struggled to roll over, his entire body drained of strength as he propped himself up. Beside him, the archer—although dragged aside by him and thus not struck directly by that attack—
Still ended up taking the blow completely unguarded. Aiden's small shield could only withstand part of the damage, and as a result, the archer had already fallen unconscious.
One exhausted, one unconscious—the five-person squad had instantly lost two members.
Sure enough, the so-called curse that something would go wrong whenever a hunting party exceeded four members had once again been fulfilled on them.
The Wyverian hunter, who had originally planned to continue pushing forward to provide support, glanced at Darren, who was still continuously swinging his weapon and confronting Xeno'jiiva head-on. He then looked at the Bioenergy Crystal clusters that were collapsing all around due to Xeno'jiiva's wild attacks. In the end, he clenched his teeth, turned around, and rushed to Aiden and the others, hoisting the two of them up—one under each arm.
"Hold on. I'll be back soon!"
With that, he immediately dragged the two of them rapidly toward the entrance.
If the two had already been dead, there would have been no need for the Wyverian hunter to do this. But since they were still alive, and to avoid affecting Darren, the main attacker's condition, the correct course of action at this moment was to quickly take away the two who could only become a burden.
With the three of them leaving, only Darren and another Switch Axe user remained to face Xeno'jiiva.
In an instant, the pressure increased dramatically.
As Xeno'jiiva continued to adapt to its own power, its offensive grew faster and faster, its defensive strength more and more outrageous—until, gradually, the Switch Axe user found that without using Zero Discharge, he was actually unable to break through its defenses at all!!
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