The hunters' attack on its back lasted for several minutes.
Standing on the Jhen Mohran's back was like being on a mountaintop. Aside from the occasional tremors, it was difficult to accurately judge the Jhen Mohran's condition and movements. Therefore, someone had to be in command to determine the right time to retreat.
Seeing that the Jhen Mohran, which had calmed down somewhat from exhaustion, was beginning to grow restless again under the hunters' continuous assault, the Admiral decisively ordered the horn blower to sound the retreat.
This was not yet the time for a desperate, all-out fight. Battling a Jhen Mohran was more a contest of will and endurance, and as the Admiral, he absolutely could not afford to be rash.
"Toot..."
Hearing the command, the hunters on the Jhen Mohran's back almost immediately sheathed their weapons. They called out to one another, reminding their nearby companions and confirming that no one, caught up in the heat of the moment, had missed the signal. Then, one after another, they ran toward the Jhen Mohran's tail.
The height there was lower, making it easier for them to leap safely into the sand sea.
The few hunters in charge of the back bombs lingered for a moment. They set the bombs in place, even pushing them forcefully closer to the Jhen Mohran's wounds.
Then, under the command of a Hammer user, the hunters pulled the fuses in unison.
What came next required no orders. Everyone began to run for their lives. Two hunters, confident in their leg joints, even leaped directly off the Jhen Mohran's spine.
That was a height of over ten meters. Even with soft yellow sand below, the slightest mistake in breaking their fall could easily result in a broken leg.
Fortunately, aside from someone like Altaïr who had gotten in through the "back door," everyone else was a veteran. No accidents occurred.
At the same time they confirmed the hunters were clear, the Dragonship and the surrounding Sandships released the ropes of the One-shot Binders, scattering and moving away.
This was partly to safely retrieve the hunters who had jumped into the sand sea, and also to temporarily evade the Jhen Mohran's impending fury.
"Rumble...!"
After a brief delay of a dozen or so seconds, several massive fireballs erupted on the Jhen Mohran's back.
The terrifying power of the blast was something even heavy artillery could not hope to compare with. Huge chunks of rock carapace were blown away, revealing the charred flesh and tissue beneath.
This colossal Elder Dragon, over a hundred meters long and without rival in the perilous depths of the sand sea, was nearly flipped over by these astonishingly powerful, custom-made bombs.
It stopped swimming, its semi-finned forelimbs propping up its body. Its giant tusks slanted toward the sky as it let out a series of roars that shook the sand sea.
"ROOOOAAARRR...!!"
"It's enraged! This is our chance! Use this opportunity to lure it into changing its path, away from Loc Lac!" The Admiral spun the helm. "Cannons, open fire! Draw its attention to the Hozan-maru!"
"Boom! Boom!"
The cannons, which had been silent for a while, roared to life once more.
In the next second, flashes of light exploded on the Jhen Mohran's body. One of the cannonballs happened to strike the massive wound torn open by the Anti-dragon Bombs. Without the protection of its thick carapace and tough hide, the cannonball penetrated deep into its flesh before detonating.
The scattered shrapnel burrowed into the depths of its muscles, and the gushing blood was like a crimson shower raining down upon the Jhen Mohran's back.
"ROAR...!"
Even for a creature with such a dull sense of pain, the Jhen Mohran, which had shown little reaction to the hunters hacking at its wounds for so long, finally felt true agony.
Having just climbed back onto the small Sandship, Altaïr shook the sand from his hair and gazed at the Jhen Mohran, which was howling incessantly in the distance.
The fleet's tactics were highly varied, but the core strategy had been passed down and refined by generations of the Sandship fleet.
Cannon fire bombarded its back carapace to create openings, while volleys from the Heavy Ballistae were meant to create footholds.
After fatiguing the Jhen Mohran through well-planned tactics, the ships would fire One-shot Binders to restrain it. The hunters would then mount it, further damaging its wounds while planting and detonating Anti-dragon Bombs.
Once the Jhen Mohran's rock carapace was broken, the armaments on the Dragonship could inflict effective damage. From then on, it was a battle of endurance.
In truth, it wouldn't be strange if the Jhen Mohran turned and left at any point in the battle.
Some scholars had proposed a theory that the giant tusk pillar, Loc Lac's landmark, was likely the remains of an enormous Jhen Mohran from ancient times.
The Jhen Mohran could sense the residual aura on that tusk pillar, and out of reverence or kinship, it would come here every monsoon season.
In other words, it was a kind of "pilgrimage." It just happened to inadvertently threaten Loc Lac, so from a human standpoint, it had to be repelled.
Other scholars held a different view, believing it was simply the Jhen Mohran's migratory behavior. Loc Lac just happened to be on the shortest path of its southward migration, which was why it charged the city.
Regardless of the truth, there was one point on which the scholars agreed; the Jhen Mohran's purpose was not to attack the city.
Therefore, after facing sufficiently strong resistance, it would choose to retreat or take a detour.
It was like a person walking along a mountain path who is suddenly attacked by a swarm of hornets. After being stung all over, their first reaction would surely be to run, not to find and destroy the hornet's nest.
Of course, if that person had a short temper, they might swat a few hornets out of spite before turning to flee.
And the Jhen Mohran before them was clearly the short-tempered type. It swung its streamlined body and began to swim through the sand sea once more, its pair of giant tusks aimed directly at the Dragonship, Hozan-maru.
It was going to ram and crush the thing!
"It's targeting us!" a younger crewman on the Hozan-maru couldn't help but exclaim.
"Don't panic!" the Admiral shouted. "Full sail, accelerate! Wear down its stamina and prepare for the next Mounting Operation!"
"Aye!"
The crew responded in unison. The stabilizer poles on the ship's sides were raised once again, and the sails were already billowing. The Dragonship turned its bow and sped away, following the Jhen Mohran's pursuit route.
"ROAR!"
Just then, however, the Jhen Mohran suddenly accelerated its movements. Several times the length of the Dragonship and possibly dozens of times its weight, the Jhen Mohran actually burst forth with a straight-line speed faster than the Dragonship's.
The distance between them was rapidly shrinking.
Altaïr and the others, who were waiting for orders from a distance, couldn't help but grow tense at the sight. If the Dragonship, their main force, was capsized, they wouldn't be able to repel the Jhen Mohran with just their small Sandships.
Fortunately, the Admiral had long since prepared a countermeasure. He returned the helm to the helmsman and roared out his commands, "Prepare for a hard left rudder! Prepare to lower the port stabilizer! Everyone, brace for a sharp turn! Wait for my command!"
Two hundred meters, one hundred meters, fifty meters…
The distance between the Jhen Mohran and the Dragonship grew shorter and shorter. Having strode to the aft deck, the Admiral could even see the beast's small, bloodshot eyes.
"Now!" the Admiral roared, swinging his hand down.
The helmsman immediately threw the helm hard over. The ship, moving at high speed, listed severely, nearly capsizing. It was only thanks to the port stabilizer being lowered at the same time that it managed to steady itself.
"Roar!"
The Jhen Mohran, in hot pursuit of the Dragonship, also tried to turn left, but its massive body was far less agile. Its turning radius was several times that of the ship, and it could only watch helplessly as the Dragonship escaped its collision course.
But the furiously raging Jhen Mohran would not give up so easily. Its thick fins flattened the sand dunes as it, too, began to turn with all its might.
The Admiral, who had fought the Jhen Mohran his entire life, knew very well that this was the moment the beast was at its most unstable.
He swung his arm down forcefully again. "Sound the great gong!"
A short, stocky hunter holding a Hammer had long been waiting. The instant the Admiral's command left his lips, he swung the Hammer with all his might, striking the giant bronze gong that was three or four meters in diameter.
"CLANG..."
The ear-piercing metallic sound, accompanied by vibrations imperceptible to the human ear, spread out in all directions.