With the resounding boom of the great gong, the Jhen Mohran, which had been turning at full speed, trembled violently. Its center of gravity shifted, causing it to lose its balance and roll several times across the sand before it could struggle back to its normal swimming posture.
If a human falls while running at full speed and rolls a few times, they generally won't be seriously injured. But for the Jhen Mohran, with its astonishing size and weight, it was a different story. The damage from that tumble was no less severe than that from the previous Anti-dragon Bombs.
Much of the towering rock carapace on its back had shattered, and its wretched appearance caused the people on the Dragonship and the surrounding small Sandships to erupt in cheers.
"Admiral! Should we give the order to board the dragon?" asked the hunter who had just put down the Hammer, his face flushed with excitement.
"Don't be hasty!"
The Admiral didn't let his guard down just because the Jhen Mohran had fallen. He knew that after suffering such a major blow, the Jhen Mohran's fury would only intensify.
If they rashly launched a boarding attempt now, the hunters would have to face the wrath of this colossal Elder Dragon head-on. They had to let it vent for a while, wait for it to tire and calm down, and then reassess.
Moreover, during its high-speed travel and subsequent tumble, most of the Ballista Ammo that had been firmly lodged in the Jhen Mohran's body had fallen out. To board it successfully, they needed to create more footholds.
"Cannons, Ballistae, fire! Also, notify the Sandships to fire as much Ballista Ammo as possible. Don't worry about hitting its wounds; creating footholds is the key!" the Admiral commanded loudly.
Receiving the signal, the Sandships drew closer, circling the Jhen Mohran and continuously firing their Ballistae.
"Let's get closer! The Ballista Ammo will lodge deeper that way!"
"You got it!"
A pair of hunters and a boatman, a bit caught up in the heat of the moment, maneuvered their small Sandship to within thirty meters of the Jhen Mohran's side.
This position was, in fact, still barely considered safe. After all, the Jhen Mohran's fins were relatively short and couldn't reach them.
However, what they didn't expect was that the seemingly battered Jhen Mohran still had a considerable amount of stamina left.
Noticing an enemy had drawn near, the enraged Jhen Mohran swung its body, and its massive tail; the very same one that propelled its ten-thousand-ton body through the sand sea, swept toward them.
From the perspective of those two, it didn't look like a tail at all, but rather a city wall bearing down on them.
It was too late for them to pull away. The surrounding ships had no way to rescue them and could only watch helplessly as the Jhen Mohran's giant tail smashed their vessel to smithereens.
Amidst the kicked-up dust, the bloodstains on its massive tail were faintly visible.
The small Sandships circling the Jhen Mohran quickly pulled back, terrified of becoming the next victims.
Asa and his companions broke out in a cold sweat. The three of them had just been about to move in closer as well.
Up to this point in the battle, the Jhen Mohran had been on the losing end, but that didn't mean the massive beast was easy to deal with.
If the Admiral made a single error in judgment, the entire Sandship fleet could be instantly devastated. The reason the Admiral could make the right decision time and time again was that his judgment was built upon the experience accumulated from the sacrifices of countless predecessors.
An Elder Dragon was an Elder Dragon, after all. A moment of carelessness could cost you your life. The now-alert small Sandships all pulled back to a distance of over fifty meters. At this range, the Ballista Ammo fired from the Ballistae could still guarantee considerable penetrating power, and they didn't have to worry about being hit by the Jhen Mohran's swinging giant tusks and tail.
So, the Jhen Mohran changed its strategy. Its massive body shuddered, and five or six clumps of sand and rock shot high into the air from the blowholes on its back before falling and crashing down toward the surrounding fleet.
The frequency of these attacks was high; a batch of sand clumps fell almost every few seconds.
The sand clump attacks were nothing to the Dragonship, Hozan-maru, but they were enough to capsize the small Sandships, which were built for lightness.
The drivers could no longer afford to look for suitable firing angles. Each one was on high alert, simultaneously managing their sails and rudders while keeping a close eye on the sky, terrified of being hit by a falling sand clump.
But mistakes were bound to happen. After a few waves of attacks, an unlucky Sandship had just swerved sharply to dodge one sand clump and, before it could right itself, was struck squarely by another.
Its bow was instantly shattered, and the entire ship flipped forward.
Two other Sandships, so focused on dodging the sand clumps, ended up scraping against each other and capsizing. Fortunately, the damage to their hulls wasn't severe, and they could rejoin the battle after some adjustments.
Realizing this counterattack was effective, the Jhen Mohran further increased the speed at which it spat out sand clumps, throwing the fleet into chaos.
Aboard the Dragonship, the Admiral watched all this with a dark expression. He wanted to have the Sandships pull back to reduce casualties, but the steps of creating anchor points and wearing down the Jhen Mohran's stamina were necessary.
After a moment of thought, he issued a new command. "Order all ships to adopt Formation Four. Circle the Jhen Mohran clockwise while increasing the distance between each other to avoid chaotic collisions.
Cannons, aim for the head and fire at will! Try to lure the Jhen Mohran into swimming again to further deplete its stamina!"
Under the Admiral's command, the fleet of small Sandships finally regained its order. Volleys of Ballista Ammo once again pierced the Jhen Mohran's body, creating new anchor points.
During this process, Sandships were still occasionally capsized by falling sand clumps. From the start of the battle until now, the number of small Sandships had already been reduced by nearly a third.
Seeing that a sufficient number of Ballista Ammo was now embedded in the Jhen Mohran, the Admiral immediately ordered the small Sandships to retreat. The Dragonship, which had been acting as a mobile artillery platform from a distance for a long time, accelerated again, moving to the Jhen Mohran's side to travel parallel with it.
The Jhen Mohran's attention indeed shifted from the scattering, retreating small Sandships to the "leader" beside it.
It let out a low roar and approached the Dragonship, preparing to crush its opponent with a ramming attack.
The more massive a Monster, the simpler and more direct its attack methods tend to be. Its terrifying weight of over ten thousand tons was its most powerful weapon.
Seeing this, the Admiral decisively commanded the helmsman to pull away slightly. The distance couldn't be too great; it had to be maintained at that subtle degree where the Jhen Mohran felt it could ram them with just a little more effort, but always fell just short.
Traveling side-by-side, the two began to circle each other in the vast sand sea as if in a dance.
The cannons continued to fire without pause, and the Dragonship itself maintained high speed. To ram it, the Jhen Mohran had to endure the attacks while expending stamina to keep up its own speed. After several failed attempts, the Jhen Mohran gave up. The raging fire in its heart had also been mostly extinguished in the process.
It was tired.
The Jhen Mohran began to slow down, no longer chasing the opponent it could never catch.
And so, the Hozan-maru also began to slow down, still maintaining a parallel course. At the same time, it ceased fire, sticking to the Jhen Mohran's side like a harmless plaster.
The two continued to travel side-by-side at a leisurely pace.
Suddenly, the Jhen Mohran swung its head, attempting to attack the Dragonship with its giant tusks, but the ever-vigilant Dragonship nimbly dodged it.
After a few more back-and-forths like this, the Jhen Mohran finally stopped attacking completely, swimming slowly in the sand sea to recover its stamina.
Seeing this, the Admiral had the Ballista loaded with a One-shot Binder and fired. Ropes locked the Dragonship and the Jhen Mohran together. The Jhen Mohran's body swayed slightly, but it had no further reaction.
This put the Admiral at ease. "It's been worn down enough. Prepare for the second Mounting Operation. If this goes smoothly, we'll repel it in one fell swoop."
The signal was transmitted with the sound of a horn, and the small Sandships scattered around began to regroup. The Dragonship also tightened the ropes, slowly approaching the Jhen Mohran.
The Mounting Operation proceeded in an orderly fashion. The hunters followed the One-shot Binder's ropes onto the Jhen Mohran, using the Ballista Ammo as handholds to quickly climb up.
Perhaps because of his previous experience, Altaïr's ascent was much faster this time.
He planned to continue hacking at the same secretory gland as before; there were still quite a few ore chunks on it that hadn't been knocked off.
But when he arrived on the Jhen Mohran's back, he discovered that the secretory gland, along with a large chunk of its back armor, had vanished. He didn't know if it had been blown off by bombs or torn away during its earlier tumble.
This left him momentarily bewildered. Just as he was considering whether he should find a new secretory gland and continue "mining"...
The Jhen Mohran, which had seemed stable and quiet just a second before, suddenly twisted its neck and bit down on the Dragonship's bow.