Taking advantage of his opponent's opening, Altaïr lunged forward, slipped through the gap between the two massive claws, and closed to point-blank range.
Those claws could deliver devastating blows, but their enormous size limited their joints' range of motion, making them awkward to use at such close quarters. Altaïr therefore decided to fight up close.
The Taikun Zamuza reacted just as quickly. Once it had adjusted its stance, it immediately swung its smaller left claw at the Hunter directly in front of it.
"Smaller," however, was only relative to its far larger right claw.
Like a burly man whose overdeveloped arms kept him from touching his own throat, the Taikun Zamuza's left claw predictably caught against its body, knocking the descending strike off course.
Altaïr merely shifted sideways, evading the blow with the smallest possible movement. He turned immediately afterward and swept his blade diagonally upward, slashing across the Taikun Zamuza's face.
To remain so close to his opponent, even his massive Long Sword had little room to move, making its most powerful techniques difficult to unleash.
But that did not bother him. Taking full advantage of his flexibility and coordination, he struck twice more from an awkward-looking position, leaving several shallow wounds around the Taikun Zamuza's mouthparts.
The cuts were not deep; in fact, there was not even any visible blood. Yet the Taikun Zamuza seemed strangely provoked, and a piercing shriek erupted from its pitch-black maw.
It hoisted its right claw, still absurdly thick even without its rocky armor, and brought it down with no regard for anything in the way.
A thunderous crash echoed through the cave.
The giant claw not only missed the Hunter pressed against the Monster's face, but struck the left claw before it could move out of the way. The tremendous collision sent shards of carapace flying in every direction, clattering against Altaïr's armor.
The Monster clearly had little experience fighting smaller foes, especially one like Altaïr, who stayed right against its face while attacking.
Those devastating claws were clearly meant for larger, more heavily armored opponents. Against a Hunter not even as thick as one of its legs, the Taikun Zamuza was reduced to swinging a sledgehammer at a mosquito that was crawling across its own face.
Now barely a meter from the hideous maw, Altaïr noticed something unusual.
The Monster's mouthparts were not movable at all. Its upper and lower jaws formed a single solid piece of carapace. In other words, its mouth could not close.
Then how did this thing feed? Did it scoop things up with its giant claws and stuff them into its mouth? If those hammer-like claws could manage anything so delicate and precise, they would not have just smashed into each other.
The anomaly reminded him of another theory about this species.
When the four of them had first hunted a Taikun Zamuza, they had worried about fungal infection and left without carving the carcass.
Later, Nymera had brought Ms. Meow-It-All back to examine it. They found that the carcass had been "hollowed out." The carapace remained relatively intact, but aside from a small amount of bright red bodily fluid, nothing remained inside.
Ms. Meow-It-All had proposed three possibilities.
The first was that the Monster's symbiotic relationship with fungi caused its soft tissues to decompose exceptionally quickly after death, dissolving them completely in just half a day.
The second was that some creature preyed on Taikun Zamuza and had rapidly devoured the carcass, leaving almost no trace behind.
The third theory was the strangest, but it also best matched the evidence they had found at the scene.
The orange-red carapace was not the Taikun Zamuza's true body either. It was yet another shell.
The Taikun Zamuza they had hunted had not been completely dead. After the Hunters left, it had broken out of that orange-red outer shell and quietly escaped.
That theory was precisely what had inspired them to name the creature Taikun Zamuza.
If the theory was correct, it would explain why they could not find the Monster's eyes, why it showed no visible reaction to fire, and why its mouthparts could not close.
The orange carapace was not its true body at all, but another layer of armor much like a Hunter's own.
With that thought, Altaïr stared intently into the pitch-black maw.
He could see nothing, yet his Psychoserum-enhanced perception made him feel as though something inside had met his gaze...
"Siiieee!"
Another piercing shriek rang out as the Taikun Zamuza rapidly shifted its legs and backed away.
It was not afraid. It had realized that it needed to create some distance before its attacks could exert their full power.
Altaïr understood his opponent's intent and chose not to chase after it at point-blank range. Instead, he pushed off into a backward roll and slipped like a nimble fish beneath the two giant claws sweeping from side to side. As he rose, he immediately raised his blade and entered a focused stance.
Seeing the Hunter retreat, the Taikun Zamuza stopped at once, raised its massive claws high, and slammed them down.
I've been waiting for that!
Altaïr burst forward with Instant Slash, diving back inside the defensive perimeter formed by the Taikun Zamuza's claws with his blade aimed straight at its pitch-black maw.
The near-teleporting burst of speed caught the Taikun Zamuza off guard in the middle of its attack. The three-pronged blade of Tyrant Blade [Heaven Swallower], straighter and broader than that of an ordinary Long Sword, plunged deep into the maw.
The Taikun Zamuza reared back violently, its attack interrupted. Its claws flailed wildly in front of its body as it tried to crush the Hunter.
Altaïr did not hesitate. The instant his blade pierced the Monster's mouthparts, he twisted and slid backward, using Foresight Slash to evade the claws. He immediately kicked off again to retreat farther, widening the distance between them even more.
He felt certain that he had struck something. The Taikun Zamuza's violent reaction and the dark red blood on the tip of his blade both confirmed it.
Altaïr grew increasingly convinced of the theory. Something was hiding beneath the Taikun Zamuza's incredibly tough orange shell.
So how was he supposed to break through that thick carapace?
Should he simply hack away with his Long Sword until he shattered it completely? That was clearly impractical.
Sajji could provide some fire support, but his ammunition was limited.
He needed to find a way to make the Monster shed its outer shell on its own!
"Save your ammunition! Create an opening for me!" Altaïr shouted as he broke into a run.
Sajji paused with his paw on the trigger.
He could not immediately tell why Altaïr wanted him to stop firing, but all he had to do was follow instructions, meow. As for creating an opening, that was a support Felyne's specialty, meow!
Sajji slung the rocket launcher, now scorching hot from sustained fire, across his back and sprinted away on all fours.
Thoroughly enraged by the earlier attacks, the Taikun Zamuza gave chase without relenting while Altaïr led it in a wide circle.
Quickly judging the route Altaïr was taking, Sajji rushed ahead to prepare.
The cave had no soil, and its rocky floor was far too hard for a Pitfall Trap, so he pulled out a Shock Trap instead. It was much easier to deploy.
Within a few seconds, the trap was ready, and Altaïr arrived beside it at exactly the right moment.
He stopped, turned, raised his blade, and once again entered a focused stance.
Seeing the Hunter stop, the furious Taikun Zamuza immediately leaped high into the air, intending to smash him into pulp with a single crushing blow.
Then it plunged headfirst into the trap.
The trap's mechanism unleashed a powerful surge of electricity, paralyzing the Monster on the spot.
In the instant before the Taikun Zamuza struck the ground, Altaïr unleashed Instant Slash, evading the attack as he darted behind it. He spun around and drove a diagonal slash into the crisscrossing wounds on the Monster's tail.
Not enough!
Altaïr reversed his grip, held the Long Sword upright, and began gathering power. The Spirit energy he had built up since the battle began rapidly converged and compressed to its limit before being released all at once.
The highly condensed Spirit became a terrifying gale of sword energy, winding around the wounds on the Monster's tail as the Hunter's swift slashes rained down.
After finishing with a Spirit Roundslash, Altaïr flicked his blade and sheathed it in one fluid motion.
The Spirit coiled around the Monster's tail erupted at that instant, becoming a Spirit Blade Storm that tore its long tail clean off.
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Bonus chaps @200powerstones