"Screee!"
With its long tail severed, the Taikun Zamuza shuddered violently. With a piercing shriek, it tore itself free of the Shock Trap.
How long had that been? Five seconds? Six?
A Daimyo Hermitaur or Shogun Ceanataur of roughly the same size should have been immobilized for at least fifteen to twenty seconds. After all, electricity was a common weakness among Carapaceons.
Yet that rule of thumb had failed against the Taikun Zamuza. Only the powerful initial surge when the trap activated had paralyzed it. After those first few seconds, it had all but ignored the continuing current.
Could this Monster simply be exceptionally resistant to electric shocks? No, that made no sense. Even Monsters such as Khezu, Astalos, and Lagiacrus, which generated electricity themselves and could shrug off Thunder Element attacks, were still immobilized for quite some time by Shock Traps.
Unless...
Altaïr studied the Taikun Zamuza as it swayed on its feet after wrenching itself free.
Unless the form exposed before him was not its true body at all, but yet another shell. A thick outer carapace insulating the body within would explain why the Shock Trap had been so ineffective.
Altaïr had used the precious opening Sajji created to attack the Taikun Zamuza's tail because he suspected a true body still lurked inside the shell, and that this body relied on the tail to sense its surroundings.
If that hypothesis was correct, severing the tail should severely impair the Taikun Zamuza's movements.
Intent on putting his theory to the test, Altaïr charged his opponent again. As he passed the severed tail, he glanced at it from the corner of his eye.
There was no muscle visible at the stump, only a stream of red fluid.
They had assumed the fluid was the Taikun Zamuza's blood. To Hunters, whether a Monster bled red or green hardly mattered. It made no difference to the hunt.
To anyone with even a little knowledge of biology, however, it was deeply strange. Carapaceons had no bones, much less bone marrow, and their circulatory systems were entirely different from those of vertebrates. Their blood should not have been red...
There was no time to dwell on it. Altaïr had already circled around to the Taikun Zamuza's flank.
He activated Demon Mode and unleashed several rapid Crimson Blade Slashes, then immediately disengaged. Constantly on the move, he struck at different parts of the Monster's body.
This was no committed assault meant to inflict grievous damage. It was a harassment tactic designed to confuse his opponent.
Sure enough, the Taikun Zamuza's reactions had slowed. It could still locate Altaïr, but it responded a fraction too late, allowing him to slip away each time before it could turn and counterattack.
Once he confirmed the delay, Altaïr began exploiting it. He circled behind the Taikun Zamuza again, sheathed his weapon, and entered an Iai stance.
The instant the Taikun Zamuza turned toward him, Altaïr drew his blade. Before its massive claws could crash down, he unleashed a Spirit Roundslash.
The spinning blade sliced across the Taikun Zamuza's legs. As red fluid sprayed, the Spirit energy expended on his Spirit Release gathered anew.
That was secondary, however. The roundslash's true purpose was to turn the delay in the Taikun Zamuza's movements after losing its tail into a full-fledged opening.
The Taikun Zamuza had only just turned and had yet to regain its footing when it realized the Hunter was already behind it again. Enraged and agitated, it had no choice but to keep turning.
Altaïr had already raised his blade and entered another focused stance. Their back-and-forth maneuvering had bought him two or three seconds to gather power.
His will sharpened as Spirit energy gathered in his blade. This Instant Slash would be far more powerful than the earlier, "half-finished" attacks he had used mainly to propel himself across the battlefield.
The instant the Taikun Zamuza turned to face him, Altaïr flickered and vanished from the spot.
Its long tail gone and its senses impaired, the already sluggish Taikun Zamuza could not raise its claws in time to defend itself before Altaïr lunged right up to its face.
Tyrant Blade [Heaven Swallower] plunged unhindered into the Taikun Zamuza's mouthparts, which could not close, and sank all the way to the hilt. Altaïr felt something shatter through the blade. He drove the weapon even deeper with all his strength, then twisted it viciously.
Still struggling to steady itself, the Taikun Zamuza reeled backward again and exposed another opening.
Altaïr wanted to press the attack, but he knew moments like this were precisely when he could not afford to overcommit. The two enormous claws were already closing in from either side. Continuing his assault would only put him in danger.
Just as he kicked off the ground to retreat, a sudden weight landed on his back.
Sajji had raced over unnoticed. He leaped onto Altaïr's back, used his shoulder as a springboard, and launched himself into the air.
Sajji raised the Rathian Model-1, aimed at the Taikun Zamuza's upturned mouthparts as it reeled backward, and squeezed the trigger.
"Eat this shot, meow!"
Flame burst from the rear of the launcher. A high-explosive rocket packed with alchemical explosive roared out, plunged into the Taikun Zamuza's mouthparts from nearly point-blank range, and detonated.
Scorching waves of flame and a violent shock wave erupted from the Taikun Zamuza's mouthparts and every seam in its shell.
Caught up in the heat of battle, Sajji had thought only of delivering the rocket straight into the Monster's weak point from the closest possible range. He had forgotten all about the blast radius. With a startled "Meow!" he was hurled away by the explosion's fringe.
Altaïr scrambled to catch him, and the Hunter and Felyne tumbled awkwardly across the ground.
The badly wounded Taikun Zamuza fared even worse. Black smoke poured from its mouthparts as it swayed and collapsed, its legs twitching chaotically beneath it. For the moment, it could not rise.
"Are you all right?" Altaïr asked anxiously.
Sajji shook his head hard several times, then sat up. "I... I'm fine, meow! Just a few stray flames from the blast, that's all. My armor blocked everything, meow!"
As he spoke, he patted his sturdy chest plate.
The Seregios Palico Armor offered excellent protection, and Altaïr had caught him in time, so Sajji was not truly injured.
What Sajji did not realize was that the fur on his unprotected face had been scorched pitch-black by the lingering flames...
Altaïr fell silent for half a second and decided there was no need to tell him just yet. After warning him, "Take it slow. Don't be so reckless," he drew his blade and rushed toward the fallen Taikun Zamuza.
He could not waste the opening Sajji had risked himself to create.
Altaïr sprinted up to the Taikun Zamuza with only one target in mind: its mouthparts. Its reactions to his earlier attacks had already proven that this was the Taikun Zamuza's true weak point!
Driving forward with all the momentum of his charge, Altaïr thrust his blade at the opening. The Taikun Zamuza suddenly lowered its head, however, and the weapon struck its thick back shell instead.
As expected, the blade skidded away, leaving only a faint scratch.
It had recovered already? The thing was remarkably resilient.
Altaïr clicked his tongue and began searching for another angle of attack. Then he saw the Taikun Zamuza keep its head lowered and use its massive, powerful claws to dig into the ground.
The rocky floor crumbled like loose sand beneath those enormous pincers. In the blink of an eye, the Taikun Zamuza had excavated a large pit and burrowed underground.
The sight left the Hunter and Felyne rooted to the spot.
Was it... fleeing?
No! It had not left.
The heart-pounding tension had neither faded nor receded. Instead, it kept intensifying. Altaïr could not quite describe the sensation; it felt as though something unimaginably terrifying was awakening...
"Stay sharp!" Altaïr shouted as he held his blade ready and scanned their surroundings.
Sajji focused on the ground around them, suspecting the creature might suddenly burst out from below in an ambush. Many desert Monsters favored that tactic.
"Crackle... snap..."
A faint sound like leaping arcs of electricity reached Altaïr's ears, and the strange smell of something burning filled the air.
Altaïr whipped his head toward one of the cave walls.
The cavern walls were riddled with openings no more than four or five meters wide. Altaïr had paid them little attention before because they were far too small for a Taikun Zamuza to enter.
Now, brilliant azure lightning blazed from within one of those openings, bright enough to be nearly blinding.
The next instant, a pale figure shot out of the opening at almost the speed of a fired Bowgun round.
Altaïr's body reacted before his mind could process the danger, and he hurled himself sideways in a desperate dive.
The white shadow streaked past him.
Long, sharpened pincer-legs etched with spiral patterns stabbed into the ground, bleeding away the pale Monster's excess momentum. It drifted into a graceful turn and blocked the path before the Hunter and Felyne.
(Translated by yourtl.app)