Amidst the chase, the two wyverns had unconsciously arrived at a more spacious area above the canyon.
For the Rathian, this terrain was more favorable for evasion, but for Asterion, he didn't care about such trivialities.
He was dead set on chasing down this Rathian.
Spinning around, Asterion spat a burning fireball at the Rathian—more accurately, a mass composed of molten lava. Scattering it would be the wrong choice; the Rathian was forced to dodge to the side to avoid the heavy projectile.
But that was just a feint. In that instant, his massive tail scraped across the ground. Asterion's true killing move was the blade that followed closely behind the fireball!
Friend, have you ever heard of a Draw Slash?
A Draw Slash, or Draw Art, isn't the Critical Draw skill that increases affinity on the first unsheathed hit, nor is it the Punishing Draw that adds stun and exhaust values. It's not the face-tanking Iai Spirit Slash either—cough, cough!
Anyway, in reality, there are many schools and techniques of Draw Arts (Iaido). Essentially, it's a technique for sneak attacks or emergency self-defense from a sitting position. In the world of Monster Hunter, hunters also use giant Long Swords to perform Draw Slashes, known as Iai.
Unlike ordinary scabbards, the scabbard for a Draw Art is curved, and the trajectory of the blade tip is also curved. It's somewhat similar to the principle of leverage; power is accumulated before the blade is even drawn. The scabbard itself creates a form of resistance, so the moment the posture is adjusted and the blade is truly drawn, it carries that accumulated force, making it faster and stronger.
A Glavenus's sword-tail naturally doesn't have a scabbard, and Asterion's stubby little foreclaws couldn't hold a matching sheath anyway, but that didn't mean he couldn't execute this move.
Yes, the biting tail roundslash is actually a form of Iai, relying on the same principle.
However, this Rathian wouldn't give Asterion the chance to perform a leisurely biting tail roundslash. But it didn't matter; the move he was unleashing now also applied the principle of the Draw Slash.
The massive, heavy tail pressed firmly against the ground of the Wildspire Waste as it swept across. During this sweep, Asterion used the resistance from the ground to continuously charge power, hiding this strike behind the fireball he had spewed.
Flowing like water, with just a nimble turn of his body, the blade had already arrived in front of the Rathian—far faster than it had imagined.
Sweeping Fire!
Crack.
Amidst the Rathian's sharp, high-frequency roar, Asterion shouldn't have been able to hear that fracturing sound, yet he felt as if he did—the sound of his sword-tail severing the spikes on the Rathian's tail.
"Eeeee-gyaaaa!!!"
It wasn't panicked. Even though the Glavenus's great blade was mere millimeters—nay, negative distance—away, the Rathian remained terrifyingly calm. Not only did it not fly higher or dodge in panic, but it actually turned back and landed right along Asterion's extended sword-tail!
Heavy!
That was the first thought in Asterion's mind. The Rathian had stomped directly onto the side of his body with its pair of thick hind legs. It felt as if a speeding train had suddenly slammed into him. It didn't just make Asterion stumble; it knocked him straight over!
Why is this female wyvern so heavy?!
Bang!!
Another inexplicable explosion rang out, but this time Asterion heard it—or rather, saw it as he desperately twisted his head back, trying to bite the Rathian.
His own shell had exploded.
Er, to be precise, the air sac shell exploded.
The moment the Rathian crashed into him.
Under Asterion's control, the shell—originally compressed with a large amount of air just to reduce his body weight—exploded the instant it took the impact. Shattered shell fragments, broken minerals condensed on the surface... it was a unidirectional explosion, aimed solely at the incoming Rathian.
Asterion, however, took no damage from this. He was merely shoved by the recoil generated by the explosion, which was one of the reasons he had toppled over.
"Gyaaaaah!!!"
This time, the Rathian instinctively flapped its wings to fly upward. Asterion saw it clearly: the side of the Rathian's body that had slammed into him looked as if it had been plastered with nails and scrap iron. The already damaged wing membranes looked even worse, and shards of broken shell and hard minerals were embedded between its dark green scales.
Understood.
Asterion completely understood now.
This wasn't some air sac shell; this was Explosive Reactive Armor, wasn't it?!!
So-called Reactive Armor is a layer of armor installed on the exterior of a tank that reacts to attacks from anti-tank weapons.
Simply put, it's a layer of armor that can explode. When an anti-tank missile hits the tank, the reactive armor explodes upon impact, interfering with and destroying the missile to reduce the damage taken by the tank.
Applying the same logic to Asterion... Reactive Explosive Shells?
It wasn't gunpowder exploding, but compressed air. It could even be directed outward, launching the keratin layer covering the shell and the accumulated hard mineral secretions like bullets. From this perspective, it was a bit like a directional fragmentation mine.
He finally fully understood why the Rathian hadn't pursued him after seeing through his plan and hitting him with a poison tail swipe earlier. He also understood where the debris on the Rathian's scales came from, how its wing membranes were damaged—and how its eye had gone blind.
When the poison tail hit Asterion's side, the air sac shell had detonated directly, blasting sharp minerals and shell fragments at the enemy attacking him. During that process, the Rathian had been in a vertical mid-air somersault, and its downward-facing head and eyes had caught the full force of the ejected shrapnel.
This was truly an unexpected surprise.
Wobbling as he climbed up from the ground, Asterion couldn't help but grin. The battle-hardened Rathian had used techniques meant for other Glavenus against him, never expecting that he wasn't a normal Glavenus at all. As a result, it fell right into the trap.
Die!!
Kick it while it's down!
No time to charge up. The Rathian wasn't looking back; it clearly wanted to flee. Asterion jumped straight up for an aerial cleave!
The sharp blade was as smooth as a hot knife cutting through butter. The hot knife was a literal hot knife, but the Rathian was not butter—yet its supposedly hard shell failed to stop Asterion in the slightest.
The Rathian, struggling to flap its tattered wings toward the high sky, left half its tail behind. It wasn't a clean cut of the tip like in the game, but a slanted, long section, leaving behind its poisonous spiked tail.
The Rathian fled. Even though it let out a tragic roar in the sky due to the pain of its severed tail, it flew away without looking back, flying even faster now that its body weight was reduced.
As expected of a Tempered monster. Even its escape was a tad more decisive than a standard Rathian.
Looking up at the Rathian flying further away, Asterion didn't waste energy chasing it. He knew he couldn't catch up—the Rathian would inevitably fly toward its nest, and Rathians that escaped from the Ancient Forest bio-chambers often nested together in clusters.
This meant that even if Asterion spent time and effort crossing the dangerous Wildspire Waste to catch up, he would be besieged by a flock of Rathians.
Unwise.
These damn Flying Wyverns!
Asterion thought indignantly. What he had once worried about had become reality: a dragon shat on his head and flew away—it was just a metaphor, but the result was the same. The Rathian realized it couldn't win, so it just flew into the sky and ran. It was too despicable!
Can you do whatever you want just because you have wings? Huh?!
Viciously tearing into the half-tail left on the ground, Asterion wasn't picky. As an important part of the Rathian, even a section of tail contained a lot of life energy, not to mention the poison glands.
He wasn't afraid of ingesting the venom. Once it entered his stomach, there was no venom, only protein and life energy.
Asterion was considering whether to evolve into a Poison/Fire attribute. That way, his hit-and-run bleed tactics could add poisoning to the mix. Perhaps a righteous Glavenus needed such good things.
I seem to have won. While eating, Asterion's brain suddenly realized this with a delay.
Won... did I win?
He seemed to have taken a beating, and his body was poisoned. He felt a bit dizzy now, and a sense of weakness was gradually welling up.
After all that effort, losing most of the shell he had worked so hard to accumulate, he didn't even get to eat the whole Rathian, only satisfying his craving with half a tail... Did he really win?
But the Rathian had undoubtedly lost. It was clearly a Tempered monster, battle-hardened and experienced, fully mastering its body and utilizing its advantages in combat. Its combat experience was far beyond what Asterion, a dragon still fighting with human wisdom, could compare to.
Yet the Rathian still lost. Its tail was severed, its wing membranes were full of holes, and it was blind in one eye.
This is the cruelty of nature. Even with richer combat experience and a stronger body, accidents happen frequently, and it is completely unreasonable.
Gnawing off a layer of rock stained with Rathian blood, Asterion shook his head and summarized the battle—information was his greatest advantage as a Glavenus, but in the brutal direct combat between dragons, he still needed honing.
Relying solely on information couldn't guarantee victory forever.
"Gu-ga?"
Turning his head, Asterion saw Sparky hopping over from the platform, looking worried.
"Roar." (I'm fine... let's go home.)
There was nothing to be discouraged about. Asterion believed the Rathian couldn't escape. It was already a loser that had fled to the Wildspire Waste after a failed competition. Now, with a severed tail, leaving the Wildspire Waste would be a death wish.
Asterion waited. As a mature hunter... wyvern hunter, he had plenty of patience.
As long as that Rathian was still in the Wildspire Waste and needed to hunt to survive, he would hunt it down sooner or later.
Compared to that, seeing Sparky now made him suddenly realize a problem—Sparky had been running around wearing his explosive reactive air sacs all day??
Realizing this, Asterion instantly broke into a cold sweat. Fortunately, he had deflated the air sacs before drilling holes in the shells, and he hadn't hung extra shells on Sparky's sides; otherwise, the situation would have been grave.
Even so, the thought of Sparky pecking at his shell with that giant, round beak whenever he was bored or wanted Asterion to do something... Asterion felt even more cold sweat pouring down... psychological cold sweat, since Glavenus can't sweat.
Luckily, these air sac shells would only directionally detonate when subjected to sufficiently powerful impact; otherwise, Sparky's bird head would have been history.
It was practically a wyvern horror story.
He'd have to explain this properly later.
With heavy steps, Asterion and Sparky made their way back to his territory. Upon entering the nest, before he could even warn Sparky about anything, Asterion swayed and collapsed to the ground.
The Rathian's poison was starting to take effect—or rather, the fact that it was only hitting hard now proved Asterion's vitality and resistance were strong enough.
The real world wasn't like a game where poisoning just meant purple bubbles at the mouth or faster stamina depletion. Venom truly destroyed prey's flesh, blood, and nerves... some small wyverns or Herbivores would even die instantly from Rathian poison.
It was just that Rathians were usually too lazy to waste stamina secreting venom for those guys.
The poison Asterion had contracted came from a Rathian transitioning toward a Gold Rathian. This transition wasn't just a color change; it meant an all-around enhancement, including the poison glands.
This was his first time being poisoned by a Rathian, and his body lacked proper antibodies.
"Gu-ga!!!"
"Gu-gu-gu-ga-ga-ga-ga!!"
"...Roar..." (...Don't panic... this little bit of poison won't kill me...)
As a large wyvern, Asterion had a good grasp of his own body. A Rathian—even a Tempered one—didn't have venom strong enough to outright poison a Glavenus to death. It wasn't a Dreadqueen Rathian, after all. But he was indeed too tired. The consumption from battle, the damage from the poison, the energy needed for self-healing...
Intense exhaustion was drowning Asterion's mind. He knew he needed a good sleep and time to heal.
Too exhausted to even finish his sentence, Asterion fell into a deep sleep. Before he completely lost consciousness, through his hazy vision, he could still hear Sparky's panicked cries and the sound of him hopping anxiously in front of him.
(Stop jumping around, you idiot bird...)
With that fleeting thought, Asterion fell completely asleep.
While Asterion slept deeply to recover from his wounds, Astera became lively.
Because the forward team, which had been missing for half a year, had suddenly returned.
————
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