Doubt. An unavoidable, festering doubt... Can I really kill this ferocious monster in a head-on collision?
If, in the eyes of a hunter, all wyverns are monsters, then in the eyes of ordinary wyverns, Elder Dragons are the true monsters.
But without fighting, there is no way to evolve toward the status of an Elder Dragon... I can't just go look for a Rajang or a Deviljho, can I?
Setting aside how hard they are to fight, even if I won, the benefits wouldn't be much. Risking death to fight them, eating them... none of it would achieve the bloodline ascension from ordinary wyvern to Elder Dragon.
Aside from the extra layer of air-sac plating, Asterion's body—in terms of sheer size and strength—was currently no different from that of a normal, adult Glavenus.
Furthermore, he had recently discovered that no matter how much he ate, his body was no longer growing rapidly as it had over the past six months. It was as if he had reached his physical limit.
He had been worrying about this for a long time. Now, witnessing the Kushala Daora's earth-shattering power, Asterion inevitably felt a moment of hesitation... Should I run?
Accumulate more life energy, kill some ordinary wyverns... but will killing ten thousand ordinary wyverns allow me to ascend and sublime into an Elder Dragon?
What kind of leveling game is this?
Asterion never thought the day would come when he faced a problem like Accelerator's. The difference was, he wasn't killing Misaka Sisters, and he wouldn't be as conflicted as Accelerator about it.
Even thinking with his tail, Asterion didn't believe that eating ten thousand ordinary wyverns would turn him into an Elder Dragon. The gap between common wyverns and Elder Dragons was a sheer cliff; sheer numbers could not fill it.
It was a gap in the technique of manipulating life energy, a gap in the unique abilities of the species themselves.
In the end, he had to challenge an Elder Dragon. Only by challenging one could he learn where his deficiencies lay, figure out how to leverage his strengths and mitigate his weaknesses to defeat one, and subsequently hunt one. Otherwise, he would only be fantasizing in his head, and one-sided fantasies were the most useless things of all.
For example, right now, Asterion felt he had been thoroughly played by these two Kushala Daoras. I've been absolutely scammed!
And I've been scammed by my game knowledge too!!
Previously, just watching these two dragons fight, the momentum had been terrifying—skies dimming, earth darkening. They fought from the sea to the land, accompanied by storms and gales the whole way, twisting together in intense melee combat.
That melee combat!
An Elder Dragon's physical combat abilities weren't too different from how they appeared in the game, except that in reality, they weren't limited to a few attack animations and were much more flexible and adaptable.
These two Kushala Daoras had been tangled together, fighting purely with muscle. It was primitive, rough, and lacked any technical content or supernatural elements. This was exactly why Asterion, after his initial observation, thought he could go up and slash them a couple of times to test the waters.
He had assumed this catastrophic storm was the result of the two Kushala Daoras exerting their power—similar to their presentation in the game. But who could have guessed that these two guys hadn't been serious before?!
It wasn't until the Rusted Kushala Daora began to fully unleash its special ability as an Elder Dragon, destroying everything in sight with a pitch-black tempest, that Asterion realized he was wrong... and wrong by a mile.
Damn, can we call a truce?
Asterion felt like giant anime "drops of dragon sweat" were about to squeeze out of him. Who could have imagined that the two Kushala Daoras were fighting so fiercely before without actually putting their lives on the line?!
You two are pure actors!
But to say he should turn around and flee right now... that would feel like a bad joke at this point.
Leaving aside whether running away after slashing the Rusted Kushala once would only enrage the enemy further, right now, Asterion had to lower his center of gravity, crouching down to prevent himself from being blown over by the violent wind.
And trying to find a direction to escape in this storm... he would likely be kicked to death the moment he exposed a weakness.
Facing the black gale directly, unable to even capture the Rusted Kushala's silhouette, Asterion's mind was momentarily filled with chaotic thoughts. It was the confusion, emptiness, and powerlessness that anyone attempting to fight a natural disaster would feel.
But immediately afterward, Asterion cast that confusion to the back of his mind.
There is an old saying: Thought begets doubt; doubt begets heresy; heresy begets betrayal.
He wasn't planning to flee in disgrace, nor did he intend to return to his comfort zone, spending his days bullying those ordinary wyverns in the Wildspire Waste.
Although there were many Elder Dragons in the New World, they weren't actually that common. If he ran away this time upon meeting one, what about the next time?
Every Elder Dragon had its own signature trick. Just how many ordinary wyverns would he have to eat to gain special abilities comparable to an Elder Dragon?
Where's the special trait? Is it edible? Will I eat until I become a Yama Tsukami?
That would be truly pathetic—like eating too much junk data and evolving into a Numemon. It had a certain "beauty of the dung beast" to it.
With this thought, Asterion's mood strangely calmed down.
In this moment, he inexplicably thought of the first living creature he had personally hunted in this world—that young Apceros.
Its tender and shrill whimpers were forever etched in the depths of Asterion's mind. He thought he had forgotten, thought he had forgotten the complex emotions of that time... Will there be a day when I, too, am hunted by other dragons, left helpless to cry out in pain?
Unexpectedly calm.
Asterion did not regret his choice today. His growth rate had slowed, so he had to find a new point of growth. Again and again, never stopping.
It was desire, it was craving, and it was obsession.
Since he had chosen to step onto this path destined for bloodshed, rather than dominating ordinary wyverns only to be kicked to death by a truly powerful dragon later, Asterion would rather die on the road charging toward a higher ecological niche.
Narrowing his scarlet eyes slightly, he searched as best he could for the Rusted Kushala's figure within the vision-obscuring storm. Asterion had already thought of a way to break the deadlock.
Don't underestimate Asterion's intelligence network. As the incarnation of the wind—a natural phenomenon—the Kushala Daora's ability to manipulate wind was composed of two parts. The first was a special organ within its body, capable of generating wind from nothing, dispersing it to wrap around its body, or spewing it from its mouth as a breath attack.
The second was the dragon horns growing on the Kushala Daora's head. The Kushala Daora used its horns to control external wind—whether controlling wind pressure, power, or direction. Raising a great storm in the natural world was done by manipulating the horns.
Therefore, if he wanted these multiple, chaotic tornadoes to stop, Asterion had to break this Rusted Kushala Daora's horns.
If worst came to worst, he would have to trade injury for injury. No matter what, the horns had to be destroyed; otherwise, there was simply no chance of victory.
No, it should be said that in this dark, chaotic storm, he couldn't even find an opportunity to run away.
Standing within the apocalyptic storm, Asterion saw only darkness before him. The tornadoes obscured his vision and blew him so he swayed unsteadily. If not for the Glavenus's weight anchoring him, he probably would have been blown into the sky long ago.
It's different. The feeling is completely different.
When the Rusted Kushala wasn't using its Elder Dragon power—that is, the Kushala Daora's signature ability as a living calamity—Asterion felt he could exchange a few moves with it. At the very least, he could land a couple of slashes. Regardless of whether he dealt effective damage, he could at least cut a notch into it.
It would be a fight with some back-and-forth to brag about later, provided he was careful not to get hit by the Rusted Kushala's pressurized wind cannon. Otherwise, even if he didn't get blown to pieces, he'd suffer some internal bleeding.
But when the Rusted Kushala became enraged and began to display its aspect as a natural disaster using Elder Dragon power, Asterion was completely numb.
Forget finding an opportunity to strafe and slash; right now, just not being blown over or away by this violent wind counted as a victory. Especially those two pitch-black tornadoes that seemed to cover the entire world—Asterion had zero desire to take a stroll inside them. He highly doubted his shell could withstand wind that cut like steel blades, spinning at god-knows-how-many revolutions per second.
I can't beat it. We are not on the same level. When an Elder Dragon gets serious, ordinary wyverns have only one option: retreat.
At this moment, Asterion realized this truth with incomparable clarity. He was already running through his mind, trying to recall where the nearest underground cave entrance was, fighting while retreating.
The invisible wind now had a clear trajectory. Suddenly, Asterion saw the black wind wall on his left distort abruptly—Foresight Slash!!
His powerful legs forcibly dragged his heavy body, sliding to the right. In the next second, the Rusted Kushala Daora crashed through that tornado, smashing down toward where Asterion had just been with a momentum that blotted out the sky!
Weight was also a weapon for the Kushala Daora. With its overwhelming, super-heavy mass, Asterion had no doubt that once pinned by this steel dragon, he would never be able to get up again. He would be like an herbivore pinned by a Rathian, able only to stretch out his neck and wait for death.
But the turn of events exceeded the Rusted Kushala's expectations. It thought this Glavenus would agilely jump away as before and then attack with its sword-tail. It never expected that this time, Asterion wouldn't use his tail to attack at all, but instead, the entire dragon jumped straight at it!
A sudden opportunity?!!
Asterion jumped directly onto the Rusted Kushala's body. Yes, a Glavenus's weight couldn't compare to a Kushala Daora's, but it was still heavy, causing the Rusted Kushala's entire frame to sink several inches.
"ROAR!!"
Struggle. Violent struggle. The Rusted Kushala desperately twisted its body, trying to throw the Glavenus riding it off, but Asterion held on with a death grip.
The Rusted Kushala's basic quadrupedal-winged Elder Dragon skeleton was a huge help in this moment. Compared to Brute Wyverns or other oddly shaped dragons, the Kushala Daora's neck was slender, and its head was small—this meant that when Asterion jumped onto its back, his pair of short, small foreclaws were just able to wrap around the Rusted Kushala's neck.
The black storm wrapping around the Rusted Kushala's body surface acted like countless sharp knives, scraping Asterion's shell at high speed. He could hear ear-piercing metal friction, followed by a string of crackling sounds like firecrackers going off.
That was Asterion's air-sac shell exploding. Facing the Rusted Kushala's protective storm, these air-sac shells—designed from the start of his evolution to reduce buoyancy and explode directionally to spray shrapnel, lacking any defensive design—were torn apart in the shortest possible time.
Crack-crack-pop! The exploding shell fragments and mineral shards sprayed everywhere. Shards strong enough to pierce an Aptonoth's body could only make crisp, clinking impact sounds against the Rusted Kushala's surface.
Instead, it seemed more like a masseur performing a "miracle scrub" with brute force; this dense storm of metal shrapnel actually scrubbed away quite a bit of the rust and slag from the Rusted Kushala's wings and back surface.
"ROAR!!!"
Master, harder!
Uh, he didn't know if it was an illusion, but Asterion actually heard that kind of sentiment in the Rusted Kushala's roar... This instantly made him even angrier, causing a jet of scorching steam to vent from the heat-dissipating shell on his back, looking like some kind of steam train.
True, some Wycademy researchers with wilder theories claimed that Rusted Kushala Daoras were keen on attacking human settlements so that humans would scrape off their rusty old skin, alleviating the pain of molting. They might even actively appear near a Dragonator to use it to break their rusty hide.
But that was just a hypothesis, never officially confirmed.
Taking a step back, whatever weapon a hunter uses, I use too? Even a hunter's Great Sword is no different from a scraping knife to a Kushala Daora, let alone "back-scrubbing" Dual Blades—but I am a Glavenus!
My sword might not be poisoned, but it definitely doesn't count as a small knife. And you're actually enjoying this??!
Perhaps realizing its own roar sounded a bit off—after all, the other Kushala Daora was watching from a nearby cliff—the Rusted Kushala's struggles immediately became more violent... or rather, they hadn't stopped since the beginning.
But Asterion was wrapped around it tight. Truly, deathly tight. At this moment, he didn't look like a Brute Wyvern at all; he looked more like a Snake Wyvern. His pair of foreclaws hugged the Rusted Kushala's neck tightly, while his two thick, powerful hind legs straddled the Rusted Kushala's back.
The hind legs were somewhat awkwardly placed, since the Rusted Kushala's wing membranes extended from the base of its neck all the way to its tail like a massive cape—a metal cape that couldn't be pierced—so he couldn't stomp through the membrane to ride firmly on its waist.
But it didn't matter; there are always more solutions than problems. The flexibility of Asterion's brain was far beyond that of a typical Glavenus. Since he couldn't dig his legs in, he simply used his long sword-tail to press tight against the Rusted Kushala's tail, tangling them firmly together.
That's why he seemed like a Snake Wyvern; Asterion had locked himself onto the Rusted Kushala's body, securing both ends with his foreclaws and sword-tail. Even though his body in the middle swayed back and forth constantly, the Rusted Kushala truly couldn't shake him off.
It was a bit ironic. Just moments ago, he had mentally mocked the crude nature of the two Kushala Daoras' melee brawl, but now Asterion himself had joined in this crude wrestling match.
Just like that Tempered Rathian, in this Rusted Kushala's long life, it had seen countless Glavenus, and had even been challenged by a few bold ones. Therefore, it had ample understanding of this species—and then, by using that understanding to deal with Asterion, it had fallen right into the trap.
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