Two massive shadows descended from the sky. The Rajang, who had just regained his vision, instinctively leapt backward, escaping the Admiral's attack range, and looked up.
It was those two Fire Wyverns from before!
The Admiral and Sita raised their weapons halfway, bracing for anything. The sudden appearance of two Fire Wyverns—whether a blessing or a curse—was unclear. For hunters, the most troublesome thing during a hunt was a monster intruding out of nowhere. Every hunt was prepared for with a specific target in mind.
When an unexpected monster barges in, it not only throws off the hunting rhythm, it also shrinks the hunter’s room to maneuver. This often leads to injuries and sometimes forces them to abandon the hunt.
With bad enough luck, you might not even make it out alive.
Unlike the Admiral and Sita, Tonkotsu nearly jumped in excitement when he saw those two figures.
He hadn’t expected to run into Boss Fire Wyvern here!
That meant the Rajang was finished!
With Boss stepping in, there was no way this wouldn’t be settled!
Tonkotsu was absolutely confident.
Unaware of Tonkotsu’s reaction, Logan and Aki didn’t recklessly charge at the already-alert the Rajang this time. Instead, they flew low to either side of him.
Aki landed, crouching low in a ready-to-charge stance.
Logan flapped his wings at the Rajang’s right, flames trailing across both of them as he let out a roar.
Just like that, Logan, Aki, the Admiral, and Sita formed a triangle around the Rajang.
While keeping full attention on the Rajang, the Admiral stole a glance at the two intruding wyverns from the corner of his eye.
On his right was the female Rathian—far larger than any other he'd ever seen. Jagged spikes jutted menacingly from her body, and her smooth, metallic-looking scales glinted coldly. She didn’t roar, but just her posture, ready to strike at any moment, was already intimidating.
On his left was the male. Though his size was within the normal range for a Fire Wyvern, his wings burned with fierce flame. With every beat of those wings, sparks scattered around him. He was simply hovering, yet the surrounding temperature had already begun to rise.
“A tempered Rathian and a rare variant male Fire Wyvern?”
Though it looks like their current target is the Rajang, monsters are still monsters. No telling if they’ll suddenly see us as a nuisance and attack us too.
The Admiral was already debating whether they should temporarily withdraw.
“Meow! Meow!”
Tonkotsu raised his heavy hammer and shouted. Sita’s pupils narrowed, and his grip on the greatsword tightened.
“Tonkotsu says that’s his boss! We can work together!”
Hearing this, the Admiral made his decision on the spot. He lifted his giant shield slightly, and the tip of his long spear slowly aligned with the Rajang’s weak point, guided by his gaze.
In that moment, all of them were waiting—watching for the slightest opening, ready to strike with thunderous force!
Surrounded, the Rajang’s mind had already snapped back to clarity. And now—it was ecstatic.
This was the battle it had always longed for!
A deathmatch! A fight to the end!
Only that thought remained in the Rajang’s mind. The primal sense of danger fired up every cell in its body.
The pain from its many wounds continually stabbed at its nerves. Its battle frenzy swallowed it whole.
Only blood and death could bring it peace.
Under Logan’s gaze, the Rajang’s arm muscles swelled unnaturally, then abruptly shrank back again.
With a sharp flick of its hand, its fingers and bones cracked and snapped as if the earlier fight hadn’t truly loosened up its limbs. Only now was the Rajang at its peak.
The Rajang moved!
It didn’t go for the Admiral and Sita directly ahead, nor did it target Logan, who was hovering low in the air. Instead, it charged straight at the largest target—Aki.
Having been quietly gathering power, Aki unleashed an explosive fireball. The Rajang dodged it with lightning speed, only to have two more fireballs land at its feet in rapid succession, kicking up a thick cloud of smoke.
Without a hint of hesitation, Aki launched a fierce counterattack. Her venomous tail spikes swept through the smoke, slamming toward the Rajang’s body.
The Rajang slipped past the strike with a quick sidestep and reached out without pause, trying to grab Aki’s tail.
But it was a feint. Aki retracted her tail in an instant, leaving the Rajang grabbing at nothing.
She lunged forward, her powerful hind legs exploding with force. Like a massive green truck, she rammed into the Rajang, sending it stumbling backward.
The spikes on her wings tore through its hide, driving deep into its flesh.
The Rajang struggled to stay upright, shoving with both hands. One hand braced hard against Aki’s wing to hold her back, while the other clenched into a fist and rose high, ready to smash down.
But before the strike could fall, flame-clad claws seized its arm. Fire coiled upward as Logan flapped his wings, pulling the Rajang’s arm upward with a sharp tug.
Flammable fluid scattered from his wings, transforming into sparks that fell across the Rajang’s body—then ignited.
Logan and Aki pushed together in the same direction—one pulling, the other shoving—throwing the Rajang off balance, unable to find its footing.
Even in that state, the Rajang suddenly shoved Aki away and, using her push for momentum, launched itself high into the air—twisting into a rising uppercut.
Luckily, Logan sensed it just in time. He released his grip and soared upward, barely dodging the blow.
The Rajang’s reflexes were unbelievably fast. Even though Logan had narrowly dodged its rising uppercut, he hadn’t expected it to adjust midair. The moment it landed, the Rajang lunged forward in a powerful leap, slamming a fist straight toward Aki.
Aki dodged with a sidestep and lunged in with a snapping bite, but the Rajang blocked her neck with its arm. Then, in one brutal motion, it wrapped both arms around her and hurled her over its shoulder.
The ground split apart, rocks shattered and exploded outward.
A massive crash shook the area as her huge body slammed into the earth. Just as the Rajang was about to follow up and smash her down a second time, the Admiral’s longspear shot in.
The tip thrust straight toward the Rajang’s head, forcing it to abandon the strike and defend itself.
But the assault wasn’t over.
Sita used the Admiral’s back as a springboard, leaping high into the air. His greatsword came crashing down, striking one of the Rajang’s massive horns with a sharp crack.
The blow was heavy and fierce. The Rajang’s head dipped from the impact, its body staggering back a step involuntarily.
And in that instant—Logan struck.
He dove in like a flaming meteor, crashing into the Rajang with a violent explosion.
Caught completely off guard, the Rajang was blasted backward, slamming into a nearby great termite mound over 10 meters tall—collapsing the entire structure on impact.
The rebound force launched it slightly into the air before it finally came crashing down to the ground.
Logan didn’t come out unscathed either. It felt like he had smashed into a block of solid iron. The recoil burst several of his scales, and a sudden, searing pain coursed through his body, momentarily throwing him off balance.
But he quickly recovered, placing himself protectively in front of Aki, eyes locked on the Rajang that was already climbing back to its feet.
The left side of the Rajang’s chest was badly scorched. Its flesh was torn, blood pouring from the wounds. Even its mouth had begun to drip crimson.
Even with injuries that severe, Rajang hadn’t lost its fighting strength. Its eyes still burned with battlelust as it charged forward at high speed.
The Admiral didn’t hesitate to meet it head-on. He slid under one of its punches and thrust his lance upward, stabbing once again into the monster’s open wound.
Logan and Aki had already recovered by now. With a roar, they threw themselves into the fray.
The battle between these large monsters was intense. Logan maintained aerial dominance, unleashing bursts of fire from above to keep Rajang in a constant burn state. He would periodically dive like a fireball, using the momentum from his speed and descent to amplify the force of his strikes.
Meanwhile, Aki constantly shifted between ground and aerial combat, altering her tactics on the fly.
She already understood clearly that brute strength wasn’t her advantage in this fight. Instead of wrestling with Rajang and giving it the chance to catch an opening, she made full use of her venom—landing hits and poisoning it whenever she had the chance.
At other times, she coordinated with Logan for concentrated firebombing, or worked to cover the attacks from the Admiral and Sita.
As a result, the one facing Rajang directly became—ironically—the smallest among them: the Admiral.
But the Admiral was holding his own admirably. Hunters had long been called humanoid monsters for a reason. Time and again, he clashed directly with Rajang and didn’t lose ground. His specially forged shield had taken countless blows from the beast—yet only showed slight surface deformation.
Sita, meanwhile, was relentlessly targeting Rajang’s tail and massive horns with precise strikes.
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