A quick glance revealed that the hunters' support fire had been a massive help, though Mirrorblade still couldn't pinpoint exactly where those fellows were hiding—or perhaps they weren't hiding at all?
They simply couldn't get up here.
A wave of frigid air surged forward. The Velkhana hadn't noticed where the bullets were coming from either; the concept of "ammunition" didn't exist in its mind. It only knew that the dragon it had frozen solid had somehow broken free and was now slashing toward it without a moment's hesitation.
Swoosh!!
Choosing not to meet the attack head-on or engage in a pure contest of strength, the Velkhana beat its wings and took to the air. It kicked up a massive cloud of blue-white ice mist—shards of frost that seemed to possess a will of their own as they swirled toward the pivoting Mirrorblade, completely veiling his line of sight.
Zip!!
In the midst of the blinding mist, a sharp, three-pronged ice spire suddenly pierced through the frost, thrusting directly at Mirrorblade's underbelly!
The tail stinger!!
It moved with incredible speed, the air whistling as it tore through the atmosphere. But Mirrorblade was no longer the hatchling of years past; his reflexes were sharp, and his experience was vast. He lowered his center of gravity, twisting his body into a sudden backward slide.
Well, it was a literal slide. Since the ground was now entirely coated in ice, Mirrorblade hadn't quite mastered the traction yet. This "Foresight" retreat carried him much further back than a typical hop.
He nearly slipped and fell right then and there. This was an entirely new kind of combat for Mirrorblade. Before he could even stabilize himself, that ice-blue tail stinger came chasing after him again!
The Velkhana was roughly the same size as a Kushala Daora, and its wing shape was similar as well, yet it possessed an agility that far surpassed the Steel Dragon. It was even capable of hovering just above the ground, using rapid wing beats to micro-adjust its posture while delivering a continuous barrage of tail strikes.
Thrust after thrust, the Velkhana's attack speed was blistering, clearly intent on pressing its advantage while its opponent was off-balance—a relentless "strike while the iron is cold" approach. Mirrorblade, however, wouldn't just take the hits or run. Like a heavy lead weight, once he adapted to the feeling of ice beneath his feet, his hundred-ton mass became the foundation of his stability.
Another Foresight! A counter-slash! Mirrorblade's agility exceeded the Velkhana's expectations. At first, he could only dodge, even taking a hit to his back where his searing dragon blood stained the icy tail stinger a faint shade of red.
But soon, the Elder Dragon found it could no longer land a hit. During a brief opening between attacks, Mirrorblade's razor-sharp tail even caught the stinger, snapping the ice that served as the spearhead clean in two.
The Velkhana had seen dragons with sharp tails before—it had killed many of them—but it could clearly sense that the dragon before it was different. It wasn't just the color. This one was far too intelligent.
In the span of just a few exchanges, it had already adapted to the Velkhana's attack patterns, even learning to use the icy floor to slide further and faster.
Clang!
Tail blade met tail stinger once more. But this time, Mirrorblade didn't choose to retreat and probe further. Instead, he pressed his tail against the Velkhana's stinger and surged upward!
Crr-ack!!
A series of crisp, shattering sounds rang out. The Velkhana's entire mineral carapace was encased in a layer of ice. Mirrorblade's upward-sweeping tail blade scraped away a thick layer of frost, and then, he finally bared his fangs!!
Mirrorblade had not inherited Asterion's explosive blade-scales. From his short foreclaws to the heat-dissipating shells on his back, he still retained many characteristic Glavenus traits. However, he had inherited a weapon that Asterion had never discarded through all his evolutions—a weapon capable of dealing lethal damage even to an Elder Dragon!
Sawblade: Activate!!
Mirrorblade had been hiding this from the start. While he was probing the Velkhana's moves, the Velkhana had been observing him in turn. Through the multiple collisions of tail and stinger, both dragons had gauged the other's strength.
At that moment, Mirrorblade suddenly snapped open the serrated scales on both sides of his tail. A piercing, high-pitched buzz erupted instantly, and in the blink of an eye, the saw tore into the Velkhana's right leg!
He had intended to sever the creature's tail outright, but after cutting through the surface ice, Mirrorblade realized the Velkhana's body was protected by another layer of shell—or something like it. The Velkhana wasn't foolish, either; realizing something was wrong, it dodged desperately to the side, causing the sawblade to land on its leg instead.
Simultaneously, the hunters keenly captured this opening. Two lines of fire—or rather, two volleys of Flaming Ammo—swept across the Velkhana's weak points: its eyes and the curved horns atop its head.
Unfortunately, even the horns were encased in thick ice, looking like a massive frozen crown or a giant ice horn. This prevented any damage to the Velkhana's specialized organs. Fortunately, a few bullets managed to strike its eyes. The hunters' marksmanship was indeed precise; they truly were the elite.
"ROAR!!!"
The sudden surge of pain completely enraged the Velkhana. Instantly, ice-blue freezing gas erupted from its body—an instinctive defensive measure. In the blink of an eye, countless blue-white ice shards and water vapor covered everything in the vicinity with a thick shell of ice.
Having been frozen once before, Mirrorblade was already on high alert. The moment the Velkhana began its roar, he retreated. Yet, even so, half of his body was still coated in a thick layer of ice, which cracked and fell away like a mold being shed as he ran.
He exhaled a thick cloud of white steam. At this moment, the ambient temperature had dropped so low that Mirrorblade felt he no longer needed to vent heat at all. Instead, the high-temperature steam generated within his body became a vital factor in maintaining his body temperature. His dorsal heat-shells didn't even emit much steam despite the high-intensity combat.
Nevertheless, Mirrorblade could feel his legs and tail growing cold, a sense of stiffness creeping in with every swing.
The temperature had plummeted to a level that made even a dragon uncomfortable. A normal Glavenus would never be found in a frozen wasteland. Mirrorblade looked toward the center of the burgeoning blizzard, where the Velkhana stood tall and proud, its eyes filled with cruelty and murderous intent.
A suit of ice-blue "Ice Armor" was visibly forming over the Velkhana's entire body. As a dragon capable of directly manipulating the element of ice, there were tiny pores between the Velkhana's scales. When it became enraged or excited, supercooled water produced by its internal organs would flow from these pores and freeze over its mineral carapace.
Mirrorblade's earlier suspicion was correct: the Velkhana essentially possessed three layers of protection. The base was a mineral carapace grown directly from its flesh; losing it would cause pain and bleeding. Above that was a layer of volcanic glass, formed when the Velkhana coated its body in magma and then used its ultra-low body temperature to solidify it into glass.
This volcanic glass layer offered some protection, but truth be told, its presence or absence didn't affect the Velkhana's physical condition, hunting ability, or its Elder Dragon powers. Much like Kulve Taroth's gold plating, this shell existed largely because of the Velkhana's own preference.
As for the outermost layer, that was the ice shell. Nothing much to say there: cold, hard, and infinitely renewable.
It even seemed to have a certain healing effect.
Mirrorblade was certain his previous attack had wounded the Velkhana's flesh, but the creature's hind leg wasn't bleeding at all now. The newly formed ice had completely sealed the wound, making it look as though it had never been injured.
Things were looking grim.
Feeling his body grow increasingly stiff, Mirrorblade suddenly realized a hard truth—he might not be a match for this dragon.
Just like Asterion years ago, Mirrorblade finally understood the insurmountable chasm, the tragic "thick wall," that stood between a normal monster and one that could reshape the environment at will.
And unlike his father, he didn't even have a Bazelgeuse as a partner.
Being a rational dragon, Mirrorblade was already considering a strategic retreat. Precisely because he was so intelligent, realizing his enemy was overwhelmingly powerful caused his fighting spirit to crumble.
Mirrorblade even found himself thinking about the "Ape-Dragon" hunters. While the long-range hunters still had some presence, the two melee hunters were nowhere to be seen.
It wasn't surprising; reality was different from a game. Even an "Ape-Dragon" couldn't jump off a hundred-meter cliff and continue running without so much as a roll. The environment had a massive impact on a hunter's ability to fight.
The earlier avalanche had shattered the hunters' defensive formation. The soft snowdrifts, deep enough to bury someone the size of the Admiral, made it impossible for them to get close in a short amount of time. Even if they did, they couldn't fight flexibly on such ground. Honestly, the fact that they could fire a few shots to provide effective support was already a testament to their skill.
For the melee hunters, the accumulated snow was simply too much of a hindrance.
Mirrorblade... fled.
He had to. A fully serious Velkhana had essentially turned the entire mountain into a world of ice and snow. The surface was no longer covered in snow, but in thick, solid sheets of ice.
If he didn't want to die frozen in a block of ice like a maggot, he had to run. And he ran well. In Mirrorblade's eyes, this wasn't a battle that could be won with mere willpower or courage. Once the Velkhana unleashed its Elder Dragon power, he couldn't even find an opening to strike back.
When facing monsters that used fire, he could at least endure the pain and charge through the flames to trade blows. But that tactic didn't work against the Velkhana; ice had physical mass.
Mirrorblade looked quite pathetic, much like the dragons that had once fallen before him—slinking away, seeking only to survive... though he was luckier than those dragons. At least he actually got away and didn't become a cold corpse.
This was the first time since his birth that Mirrorblade had suffered such a setback. It felt different from the beatings he took from Asterion—this was more demoralizing, more painful.
The hunters also managed to escape the Velkhana's claws without injury. In fact, it was through mutual cover between Mirrorblade and the hunters that they successfully withdrew. The Velkhana pursued them until they entered the dense forest. Perhaps it disliked the narrow environment where it couldn't spread its wings freely, as it finally gave up the chase.
As high-spirited as they had been when they set out, they were just as dejected upon their return. It was hard to imagine seeing "dejection" on the face of a massive monster, but that was exactly the vibe Mirrorblade gave off to anyone who saw him.
"Well, there's no need to be so gloomy," the Admiral said, approaching the walking Mirrorblade. "At least we now know what the monster causing these avalanches looks like. Now we just need to find a way to repel it."
Sigh.
Mirrorblade turned his head and shot the Admiral a glance, but made no sound.
"Can we really hunt it, meow?" Sitting at the base of Mirrorblade's tail, Kankan said dejectedly, "Even the Little Boss isn't a match for it, meow. What can the Ape-Dragons do, meow?"
The innocence of a child—or a cat? Simple-minded Kankan didn't think too much about it, failing to notice that after he spoke, the tail he was sitting on drooped even lower.
This was exactly why the Admiral chose this moment to step up and boost morale. After all, besides him and the Tracker, the other two hunters looked quite discouraged as well.
It was understandable. No one knew better than these frontline hunters just how much an exceptional hunter could achieve. There was always a massive gap between humans and monsters, and this mission had provided them with a powerful monster as a teammate. In all their years as hunters, they had never felt such a sense of security on a mission.
And then they had all been kicked right back by a Velkhana.
The sense of falling from a height.
"That's not right," the Admiral said with a loud laugh. "For us humans, it's perfectly normal not to be a match for a monster in terms of individual strength. But even so, we have scholars to study their habits and weaknesses, technicians to forge sharp weapons, and brave warriors to do battle."
"It's through everyone's collective effort that we've managed to survive in this world and defeat many powerful monsters." Ever the loyal companion, the Tracker picked up where the Admiral left off, saying in a low voice, "If we gave up just because a monster was stronger than us, there would be no Kingdom, and we wouldn't be here in the New World."
"...You're right." One of the hunters, carrying a Heavy Bowgun, slapped his cheeks with both hands. "It's precisely because we're weak that we have to work twice as hard. Next time, we'll need better weapons to help the Little Boss!"
"Exactly! I remember the Guild had the Fourth Fleet bring over a Dragonrazer, didn't they? If all else fails, we'll have to set traps and lure that ice dragon into it. Only a big toy like that can deal effective damage, right?"
"A Dragonrazer? That is reliable. But I think..."
Seeing the two hunters regain their spirit, the Admiral nodded in satisfaction. He then turned his gaze toward Mirrorblade ahead of them.
It wasn't his imagination; Mirrorblade's pace had quickened. Undoubtedly, he had overheard the hunters' conversation, but he couldn't quite accept it yet.
"Honestly..." The Admiral gave a helpless chuckle. "It's about time you came back to see your kid, isn't it? Boss... I don't know the first thing about comforting a dragon..."
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