Its vitality was simply too overwhelming. For the Savage Deviljho, entering the New World was like a rat stumbling into a grain silo; it did nothing but gorge itself.
The New World boasted a biological density and quality far superior to the Old World, which more than satisfied the Savage Deviljho's hunger. Yet, for such a creature, true satisfaction was impossible. It was like a gluttonous hyena, never stopping its consumption for a single moment, save for brief periods of rest.
The act of eating was both the process and the ultimate goal. For the Savage Deviljho, feeding was all that remained of its life—it was pure instinct!
Eat!
This was an appetite even more fanatical than Asterion's. At least Asterion knew the value of rest and recreation; he knew when to stop, when to sleep to digest his meals, or when to spend time raising children, playing with his Palico, and finding ways to alleviate boredom.
But the Savage Deviljho had completely lost those higher desires. It had been reduced to a biological recycling machine for the New World's life energy. Its body, through this grueling process of constant consumption, was perpetually being wounded and healed, continuously accumulating life energy to grow even stronger.
The overflowing life energy and meat transformed into fat and muscle, making the Savage Deviljho's flesh tighter and more resilient. Its hide had reached an almost absurd level of thickness—so much so that after tanking several rounds of point-blank explosions from the Seething Bazelgeuse, it suffered no substantial damage, merely feeling a bit dizzy from the blasts.
Shaking its massive head, the Savage Deviljho showed no signs of falling. To it, the explosions were nothing more than the stings of tiny insects.
Crack-crackle!
Red-and-black Dragon Element lightning, mingled with thick black smoke, spewed from the Savage Deviljho's maw. While the Seething Bazelgeuse could land full-damage hits on the Deviljho, the reverse was equally true.
The violent Dragon energy even began to suppress the bio-energy glowing atop the Seething Bazelgeuse's head, causing that eerie blue light to dim—it was as if the energy was being sealed away, stripping the Bazelgeuse of part of its protection.
It was a true clash of titans, a meeting of perfect rivals.
The Seething Bazelgeuse was already renowned for its incredible durability, but after mastering this new bio-energy, it was like a tiger that had grown wings. The "blue-shift" transformation didn't just grant him a set of stunningly radiant scales or multiply the power of his blasting scales; it gave him something even he didn't quite understand.
It felt as though his entire body was filled from the inside out. Every cell was screaming to move, to ram, to explode. That swelling sense of abundance spread from his chest to the tips of his limbs, pressing and driving him, making it impossible to stand still for more than three seconds. He possessed nearly infinite energy.
In fact, this was the primary reason Asterion had rarely seen the Seething Bazelgeuse in the years since his return. A battle-maniac who was already high-strung had become even more hyperactive, unable to settle down for a moment. Naturally, such a creature wouldn't stay quietly within the Mirrorblade tribe.
A Bazelgeuse goes wherever it pleases!
Even though the Seething Bazelgeuse had fought countless monsters and experienced innumerable battles, this specific type of fight—devoid of technique or evasion, a pure contest of raw physical strength and endurance—was exactly to his taste.
He didn't need to waste effort chasing down fragile things that liked to hop around, nor did he even need to take two steps forward. The big "black sausage" in front of him would simply hurl itself his way!
This was pure bliss!!
THOOM!! BOOM!!
The dull sound of the impact was buried under the roar of explosions. The blasts triggered by the Seething Bazelgeuse thus far were enough to vibrate a fully armed hunter into mincemeat. Note the phrasing: vibrate into mincemeat. A hunter's high-grade armor might remain perfectly intact, but the person inside could not withstand such dense explosive shockwaves. The pressure waves squeezing in from all directions would shatter internal organs and rot them from the inside out.
And yet, the Savage Deviljho charged in headlong. It plunged into that blue fire that could liquify a human—once, twice, three times. Each time it used the same posture and the same path, not even bothering to change direction.
The front of its broad, rounded snout had been charred black, and cracks had appeared in the flesh along its flanks, but these were minor wounds, nowhere near fatal.
Things weren't much better on the Seething Bazelgeuse's side. The bio-crystals on its body, sealed by the Dragon energy, seemed to have grown brittle. They began to peel and crack under the Savage Deviljho's repeated rams and crushing bites. Every time that massive black pillar of muscle slammed into him, the force traveled from his shell to his bones, and from his bones throughout his entire body, making the Seething Bazelgeuse more and more ecstatic.
Facing such a grand-scale assault, the Savage Deviljho's strategy was simple: Charge.
Well, it wasn't much of a strategy, as that was the only move it knew.
Its hind legs kicked off the ground like a stone launched from a catapult. The Savage Deviljho's powerful thigh muscles propelled it instantly, leaving two deep footprints in the dirt, filled with the powdered remains of bio-crystals shattered by the shockwaves.
Without any flashy abilities, the Savage Deviljho lunged horizontally into the heart of the explosions. It leaped from the earth, jaws agape, as violent Dragon energy poured from its mouth like thick smoke, blowing away the cloud of floating crystal shards in its path!
WHOOSH!!
Like an unexploded dud shell, it slammed into the Seething Bazelgeuse. This was the Savage Deviljho's greatest weapon—its mouth!
"Nice mouth, brother! Nice mouth!"
...I must correct the metaphor for the Savage Deviljho. It wasn't a stone; it was an arrow—an arrow already lodged in the Seething Bazelgeuse's body. Its razor-sharp teeth were the arrowhead, and they had already broken through—
CRACK!
The sounds of shattering grew more frequent and louder.
Even the dental strength of a Savage Deviljho couldn't support its weight of several hundred tons while anchored to the Seething Bazelgeuse. Under the force of gravity, the teeth it had sunk into the Bazelgeuse's cranial armor snapped off one by one. Like wooden wedges driven into stone, they were stuck in deep, but they had splintered, leaving a jagged mess of white broken teeth scattered across the Bazelgeuse's thick skull like some bizarre decoration.
Hard!
With one bite, even the mindless Savage Deviljho could instinctively feel how tough its opponent was. However, those broken teeth were of no consequence. At a pace visible to the naked eye, new teeth were already pushing through the gums. Before more than a few drops of blood could leak from the gaps, new fangs had emerged—sharper, whiter, and slightly longer than before. The growth never stopped.
But during this brief window, the Seething Bazelgeuse couldn't launch a counterattack for a simple reason: he was dazed.
Even for a dragon, taking a several-hundred-ton muscle pillar to the face results in some serious disorientation. The Seething Bazelgeuse felt his vision blur; the world seemed to shatter for a moment, its edges turning crooked. Fortunately, he didn't fall, but he couldn't immediately process the combat information around him.
—Was it blurry?
"ROOOOOAR!!!"
When in doubt, explode. That was the Seething Bazelgeuse's motto for life.
When holding the advantage, explode to further crush the enemy. When at a stalemate, explode to break the deadlock and find an opening. When at a disadvantage, explode to find a path to survival and turn the tide.
The bio-crystal armor around the Seething Bazelgeuse began to vibrate after that roar, emitting a low hum like something long-repressed finally finding an exit. He truly was different from the rest of his kind now—completely different.
The bio-energy within him had ignited him, making him glow like a lightbulb and causing him to give up on sleep entirely. But the Seething Bazelgeuse didn't blame Asterion for this. On the contrary, having extra time in his life felt wonderful.
And now, that energy seemed to have found a new purpose. Just like everything that had a close relationship with Asterion—oh, don't overthink it; the Seething Bazelgeuse had once tasted Asterion's blood and spent years eating his shed scales and plating. That connection was more than enough.
In short, this bond granted him a level of control over bio-energy that no other large blue-shifted monster possessed.
At this moment, the flesh and armor of the Seething Bazelgeuse's head seemed to vanish. Bio-energy erupted directly from his glowing, translucent skull. It was as if the matter there no longer existed in a physical state.
With the Seething Bazelgeuse at the center, a ring of ghostly blue light expanded at high speed. The residual Dragon energy clinging to him resisted for only a second before being utterly annihilated.
From a distance, the hidden observers could only see a scorching wave of blue flame expanding rapidly from the blue-shifted Seething Bazelgeuse, accompanied by the fierce winds of the explosion!
It was more than wind; it was a series of invisible, heavy fists. The hot air and shockwaves toppled the few remaining trees and cleared the battlefield further, leveling the forest in the distance and melting the low, crystallized shrubs into liquid.
What was once a lush woodland had been blasted into a scorched wasteland. Only a few tilted trunks remained at the edges, their surfaces polished smooth as mirrors by the energy blast.
"So strong... way too strong." With one hand holding a wet cloth over his nose and mouth, Aiden watched the scene through the gaps in the tree roots, his voice dry. "Are all the monsters in the New World... well, monsters? Er, sorry, I'm a bit lightheaded, but this is hard to believe—is this really not a fight between Elder Dragons?!"
"I know what you mean, partner." Even though the two battling behemoths couldn't possibly hear them from this distance, Sophia lowered her voice out of instinctive fear, pressing the wet cloth tighter against her face.
"The monsters in this forest have generally begun to use bio-energy as a means of attack. Beyond promoting biological evolution, bio-energy has shown terrifying power in other fields—especially in its aggressiveness."
"When energy attacks capable of large-scale destruction become a common method for territorial disputes, these monsters might not be classified as Elder Dragons, but their destructive capability is very close to it."
"If that's the case, we can't even trust the Apceros anymore, meow," Sparky said, scratching his face. "I don't want to be gathering steaks and suddenly get blasted, meow."
"Is this the power of the Sovereign of Evolution?" Looking at the rising clouds of fire in the distance, Aiden spoke with an expression of disbelief, his voice a mix of awe and bewilderment. "To be able to make monsters across such a vast area grow so much stronger... it definitely isn't an ordinary Elder Dragon anymore. At least, an Elder Dragon like Kushala Daora couldn't achieve something like this."
"It truly is the Elder Dragon that represents evolution," Erin whispered beside them. "The Guild seems to have accepted this assessment. They're planning to rename the Sovereign of Evolution again."
"Another name change?" Aiden couldn't help but complain. "Few monsters have as many names as he does. Every time there's a new investigation result, the name changes."
"It can't be helped. He really does have many forms, and each one brings fundamental changes," Sophia said helplessly. "Regardless, we won't have a definitive answer until we actually see the Sovereign of Evolution ourselves."
The situation had become so serious that even Erin, who usually had the best attitude and the most carefree personality, couldn't find it in her to smile... or could she?
Her fingers brushed her bag, and she lifted her wet cloth just enough to pop a piece of dried meat into her mouth. Chew, chew. Thinking on an empty stomach was never the right way to go.
Mmm, I feel my thoughts becoming more active already.
BOOM!
The two giants rolled together, black-red electric mists and ghostly blue flames intertwining. They crushed rocks and melted soil, quickly carving a massive crater into the ground.
"We have to become stronger, too," Karl said suddenly. He had been listening silently to his companions. His voice wasn't loud, but for someone who rarely voiced an opinion, speaking up meant he had already thought it through and made a decision he wouldn't change.
"Become stronger?" Aiden asked, puzzled. "More training? But our strength isn't something that can just—"
There was no verbal answer. Instead, Karl's actions spoke for him.
To the stunned gazes of his companions, Karl reached out and tore the damp, protective cloth from his face. Then, he took a deep, forceful breath of the air thick with suspended, microscopic bio-crystal mist.
Hiss—Haaaaa—
The group: "..."
What does this mean?
What, what, what, what does this even mean?!!!
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