After watching the first few minutes, the Westbrook quartet had felt that the Crimson Fatalis wasn't much different from the previous Black Dragon—it just seemed to have slightly higher attack power. They were even thinking that once Wayne finished his hunt, they would ask Captain Reanier (who already had progress on the Black Dragon) to host a quest so they could experience this hidden boss that surpassed the final boss of the main game.
However, the "Flame Burst" ability they just witnessed had already shaken their resolve. The subsequent "Meteor Summon" caused them to abandon the idea entirely; they decided it was better to just keep farming materials and practicing their skills honestly...
After the Crimson Fatalis's bites and serpentine charges were all evaded by Wayne, it flapped its wings and suddenly reared its front claws, standing half-upright. Its head tilted back as it let out a long, piercing shriek, and then it slammed its claws heavily back onto the ground.
Following a tremor that felt like a mountain collapsing, flaming boulders began to drop from the ceiling like a meteor shower!
These meteors seemed to be controlled by the Crimson Fatalis's will, lining up to strike at Wayne. Wayne had no choice but to sheathe his weapon and run in circles around the arena without stopping for a single second. If he hesitated even slightly or slowed his pace, he would be crushed by the meteors' massive impact radius.
Hicks suddenly had a flash of inspiration: "If he runs right up to the dragon's side, wouldn't the meteors hit the dragon itself?"
Reanier dismissed the idea: "Look at the dragon's body. It's radiating heat as if it's exhaling energy from every scale. Getting close at a time like this would result in severe burns."
While they disagreed on that point, they were unanimous on another: in this situation, a multi-person team would be far more effective than soloing.
In a four-person group, when the meteors were chasing one person, the other three could spread out and use ranged weapons to deal damage. They wouldn't be like Wayne, who had to exhaust his own stamina alone just to dodge all four consecutive meteors.
With the addition of "Meteor Summon" and "Flame Burst," along with the significant increase in attack power and frequency, Wayne was fighting a grueling battle. In fact, because the Crimson Fatalis was attacking so relentlessly, Wayne was so busy dodging that he didn't even have an opening to replenish his "Cool Drinks" or reload his ammunition.
In Monster Hunter G, which didn't yet have bows, the characteristic of the light and heavy bowguns was to deal sustained damage from a relatively safe distance. However, if one relied solely on bullet damage without auxiliary means, they might run out of special ammo and crafting materials before the ultimate difficulty bosses were even close to death.
Therefore, for this hunt, Wayne had specifically brought Sleep Shots—something he hadn't used before.
After a long back-and-forth struggle, he finally found an opening when the Crimson Fatalis took to the air and, like the Black Dragon, began randomly spitting fireballs in a 180-degree arc. Wayne reloaded, aimed, and fired three consecutive Sleep Shots, forcing the dragon into a deep slumber the moment it landed.
Wayne rushed forward at maximum speed. Place, craft, place again. He set two Large Barrel Bomb Gs right next to the dragon's head. Then he ran far away, crafted more, replenished his ammo, reloaded, drank a Cool Drink, and used an Ancient Potion to refresh his buffs. He couldn't hesitate for a second; he had to complete all these steps during this rare window of opportunity before the Crimson Fatalis woke up.
The depth—or rather, the beginner-unfriendliness—of games like Monster Hunter lay right here. There were a vast number of items, such as Paintballs, traps, and consumables, whose uses and timing had to be studied slowly. There were also numerous crafting recipes to memorize. Furthermore, players had to spend a lot of energy gathering materials during hunts and knowing which items worked on which monsters—for example, knowing that Cephadromes were weak to Sonic Bombs but immune to Flash Bombs.
To the onlookers, they could only vaguely understand what Wayne was doing. The crafting and inventory menus appeared and disappeared so quickly as Wayne switched to his next action that they were barely visible. Some of the townsfolk outside watching the live stream, who had never seen Monster Hunter before, even thought these items were being conjured by magic, like an Azerothian Mage conjuring bread.
Click!
Reload.
Wayne switched to "Crag Shots" (Clust), opened aim mode, and pointed at the base of the dragon's head.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Three Clust shots flew out. These projectiles were much larger than Pierce or Flame shots, so they traveled slower and had a shorter range, falling in a noticeable arc after leaving the muzzle.
However, the power of these shells was far greater than any other ammo!
As each Clust shot hit the Crimson Fatalis's head, it didn't deal damage immediately. Instead, it popped open, releasing six or seven smaller cluster bombs from the outer shell. Each cluster bomb that touched the dragon's head or the ground exploded violently. The three Clust shots triggered nearly twenty consecutive explosions and ignited the two Large Barrel Bomb Gs, causing a massive secondary blast.
For a moment, the screen was filled with blinding light and the roar of explosions!
The Crimson Fatalis, which had been asleep a second ago, let out a scream of agony. It instinctively pulled its neck and body back, but the chain of explosions had already finished. It pulled its head out of a thick cloud of black smoke, revealing scars on its face and a broken right horn—proof that Wayne's maneuver had dealt massive damage.
Verdan: "Damn, I really want to see Miller use Dual Blades so I can learn some pro moves."
Hudson: "Sword and Shield too... I want to see what kind of moves he can pull off that we haven't even thought of."
Hicks: "You two are being too picky. We're lucky just to watch. Miller is giving us a free tutorial. I think the few of us should find a way to keep up with the Boss's level first. He played with Miller for a day last time, and now his skill is far beyond ours, don't you think?"
The other three turned their heads in unison to stare at Hicks with eyes full of undisguised contempt for his flattery, but they said: "Yes, yes, that makes sense. The Boss learns from Miller, and we just need to learn from the Boss."
A full 20 minutes passed. Under the rapidly changing attack patterns of the Crimson Fatalis, Wayne took two hits that left him with only a sliver of health, nearly being sent back to camp by the cat-cart. He desperately fled, healed up, and toughed it out.
Through this repeated attrition—and by seizing opportunities during sleep or the brief recovery frames after landing to deal burst damage with bombs and Clust shots—Wayne finally depleted at least two-thirds of the Crimson Fatalis's health.
The battle had reached its final stage.
As its vitality dropped, the Crimson Fatalis seemed increasingly unable to suppress the fire energy within its body. The red glow across its entire frame became more intense, even starting to look a bit dazzling.
Outside, the crowd of onlookers grew larger. Those in the front were being slowly pushed forward by those behind until they were almost pressed against the glass windows.
Unlike the story-driven Saint Seiya from the previous two days, which was a high-definition remastered animation with perfectly fluid frame rates and optimized art styles, today was different. Even though Saint Seiya's moves were shown in a semi-3D fashion and looked better than the best entries of the original series, it was still clearly a 2D drama with an art style that didn't belong to Azeroth.
But today was different. Although no one had ever been inside a volcano or seen a Black Dragon—let alone a Crimson Fatalis—it was an open secret that a massive black dragon lived inside Blackrock Mountain.
And most importantly, it was Wayne—a real person existing in this world, a Knight of Goldshire, the owner of the net cafe—who was fighting this burning dragon amidst the gasps and cheers of the townsfolk. This concrete sense of immersion led many to firmly believe that everything happening was real.