Such pressure was indeed far too extreme for Little Loren, who was still only a young dragon.
And when faced with extreme pressure, intelligent creatures often respond in different ways according to their individual personalities.
Therefore, when facing Nakarkos launching another attack, Little Loren chose the most stubborn approach—meeting it head-on.
Down along the coastline below, the Admiral was doing everything she could to handle the water-beast head, unable to gain enough of an advantage in a short time. What was more, compared to the Admiral, the life-energy reserves in Little Loren's body—which had already opened up a significant gap from those of ordinary monsters—were far more attractive to Nakarkos.
How could this "after-meal dessert" of an Admiral compare to a delicious main course?
As green currents gathered, the blue luminescence between the bone seams of Nakarkos's tentacles grew increasingly bright. The next second, lightning surged upward with blinding speed, appearing before Little Loren almost instantaneously.
This kind of rapid attack was simply far too fast for Little Loren. Even though he had already made the appropriate preparations the moment Nakarkos began gathering electricity, when he actually faced it, he realized he had underestimated it far too much.
The massive current formed into an electric net. With his lack of battle experience, Little Loren did not have the Mind's Eye trait that Logan once had to compensate for this deficit, which resulted in him failing to ascend in time to evade it.
Fortunately, he had already begun storing up firepower. Even though the timing was still somewhat rushed, he could grit his teeth through the numbing sensation and force out a blast of flames.
Scarlet flames collided with the green electric net, and the clash of energy against energy erupted continuously at the point of impact!
At least that brief moment of charge allowed his flame breath to contain more Calamity Flame, preventing it from being crushed in quality and thereby buying him a certain amount of reaction time.
Little Loren made a snap decision, beating his wings repeatedly in an attempt to raise his altitude and escape this lightning attack that far surpassed that of ordinary Astalos.
Even if he was still inexperienced, Little Loren understood his own racial weakness very clearly. With his fragile resistance to lightning-attribute energy, just taking a single hit from this electric net would likely be enough to knock him out of the sky.
It should be known that even Logan as he was now would still try his best to avoid ground combat, let alone Little Loren, who was still in an early-stage state.
The idea was good, but he also should not have thought of Nakarkos as something so simple.
As an old fellow that no one knew how many years had lived, although that outrageous battle outside the Confluence of Fates had knocked it back to its original state, its discernment was still there.
Just from Little Loren's physique, which was sixty percent similar to that of a juvenile Silver Rathalos, and from his roughly similar attack methods, Nakarkos could determine Little Loren's elemental weaknesses and usual fighting style.
Therefore, the fact that Little Loren did not evade at the first moment after its attack was launched was enough for it to give up testing, increase its energy output, and strive to severely wound him in a single blow!
Amid the soundless roar of the Astalos skeleton, the crown-like structure on the skeletal head, still bearing some remaining membranes, spread open. The output efficiency of the electric net climbed once more, and the flame breath that had still barely been able to hold it off was driven back step by step in an instant.
This sudden strengthening of the lightning caught Little Loren completely off guard. Having never faced an enemy of Elder Dragon level or above, he had never imagined that even his all-out flame breath would not be able to put up even a barely adequate resistance.
His throat was already starting to burn, and the Radiant Crystal Butterfly he had secretly brought out was continuously injecting life energy into him, but even with these boons it still could not bring about a qualitative transformation in Little Loren's breath. He could only watch as his own flames were shattered and the electric net wrapped around him from all directions.
Even though these green currents had yet to truly fall upon his body, he could still feel waves of numbing sensation coming from between his scales, even through the flames covering him.
Just when Little Loren did not know what to do and was planning to grit his teeth and take the hit—
A huge fireball burning with a massive amount of Calamity Flame suddenly flew over from behind him and slammed straight into the center of the electric net.
The enclosing trend came to an abrupt halt!
The fireball and the electric net refused to give way to each other. Amid the sound of colliding energies, the fireball's momentum was firmly dragged to a halt. As Nakarkos continued to pour more energy into it, the fireball even began to faintly crumble, and the electric net once again closed in.
"Roar!!"
A furious dragon's roar came from the sky behind Little Loren, and yet another huge fireball fell.
The two fireballs collided and merged!
Immediately afterward, with overwhelming force, they shattered the electric net and, like a meteor, charged toward Nakarkos's main body.
A blue liquid quickly seeped out, staining the Astalos skeleton with a smear of viscous blue, and then this tentacle, carrying a mixed blue-green current, forcibly took that massive fireball head-on.
The tremendous boom kicked up great sheets of spray, and even the Royal Ludroth skeleton that had been locked in a hard-fought battle with the Admiral had its attack interrupted by the impact. It twisted through a few serpentine arcs before withdrawing back into the surging lake.
A golden figure dropped from the sky, riding a raging gale as it swept over Little Loren's head. With her wings blazing with fire once more, Aki revealed her domineering side again, plunging straight into the billowing steam and, accompanied by a muffled dragon's roar, spewed one violently exploding fireball after another toward Nakarkos.
The battle was instantly taken over by Aki, and in that moment the fight escalated again. The surrounding environment was ravaged by the aftershocks of the battle, and the many creatures that had been nearby all fled far from this place of trouble.
Little Loren stared down in disbelief at that golden figure weaving between the two skeletal dragon heads below, seizing the initiative in the battle with an utterly unreasonable stance—it was actually his mother, the one who clung to his old father all day long, who, when she occasionally went out hunting, would only watch the Rathian drive the hunt while she herself rarely struck.
That battle style of hers, relying on her nearly flawless all-around capabilities, domineering yet meticulous, constantly clashing with Nakarkos—this completely overturned Little Loren's usual impression of Aki.
Claws, barbs, flames, and toxins took the field in turn. The Astalos skeleton that had just now crushed Little Loren with attribute-energy attacks alone was forcibly suppressed like this, forcing Nakarkos to withdraw the Royal Ludroth skeleton and launch its attacks at Aki instead.
Beneath the deep water, Nakarkos's true body, hidden within a carapace of corpses and bones, was feeling somewhat helpless at this moment.
How had a Gold Rathian whose life level was in the midst of molting toward that of an Elder Dragon suddenly appeared right when it was peacefully hunting?
To begin with, it had already lost a large number of high-ecological-niche skeletons in its previous battles with Kirin and the others, which was why it had been forced to take the only Astalos skeleton it had left and leave the Dragon's Graveyard to hunt for food.
But even the Astalos skeleton, because the time it had spent being transformed by the blue liquid was still short, had not truly molted to the point where it could confront an Elder Dragon head-on. If it were to be lost just like this in a fight with the Gold Rathian, that would not be worth it.
Of course, that did not mean Nakarkos had no way of dealing with Aki. Aside from the tentacles it used to manipulate the skeletons, its true body was likewise powerful—it simply had misgivings!
This time, it had specifically chosen the period when Kirin and Lunastra were recuperating to go out and hunt for more food to make up for the losses in the Dragon's Graveyard. If it were to reveal its true body but fail to kill Aki in a short time, and the violent energy fluctuations then drew Kirin and Lunastra over, not only would this trip end with no gains, it would become a question whether it could even stabilize the current situation and maintain its own condition well enough to preserve the Dragon's Graveyard as it stood.
It really did not want to start all over again!!
Just as Nakarkos was torn, not daring to cause an even greater disturbance, while Aki's offensive refused to let up—
In a nearby area, two unfamiliar Elder Dragon pressures poured out, instantly making Nakarkos come to a decision!
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