Clasping Asterion's tail with a pair of front claws, the Rusted Kushala Daora stretched its neck and bit directly onto the tip of Asterion's sword-tail—the Great Sword portion composed entirely of mineral secretions.
To omit the preamble: Kushala Daora is an Elder Dragon that feeds primarily on ore. To omit the rest.
Crunch.
He didn't even have time to struggle. Asterion turned his head, staring blankly—his sword-tail, his precious Great Sword, hadn't lasted more than a few seconds between the Kushala Daora's teeth before it was shattered.
It was indeed hard, but one could only say it required a bit of effort to bite through.
A tail cut.
Asterion never imagined that a "tail cut" would happen to him, a cute one-year-old baby dragon.
To avoid having his tail severed, he barely even used the heating state that would increase his cutting power, completely shelving the technique for this battle. So why did things still end up like this?!
Pain. So much pain.
If he had known earlier that his sword-tail would be crunched and eaten anyway...
"Roar!!!" (I'm going to kill you!!!)
Pain, suffering—my hatred burns within the Wildspire Waste!
Asterion roared in fury. The power he erupted with in that moment was enough to physically throw the Rusted Kushala Daora off, but the Elder Dragon didn't use the momentum to retaliate. Instead, it simply flapped its wings and took flight, hovering in mid-air.
"Roar, roar, roar!!" (Come down! If you have the guts, come down!! See if I don't hack you to death!!)
Unable to fly, Asterion could only look up from below, anxious and furious, practically hopping with rage as he roared ceaselessly.
Here it comes again! That damned feeling!!
That wretched dragon, relying on its flight to shit all over his head and taunt him!!
Asterion's dragon face was practically turning green with rage.
"Roar! Roar!" (Young whelp. You ate the horn I took pride in, so I ate the tail you took pride in.)
"Roar!!" (If you want revenge, I will be waiting for you in the land where effluvium gathers... but I won't wait for you for too long.)
Completely ignoring the furious Asterion down below, the Rusted Kushala Daora spoke its piece, then flapped its wings and flew toward the north of the Wildspire Waste.
Asterion chased after it for a few steps, but eventually stopped after leaping onto a cliff edge.
He didn't chase any further. He just stared fixedly in the direction the Rusted Kushala Daora had left, watching it disappear into the dark clouds.
After a long time, Asterion let out a low growl.
Depression, anger, humiliation, sympathy... all sorts of complex emotions intertwined. Asterion had never expected such complicated sentiments to arise in interactions between dragons.
He understood the meaning behind the Rusted Kushala Daora's final words.
I am waiting for you in the Rotten Vale, but I cannot wait too long... because I am dying.
Forge your tail anew, then come find me.
Seriously, truly—what a petty, stubborn, proud, stinking dragon!!
Kushala Daora is just petty! Kushala Daora is a prideful jerk!!
Pah!!
It was like a lonely old person with no children to care for them, seeing death approaching and unwilling to die quietly alone, wanting to make some noise before the end but refusing to admit it—Pah!!
What kind of decent old person pulls a stunt like this!!
The more he thought about it, the angrier he got. Asterion wasn't a dragon who refused to admit the truth. Yes, he admitted it: this Rusted Kushala Daora could have killed him. The gap between a standard monster and an Elder Dragon was simply too vast—so vast that merely being able to briefly contend with one and repel it, rather than kill it, was enough to be recorded in history.
People only know that a Rajang will attempt to defeat the Elder Dragon Kirin and seize its horn to become stronger, but they don't know that very few Rajang succeed. Most Rajang die in this challenge, either gored to death by the Kirin or struck dead by lightning.
And even then, a Rajang that successfully steals a horn cannot kill the Kirin. The Kirin only needs to recover for a while before its horn grows back.
It comes back to that saying: the gap between dragons is often wider than the gap between dogs. Cruel nature doesn't care about game balance. If you can survive, you live; if you can't, you die and get eliminated.
It's that simple.
In the past, relying on his memories of the game, Asterion had held onto some illusions. But today, after witnessing the Rusted Kushala Daora's devastating power—akin to a natural disaster incarnate—he had completely discarded those notions.
But having said all that, despite its dignity and pride, the Rusted Kushala Daora chose not to hunt him down, even though Asterion had crushed its horn—the part every Kushala Daora takes the most pride in and holds most important.
It even left behind a sentence equivalent to, "I'm waiting for you to come kill me."
What is this?
What is this?!
You two steel dragons fought each other and destroyed my home, nearly killed my Kulu-Ya-Ku brother, and now it ends like this... Have you ever considered the feelings of the irrelevant lives that died in this battle?
Huh?! Answer me!!
...Right, how could an Elder Dragon care about such things?
It's all part of the cycle of life anyway. The flesh of the dead nourishes the living. Compared to such small matters, letting a senior of the species escape pain and have a glorious burial is what's more important.
A certain tactician surnamed Sun was right: if you lack strength, you will be humiliated, unable to even decide how you die.
Twisting his remaining sword-tail in front of him, Asterion looked at the weapon he had meticulously crafted from the Zorah Magdaros slag he had previously spewed out. Now, it was a piece of scrap metal. He suddenly felt like crying... but the tears wouldn't come.
A Glavenus does not shed tears easily.
Great. Now he had to find massive mineral veins to forge his blade all over again.
At least nothing was wasted. While grumbling internally about that smelly, hard, old Rusted Kushala Daora, Asterion scoured the battlefield, eating the fragments of his shattered sword-tail and the Elder Dragon Blood the Kushala had left behind.
He couldn't come out of a fight with a net loss, could he?
And... there was a promise waiting for him.
Taking one last glance in the direction the Rusted Kushala Daora had gone, Asterion turned without looking back and walked toward his collapsed nest. He had to wait there for his Kulu-Ya-Ku brother to return.
Just you wait, old geezer.
Before you die of natural causes, I will definitely kill you.
Sitting atop the ruins of his old nest, Asterion sat in the rain for a long time. He had no intention of seeking shelter, sitting there in a daze, not moving an inch.
To be honest, he couldn't quite remember how long it took for the Kulu-Ya-Ku to return. It must have been when it sensed there were no more sounds of intense combat or roaring, and no tornadoes that looked like they were going to end the world.
But regardless, the Kulu-Ya-Ku returned to Asterion's side in one piece, making him feel a little better amidst his sadness.
Asterion was analyzing the battle.
Post-battle analysis is a good habit; it's just a pity he didn't have a replay to watch.
From transmigrating into an egg until now, this was the first time Asterion had so seriously summarized his strengths and weaknesses, as well as every decision made during the fight with the Rusted Kushala Daora.
Lack of regret aside, Asterion had to admit he had gotten a bit too carried away recently. Relying on his knowledge of this world, he had dared to act rashly without verifying intelligence, losing the cautiousness of setting plans before hunting that he had when he first arrived in this world.
This was a bad thing. It had to change. He needed to maintain vigilance at all times.
As for why he had become like this, Asterion had a vague idea... First, he was reborn as a handsome Flagship Monster, not a pitiful Apceros at the bottom of the food chain that anyone could kick to death. At the very least, he possessed the qualifications to roar in this world.
His powerful stomach and digestion gave him an energy absorption efficiency other monsters lacked. He didn't need to defecate; anything he ate was absorbed 100% and converted into his own strength.
This ability even allowed Asterion to skip the normal juvenile stage of a Glavenus, prematurely possessing a size and strength comparable to an ordinary adult male Glavenus. Normally, a Glavenus whelp at Asterion's age would have just been kicked away by its mother, forced to try living alone.
A normal Glavenus whelp at this stage would be a full size smaller than an adult, and its sword-tail wouldn't be heavy or hard enough, yet its temper would be just as short. Consequently, a moment of carelessness could lead to death in fights with other monsters.
But Asterion... aside from the first month or so after crawling out of his shell, which was quite miserable, he could now charge over and kick to death the Apceros he once had to deal with carefully. He even successfully took revenge on the Jyuratodus that had forcibly stolen his meal, chopping it into fish steaks and eating it.
Later on, he became the apex predator of a region. The Anjanath that dared to bully his brother was hacked to death in a frenzy of blades. The only battle that could be considered difficult was the one against the Tempered Rathian.
But to be honest, that Rathian was a failure. It had lost its spirit. It sounded like a fierce dragon transitioning toward becoming a Gold Rathian, but in reality, its evolutionary path had only just begun—merely dyeing the edges of its wing membranes a bit gold.
Coupled with the fact that the Rathian relied on its rich combat experience, using methods that worked on other Glavenus against Asterion, it got absolutely wrecked by dirty tactics—who would expect that when a normal tail swipe hit, the enemy would suddenly explode?
It got blasted right in the face, with shrapnel even embedding into its eyes. It was tragic beyond measure.
Real combat isn't a simple comparison of stats; otherwise, Hunters wouldn't need to risk their lives hunting—they could just meet the monster and drop dead immediately.
Time, weather, terrain, emotions, preparedness, unknown information... The outcome of real combat often shifts due to various unexpected factors. A moment of carelessness leads to disaster.
It's just like a full six-man squad rushing the dam only to get sprayed down by a G18 around the corner. On paper, the Golden M14 is definitely stronger, but you'll still end up drooling on the floor because you didn't check your corners carefully.
Asterion couldn't remember the last time he went out to hunt cautiously, afraid to stay outside for even a second longer than necessary, filling his belly and scurrying back to his nest at top speed, never sticking his head out a second longer than he had to.
As for hunting with traps... that was a skill he hadn't pulled out in a long time.
But now, for the first time since birth, Asterion had witnessed the might of an Elder Dragon.
He could only say that the road from an ordinary monster ascending to an Elder Dragon was indeed arduous and long.
That damn joke was still chasing him: if he didn't become an Elder Dragon, Asterion couldn't hunt an Elder Dragon. But if he couldn't hunt an Elder Dragon, he couldn't become an Elder Dragon—it was a vicious cycle.
Thinking of this, Asterion couldn't help but sigh deeply.
"Roar..." (Sorry, I couldn't kill that smelly dragon that almost killed you, and I couldn't make it realize it was wrong.)
Asterion's roar was somewhat low.
"Guga, guga!"
The Kulu-Ya-Ku, on the other hand, didn't seem to take its near-death experience to heart at all. It looked a bit sad seeing their nest piled up with rocks, but not overly so. What truly made it scream emotionally and jump around was seeing Asterion's severed tail lying beside him.
"Gugugu—gagagagaga!!!"
Lacking extensive knowledge of dragon biology, the Kulu-Ya-Ku didn't know that a Glavenus's sword-tail was composed of a fleshy dragon tail covered by mineral secretions.
Therefore, in its limited cognition, the situation was that its boy had his tail beaten off by a dragon!!
How terrifying! How dangerous!
Just imagining its own tail breaking off was enough to make the Kulu-Ya-Ku feel like the sky was falling.
It ran in quick circles around Asterion, its bird legs splashing paji-paji in the rain, carefully searching for any injuries on its boy.
The tip of the tail was broken off. The whole dragon looked a size thinner. The outer layer of indigo shell had vanished, revealing a layer of bright red shell underneath. Because it hadn't been exposed to the air before, this layer of shell close to Asterion's flesh didn't even look like the dark red of other Glavenus.
But the injury that looked the most severe on his entire body was Asterion's back shell. The heat-dissipating shell that originally rose like a volcano was mostly gone. The Kulu-Ya-Ku could directly see the pink muscle underneath trembling with Asterion's breathing, with bright red dragon blood continuously flowing and dripping from the cracks in the shell.
The Kulu-Ya-Ku was about to faint.
It shrieked, covering its bird head with a pair of claws, its mind in chaos—it wanted to hurry and find some herbs to apply to its boy, but Asterion stopped it.
He knew his own body. Asterion knew that the damage he had taken only looked severe. The same injuries on a small monster like the Kulu-Ya-Ku would be grave, but with the robustness and sheer size of a Glavenus body, these wounds would heal naturally just by eating and sleeping.
"Roar!" (I hate dragons that can fly.)
One front claw wrapped around the Kulu-Ya-Ku, Asterion growled in a muffled voice.
"Guga guga!" (Then hate them! I hate them too!)
"Roar." (I hate Elder Dragons even more.)
"Guga? Guga guga!" (What is an Elder Dragon? The guy who bit you like this? Then I hate them too!!)
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