To be honest, Asterion could no longer find any trace of the past in his current sword-tail. It was the most thorough transformation, changing from bone to flesh to skin—an alteration occurring at the very root of his physical body.
It was still a sword-tail with a vertical blade, but now sharp edges existed on both the upper and lower sections, making it a double-edged sword. The cutting edges were made of Bladescales, and the entire tail was covered in Bladescales, extending from the tip all the way to the base.
The shape of the entire sword-tail wasn't regular. Aside from the streamlined curvature of both the upper and lower blades, there was a small section on the upper part near the tip that lacked a blade edge. If looked at vertically, one would notice that in the transition from the thick base to the thin tip, this bladeless area formed a smooth protrusion, like a small bump. The corresponding lower part of the tail at that position remained covered in normal Bladescales.
Each of these cyan-blue Bladescales shone as smoothly as a mirror. Most importantly, the shape of the sword-tail had changed. If Asterion's past tail was like a thick, broad Great Sword, his current one was much more slender.
It actually looked a bit like an Acidic Glavenus's tail blade, though wider and thicker than an Acidic Glavenus's. Overall, however, it leaned towards a feeling of agility.
Perhaps the only similarity between the two versions of the sword-tail was that Asterion would still use it to slash?
Aside from that, there were no similarities whatsoever. As mentioned before, there was now a fundamental difference between the two.
In the past, Asterion's sword-tail occupied half his total body length, but over half of that length was actually made up of mineral secretions. There was no flesh or blood inside, nor were there connected nerves. Even if it broke, he wouldn't feel pain; it was purely a massive chunk of metal.
It was like wearing a metal finger guard on a finger. What every Glavenus spent its days grinding was essentially that finger guard.
Hmm, perhaps it could be called a sword-shell?
In any case, only after losing this sword-shell could one see a Glavenus's true tail—covered in hard, dark blue shells, indistinguishable from many other wyverns' tails: very ordinary, round, and thick.
But for the current Asterion, these were all things of the past.
Asterion's sword-tail had become a true sword-tail, not just a tail wrapped in a metal shell—a casing.
Yes, literally. Now, the entire tail was Asterion's weapon.
It was no longer like a Hunter using their body to wield an externally forged weapon. The surface no longer had any mineral secretions; instead, the entire body was as smooth as a mirror, reflecting dazzling light under the sun.
A massive yet slender precious sword. It no longer needed sharpening, nor did he need to devour large amounts of ore to secrete minerals to patch up combat wear and tear. Asterion's dragon bone was the sword's spine, and the sharp Bladescales on the upper and lower sides were the sword's edges.
Now, here comes the question: does anyone remember the Odogaron muscles?
Odogaron, Seregios—Asterion only began this evolution after hunting enough of these two wyverns to acquire their physical traits. Furthermore, the reactive Bladescales that replaced the air sac shells on his body surface didn't utilize the Odogaron muscles.
Therefore, the Odogaron muscles had only one destination: they were used in the brand-new sword-tail.
Thinking of this, Asterion lightly shook his sword-tail—Click-click-click-click-click!!
In an instant, from the base of his tail to the tip, the blades on the upper and lower sides—at least, where the blades were located—suddenly split apart neatly. There was an equal distance between every single Bladescale, and each Bladescale was connected to the main body of the sword-tail by muscle.
The originally slender-looking sword-tail suddenly became a layer wider by force, but this was just the beginning. Asterion took a deep breath and focused!
Click-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch
With a thought, the Bladescales that had just separated from each other and slightly detached from the tail's main body suddenly began to vibrate rapidly. That high-speed, dense clicking sound was the noise produced by their high-frequency tremors.
Chainsword!!
This was the evolutionary direction Asterion had envisioned for his sword-tail!
Uh, well, there was no chain, only the saw blade—but even so, it filled Asterion with excitement!
He didn't hesitate to turn and slash at the rock layer behind him. Amidst the continuous ch-ch-ch-ch-ch sound, Asterion could clearly feel the hard rock being sliced open with ease, as simple as a hot knife through butter!
This was absolutely a historic breakthrough. It wasn't that Asterion hadn't slashed rocks in the Wildspire Waste before, but back then, if he wanted to cut through rock, he had to charge up and swing the sword-tail, requiring enough space to wind up the attack to sever the stone.
But now it was different. Asterion didn't even swing his sword-tail or make a charging motion. He simply activated the sword-tail and then drifted it lightly toward the rock layer—the Bladescales, vibrating at high frequency, sliced through the rock effortlessly.
Attack power has increased!!
There was no need for doubt. Asterion felt that if he could return to a few years ago and face those two Kushala Daoras face-to-face, he could absolutely use this saw-tail to saw those two big lumps of iron until they called him daddy.
Hmm... would Elder Dragons call someone daddy?
It baffles the dragon.
He was so excited his thoughts were wandering. After controlling the high-frequency vibrating Bladescales to stop, Asterion began inspecting for any wear and tear—uh, naturally, there was none.
It was just cutting some stone. Even Asterion's old sword-tail wouldn't have been damaged, let alone these hard Bladescales.
The feeling now was one of immense satisfaction. Asterion widened his eyes to inspect the Bladescales acting as blades on the sword-tail, especially the flesh and blood connecting them to the main body—that was precisely the good stuff he had obtained from the Odogaron.
Odogaron muscle possessed astonishing explosive power. It wasn't the kind of power that erupted after accumulating strength, but power capable of rapid bursts in a short time. One focused on quality, the other on speed.
What Asterion valued was the Odogaron's ability to explode with power from within its body at maximum speed in an extremely short time. Therefore, when reconstructing this sword-tail, he used a massive amount of Odogaron muscle at the edges of the tail.
It was very much in the spirit of "if you can't kill it by stacking, just keep stacking until you do." Compress as much as possible, keep it taut—these massively compressed Odogaron muscles were like interconnected, tightened springs. Once Asterion issued a command, they would engage in high-speed twitching movements, simultaneously driving the connected Bladescales into high-frequency vibration.
Extremely manic. But for Odogaron muscle, perhaps being able to stay manic like this was a good thing.
Naturally, this high-speed twitching movement would consume a massive amount of bio-energy and simultaneously generate large amounts of high-temperature gas.
Hmm, this is where the four heat vents Asterion had prepared in advance on the upper blade section of the sword-tail come into play. They were located right where the protrusion of non-blade scales was, on the upper part near the tip.
There were no protruding Bladescales there to act as cutting edges against enemies. Instead, they were replaced by four small, thick scales—round, and completely different in shape from the other scales.
As mentioned before, Asterion had already degenerated the massive heat-dissipating shell on his back and completely reorganized the internal cooling pipe routes. He redirected the pipes that originally led to the back towards the rear of his body, connecting them all to the tail.
This led specifically to that small protruding section on the sword-tail. Those four small, thick, round scales were the lids for the heat vents—he couldn't leave them uncovered. Asterion was a bit afraid that some bad apple might pour something into his heat vents to clog them. It would be troublesome if the hot gas couldn't be expelled.
The heat generated inside his body, the heat produced by the Odogaron muscles in the sword-tail during high-frequency vibration... if this heat didn't have a normal outlet and was kept cooped up inside, it would probably turn Asterion into a living bomb.
In a sense, these heat vents could be considered Asterion's biggest current weakness. If they were blocked by something, he would probably die a stifled death before he could even display his full strength, giving others a chance to win against a stronger opponent—yes! Humans!
The "Ape Wyvern" species Asterion was most wary of.
Further improvements would have to wait. He couldn't continue evolving right now; the bio-energy he had painstakingly accumulated had been completely drained during this evolution. Even if he wanted to modify his body further, he couldn't.
Pop!
With a thought, the four scales covering the heat vents popped open instantly, and a wave of heat immediately discharged—just slightly moving the saw-tail had generated enough heat to distort the surrounding air as it sprayed out of the vents.
He hadn't fought with full strength since evolving, so Asterion didn't know if these channels could effectively expel heat during actual combat, but—Hiss!!
A sharp whistling sound.
It was as if something had suddenly hammered the back of the sword-tail Asterion was swinging in front of him. Acceleration!
CLANG!!
The sword-tail, gaining speed out of nowhere, chopped into the rock layer in front of him in an instant. If the high-frequency vibrating sword-tail earlier had sliced the rock like a hot knife through butter, then this strike was like a martial arts master performing a one-inch punch—a sudden explosion of immense power at extremely close range, forcefully chopping into the rock!
Jet-Propelled Sword-Tail!!
Satisfied, Asterion pulled his sword-tail out of the rock. He tentatively gave this move a name in his heart.
Just as the name implied, Asterion first closed the four scales over the heat vents, allowed a certain amount of heat and hot gas to accumulate inside, and then suddenly threw the scales open—Hiss!!
The suddenly ejected hot gas applied a reaction force to Asterion's sword-tail, allowing it to slash downward violently like a Rocket-Powered Great Sword!!
No! This was the true Rocket-Powered Great Sword!!
Even though Asterion's current sword-tail was much slimmer than before, it could still be called a Great Sword!
Likewise, this was the day the broken sword was truly reforged in Asterion's heart! The sword-tail previously recast with Iron Ore and Machalite Ore was just a transitional product, a toy to prevent him from being unarmed—or rather, un-tailed.
To prevent accidents, the Bladescales on the sword-tail and the Bladescales on his body surface were actually two different varieties. The Bladescales on the sword-tail were all specialized—thicker, heavier, unable to explode or be fired out. The direction of their specialization was hardness!
Within the scope of Asterion's current abilities, they were as hard as they could possibly be!
He had really pulled out all the stops to use the good stuff on this sword-tail. Although Asterion no longer formed his sword-tail from mineral secretions, he used all those minerals in the Bladescales that made up the sword-tail.
This was an inevitable choice. If a weapon isn't hard enough and breaks upon contact, what kind of weapon is it?
He finally had a bit of a normal Glavenus's obsession with the tail blade. Asterion knew that the Bladescales on both sides of his current sword-tail were actually consumables; the high-frequency vibration cutting caused significant damage to the Bladescales themselves.
But don't forget, Seregios possessed the ability to rapidly regenerate Bladescales. Asterion had it all planned out: once he encountered a difficult enemy, he would light up the glaive—ah, no, activate the Bladescales and start sawing. Once the Bladescales wore out, he would simply discard them, and brand-new Bladescales capable of serving as blades would regenerate immediately.
He didn't need to sharpen his blade every day like a normal Glavenus, because the Bladescales themselves were the sharpest blades. Nor did he need to find ore to eat every day like a normal Glavenus, because the wear on the Bladescales was far slower than the wear on a normal mineral Great Sword.
According to the path Asterion envisioned for himself, what he would need more in the future were various rare ores, allowing the Bladescales to evolve into a harder and more flexible alloy.
Now, it is... fantasy time!!
Click-ch-ch-ch-ch-ch
Amidst the clicking sound of retracting Bladescales, Asterion swung the sword-tail behind him. It turned back into a tightly sealed sword-tail, smooth as a mirror, with only the blades on both sides flashing with a cold light.
"I need an opponent."
He thought silently.
Only an opponent with sufficient strength could prove whether the things he had currently evolved were useful, and if they could stand the test of actual combat, rather than being eliminated like the air sac shells after only one stage of evolution.
A Tempered Glavenus? An Arch-Tempered Glavenus?
To be honest, even Asterion himself didn't know what level of dragon he was now, because his evolution was unique—he didn't even know if he could still be considered a Glavenus, let alone a King or not.
Moreover, although there were classifications like Tempered or Arch-Tempered among monsters, these were actually just classifications made by human scholars for wyverns. It didn't mean that a Tempered monster could easily insta-kill a normal monster of the same species in a single encounter.
Even Arch-Tempered monsters couldn't achieve that kind of insta-kill.
The only thing that could be determined was that a normal monster was definitely not the match of a Tempered monster or Arch-Tempered monster of the same species. If a turf war occurred between the two, barring any accidents, it would basically end with the victory of the Tempered monster.
Because they had larger bodies, greater stamina, and stronger special abilities.
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