That's more like it!
Seeing that the monster had gradually lost its ability to resist—and that its two attempts to charge out and escape had been intercepted by his Bazelgeuse brother—Asterion finally breathed a sigh of relief. By this point, the creature hadn't revealed any new tricks, which meant it was likely out of moves.
It wasn't hiding any special abilities, nor did it trigger a "second phase" upon reaching critical health. From here, as long as they carefully wore it down and avoided being taken out by a final, desperate death-struggle, victory was theirs.
Even Elder Dragons have to follow the basic laws of nature. After all, no matter how powerful an Elder Dragon is, it isn't a Forbidden Monster. Only Forbidden Monsters completely transcend the ecosystem; Elder Dragons still exist within the framework of the natural cycle. There are even specific Elder Dragons that hunt their own kind.
Elder Dragons consume a massive amount of stamina when utilizing their Elder Dragon power. Since the start of the battle, this unknown monster had used its power to grow bamboo, tearing the ground to shreds. It had also emitted sleep gas multiple times while its physical body fended off the onslaught from Asterion and his brother. Its stamina was completely tapped out.
Asterion didn't even know how long they had been fighting. He only knew the sun had set and risen, and the moon had come and gone. Even though he and his Bazelgeuse brother were double-teaming the beast, neither dragon had found a single moment to rest.
There was no "one dragon holds it down while the other takes a break" scenario. If the Bazelgeuse brother were left alone, he would be no match for this monster—especially since his wings had long since been poked full of holes. If Asterion dared to slack off, his brother would likely drop dead right in front of him.
Asterion himself was much stronger than the Bazelgeuse, but if he fought alone, he could only stall the monster and prevent it from leaving; he would never find the opening to deal a fatal blow.
This Zenith Inagami was no inexperienced youngster. To have lived this long, it naturally possessed some serious skills.
Its strength and endurance far surpassed that of an ordinary Elder Dragon. As the battle between these behemoths progressed, it had unknowingly turned into a contest of sheer will.
If the Inagami couldn't hold out, it would die. But if Asterion and his brother collapsed first, the Inagami would seize the chance to flee. All the injuries the brothers sustained and the stamina and life energy they expended would be for nothing—or worse, the Inagami might turn the tables and kill one of them.
Because of this, even though the Bazelgeuse brother was now covered in blood and his wings were reduced to tattered skeletal frames, he had no intention of retreating.
Push through!
They just had to push through!
THUMP!!
Finally, with a dull thud, the Inagami's heavy body collapsed sideways onto the ground. Asterion had driven a blade diagonally into its relatively soft underbelly. His sharp Seregios-like blade-scales easily shredded the internal organs they encountered.
This strike marked the Inagami's definitive descent toward death. It was as if a water pump had been installed in its belly; its life and strength rapidly drained through the wound until it finally slumped down, motionless.
"Roar!" (Don't go over yet.)
Panting heavily, Asterion called out to his brother. He watched as the monster repeatedly tried to push itself up, only to fail every time.
In its massive draconic eyes was a look of pure indignation. The Inagami wanted to use its final strength to deliver one last vicious blow to the two who had ambushed it, but the pair didn't rush in to feed or deliver a finishing blow. Instead, they circled at a distance, waiting quietly.
The Inagami died.
Asterion possessed ample patience. He waited until the monster had remained motionless for a long time—and showed no reaction even after he threw several large rocks at its body—before he cautiously approached and poked several holes in it with his blade-tail. It was truly dead.
"Roar!" (Time to eat!)
Asterion turned and roared to the distant Bazelgeuse, but his brother's reaction was somewhat sluggish.
"......Roar?" (Is it dead?)
Staggering over at Asterion's call, the Bazelgeuse brother looked utterly exhausted—or perhaps not just tired, but severely wounded and suffering from blood loss.
However, it didn't matter. In the New World, as long as you didn't die outright in battle, what didn't kill a dragon only made it stronger.
The Inagami's carcass was brimming with rich life energy. Even if Asterion didn't know the name of this unknown Elder Dragon or its specific rank, its combat prowess alone guaranteed its life energy was immense.
"Roar, roar-roar." (Let's split it. I want the tail. If there's a Gem, we split it half-and-half. You can eat more of the meat.)
After rambling a long string of roars, Asterion realized the Bazelgeuse wasn't listening at all; he looked like he was about to faint.
Asterion quickly sliced off a piece of meat and stuffed it into his brother's mouth. Feeling the food, the Bazelgeuse chewed quickly, then lunged at the Inagami's corpse and began eating voraciously.
During this process, Asterion noticed the wounds on the Bazelgeuse's wings had gradually stopped bleeding, though growing new wing membranes would take some time.
Asterion shook his head. Compared to the Bazelgeuse, who had acted as the main tank, Asterion's injuries were minor, and his condition was much better.
He first buried his head in the Inagami's chest to search for a Gem. After confirming there was no Gem in the body, he sawed open the Inagami's skull and was satisfied to find a beautiful, glowing Elder Dragon Gem.
He had no intention of keeping it all for himself. The Bazelgeuse brother had not only contributed greatly to the fight but also bore the heavy responsibility of tracking Elder Dragons. Thus, Asterion bit the Gem in half and tossed the remaining portion into the spot where his brother was eating. It would surely be consumed soon.
Good job, brother.
Only after processing the best loot did Asterion begin to feed. He first gnawed on the sharp horns on the Inagami's head, only to find that these majestic horns were merely layers of shedding keratin—much like an Odogaron's tail.
There was no flesh, no nerves, and it wasn't a specialized organ for power.
Having confirmed this, Asterion turned to eat the tail he had severed earlier.
The intel he gathered during the battle was correct. Unlike typical Elder Dragons, this monster didn't rely on its horns to channel its power, but on its tail.
Asterion wasn't interested in the ability to grow bamboo forests or create stalks harder than steel. He already had the best weapon; he didn't need to manufacture more.
What he craved was the tail's ability to extend and retract at will.
During the fight, the Inagami had demonstrated this multiple times. After plunging the flower-bud tip of its tail into the ground, it could either sprout a mass of bamboo to attack or move rapidly underground like a mole digging a tunnel.
Even though the tail didn't look exceptionally long, that bud could travel a great distance underground before surfacing far away to release corrosive sleep gas.
Asterion wanted that telescopic ability. Years ago, during his second Great Evolution, when he was completely redesigning his blade-tail, he had envisioned a blueprint: while maintaining the high-frequency vibration of the blade-scales, the tail could be swung out, extending to a distance he couldn't normally reach—like a whip-blade.
Unfortunately, at that time, he hadn't consumed the right materials. Attempting to force that evolution would have resulted in a structure that was too fragile or lacked sufficient strength. Consequently, he had only evolved a serrated saw-blade.
Asterion had once thought about searching the Hoarfrost Reach for traces of a Khezu. That monster loved living in cold caves, and its neck could stretch to a bizarre length—perfect material for a whip-blade.
Those were plans from many years ago. Asterion never expected that today, in the Ancient Forest, he would accidentally find a replacement—no, a material far superior to a Khezu neck.
This was the flesh of an Elder Dragon. By any metric, it was better than a common monster like a Khezu.
Furthermore, Khezus lacked scales or shells, whereas this monster's tail was covered in black plating. Asterion had studied it while eating; the tail wasn't a layered, telescopic structure where parts slid into one another. Each scale sat tightly against the next.
Yet, this structure could extend so far. Asterion didn't quite understand if the scales themselves stretched or what, but he decided to eat it first and then try to apply it through evolution.
The same energy was used differently by the Inagami and Asterion. Asterion's tail was a hard, sharp Great Sword, so he wanted to make this "sword" extendable, allowing him to attack enemies from a safe distance.
In contrast, the Inagami's tail ended only in a structure mimicked to look like a flower, used to lure and sedate prey. It lacked direct striking power and heavy armor, which was why the Inagami rarely used its telescopic tail as a primary weapon during their intense fight.
Good stuff.
Asterion swallowed the tail and the flower bud whole. While searching for the Gem, he hadn't found a Sleep Sac or similar organ, which was unusual—typically, monsters with sedative abilities possessed such an organ.
Logically, he could only assume this "flower bud" was the organ responsible for producing the sleep gas.
And yes, he wanted that sedative ability too.
This was completely different from the Nightshade Paolumu, Basarios, or other monsters he had killed that could release sleep gas. The gas from this unknown monster was incredibly potent. It was truly an "Elder Dragon Grade" sedative, far stronger than that of normal monsters.
Even Asterion, with his robust physique and draconic resistance, couldn't withstand it. He had collapsed seconds after contact and hadn't woken up despite being battered.
This potency had Asterion's seal of approval!
If he could master this Elder Dragon-tier sleep gas, dealing with other Elder Dragons in the future would be much easier.
In short order, Asterion devoured the entire tail and then joined his brother in eating the rest of the Inagami's carcass.
Before long, not even the dragon bones remained. One by one, Asterion crunched them down like chew sticks.
True to his usual habit, Asterion even scraped up a layer of soil. He didn't care if the blood soaked into the earth was his, his brother's, or the Inagami's—he cleaned the area thoroughly. This "starving ghost" behavior left the Bazelgeuse brother staring in dazed confusion.
It was understandable. Things were different than they used to be. The now-wealthy Asterion only ate this cleanly when faced with rare delicacies. When he had killed the Teostra, he had been in such a rush to escape with the Gem that he hadn't had time to "lick the floor."
"Roar?" (Let's find a place to recover. Once you're healed enough to fly again, we'll head back.)
"Roar!" (Okay!)
the Bazelgeuse brother agreed readily.
Given how aggressively the two had pushed forward to get here, heading back the same way might mean running into several Apex monsters guarding their territories... yeah, it was safer to heal up first.
Although the Inagami was dead, its lingering scent and the fear it inspired would keep other monsters away for a while. The brothers would be safe until that deterrent faded.
Asterion was already itching to modify his blade-tail.
The life energy he had accumulated along the way, combined with what he gained from the Inagami, hadn't even had time to "stay warm" in his body. After healing his injuries and replenishing his combat energy reserves, he began researching the evolution of his tail.
Actually, there wasn't much to research—he just needed to copy the Inagami's tail structure.
By replicating its muscular composition, Asterion's blade-tail became a section longer. This new muscle allowed him to whip the tail out across a great distance, like a lash.
It had great elasticity, high retractability, and was incredibly tough.
Now, if some "trash" monster tried to harass him from outside his normal range, he could suddenly extend his tail and give them a nasty surprise.
The joy of being a "dishonest" dragon was endless.
But if we're talking about being truly underhanded, we have to look at the new needle Asterion added to his tail.
He had to thank the late Dreadking Rathalos. A Dreadking's tail has a thick, long spike that is hollow, capable of injecting highly destructive venom upon piercing an enemy.
Asterion flipped through his "organ library" until he found the page for the Dreadking. He then evolved that spike onto the end of his blade-tail. At the same time, inside the tip of the spike, he evolved the special organ from the Inagami's flower bud—the sleep gas secretion organ.
Heh heh heh...
Asterion already had a plan. In future battles, he would look for an opening to whip his tail out, plunge the spike into the enemy's body, and pump them full of sleep gas. He'd let them have a nice, long nap—and then he'd give them a very "vibrant" wake-up call!
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