"Whew—this thing is really tough."
The Admiral took off his face covering and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Deep in the Elder's Recess, among the volcanic ranges, it was already unbearably hot. On top of that, having to evade and also take head-on the attacks of the Terastal Bazelgeuse was far more troublesome than facing an ordinary Bazelgeuse, so the corresponding stamina drain naturally increased quite a bit.
The Admiral's words resonated with Aiden as well. The thick crystal chunks covering the Terastal Bazelgeuse's joints and weak points were indeed extremely hard—striking them always felt like cutting into ore.
Being hard was one thing; with more force, they could still be broken.
But! Beneath the crystal chunks, there was yet another layer—the Bazelgeuse's heavy scales. With double protection, for a hunter like him who used a short weapon such as a Sword and Shield, it was really not friendly at all.
"You kid—you're so strong you're practically a monster. Being young is great, huh~"
As the Admiral joked, he walked up to the Terastal Bazelgeuse and tapped the crystal chunks on its body that had gone quiet and were no longer rapidly regenerating. It was obvious that this was not the same thing as Bioenergy Crystal at all.
"Darren, Admiral, are you all right?"
Along with the sound of a rope being pulled rapidly, Mia and Lea reeled back their clutch claws and ran over to the group.
After a quick look over everyone and seeing the hunters all shake their heads, they finally let out a breath of relief.
"The crystals on this thing look very unusual. It's a pity we can't take it back to the research base—just knock off a few pieces with nicer shapes and take them with us."
After confirming again and again that it was something he had never seen before, the Admiral spoke while preparing to get to work.
At this moment, Mia looked at those crimson crystals, pressed her lips together as she thought for a moment, and asked somewhat uncertainly, "Do you think the crystals on this Bazelgeuse… could be Terastal crystals?"
The Admiral paused, then turned back to look at Mia in confusion. He had left the Ancient Tree many years ago, so he naturally wasn't very familiar with Terastal crystals. His understanding of Terastal energy was still stuck at the stage of Terastal sprouts.
Seeing that everyone had fallen into thought, and that the Admiral still wore a puzzled expression, Mia quickly rummaged through her backpack and explained, "Look—aside from the color, these crystals aren't that different from Terastal crystals in any other way."
As she spoke, she pulled out a piece of Terastal crystal she had stored in her pack and held it out in front of them.
The Admiral reached out to take it. After tapping it a few times and comparing it with the Terastal crystals on the Terastal Bazelgeuse's body, it was indeed just as Mia had said.
"Th—"
Bzzzz~
Several somewhat noisy sounds suddenly rang out from the Terastal Bazelgeuse's body. The sounds were small, but the hunters still caught them precisely.
Instinctively, they put their helmets back on and stared at the Terastal Bazelgeuse with vigilance.
Monsters' abilities came in all kinds of strange forms. Even among the same species, some could undergo abnormalities under the influence of wondrous life energy. Sometimes, even a dying monster would flare up and burst out with exaggerated attacks, and many veteran, highly experienced hunters would still get caught if they let their guard down for even a moment.
What's more, this unusual Bazelgeuse was only paralyzed and asleep, so there was no way the hunters could afford not to stay on guard.
However, after a short while, the Terastal Bazelgeuse that had made the strange noises showed no movement at all. Instead, on its back, those huge back scales were continuously opening and closing, heaving and pulsing.
Under the hunters' gaze, very soon, one Radiant Crystal Butterfly after another struggled its way out from the gaps between the back scales. Ignoring the group below, they circled the Terastal Bazelgeuse a few times, as if confirming its current condition.
Once they confirmed that it was already in an unconscious state and truly had no way to actively carry out life-energy conversion, they irritably rubbed their wings, producing a harsh, grating screech. Then, more than a dozen Radiant Crystal Butterflies left the Terastal Bazelgeuse in a swarm and flew off toward some direction within the Elder's Recess.
Only the few of them remained behind, their expressions grim.
"Radiant Crystal Butterflies… Admiral, had you seen them here before?"
After a long time, Mia's voice broke the somewhat oppressive atmosphere. Her worried tone showed that she, too, had the same thought as the Admiral.
"No. I explored for several days before, but I never saw any Radiant Crystal Butterflies, nor this kind of condition in that Bazelgeuse. But Boss Fire Wyvern is the dragon of ecology and order—he definitely wouldn't do something that destroys the ecosystem, unless he had no other choice."
The Admiral's face was heavy as he spoke with conviction.
That Terastal Bazelgeuse's violent state—attacking without provocation—its frenzied fighting style that completely disregarded energy and stamina consumption, along with the abnormalities on its body and the parasitism of the Radiant Crystal Butterflies…
No matter how one looked at it, it didn't seem normal at all. It made the Admiral think of the Frenzy Virus from back then, and the Qurio incident triggered by Nergigante.
In short, once matters such as parasitism and the resulting abnormalities in ordinary monsters within a region were involved, it was certain that an Elder Dragon was behind it—this had almost become an unwritten rule in the hunters' world.
However, this time it involved Logan, which made things open to question.
The Admiral would rather conclude that some major event threatening the ecosystem had forced Logan to act this way than speculate that Logan's temperament had suddenly undergone a drastic change.
Sometimes, prejudice in people's hearts formed an insurmountable divide.
Logan, the monsters under his command, and Mother Chameleos and her offspring stood on one side of it, while the other Elder Dragons stood firmly on the other.
"Things haven't reached that point yet. Maybe this Bazelgeuse is just a special case—after all, that's the Sunblaze Dragon!"
Lea said loudly. Having studied the case records of events in the New World, she shared the Admiral's viewpoint, but for the sake of boosting morale, some things still had to be said outright.
Steadying hunters' resolve and lifting morale was also one of the roles of them Compilers.
Obviously, after Lea finished her somewhat conciliatory remarks, the three hunters felt much more at ease. Agreeing with what she had said, they regained their spirits, ate some emergency rations, knocked off some Terastal chunks from the Terastal Bazelgeuse for follow-up research, threw a few antidote pills at it, and then resolutely set off toward the Elder's Recess.
Target: Sunblaze Dragon!!
...
From afar, the Elder's Recess looked close, but actually walking there took the group quite a bit of time.
The interwoven magma flows, the territories of large monsters, and the labyrinth of lava caverns forced them to take many detours.
They walked continuously for two full days before truly entering the Elder's Recess.
Along the way, among the monsters they encountered, fewer than a quarter still retained their original forms. Most of the rest had, to varying degrees, entered a Terastalized state, with Radiant Crystal Butterflies circling around them.
During this period, they collected a large number of Terastal crystals of various colors from large monsters. They discovered that the color of these crystals seemed to be related to the energy attributes of the host monsters. Further research would have to wait until they returned to the mobile research base and handed them over to the scholars.
Good news: the condition of that earlier Terastal Bazelgeuse really was a special case. The other Terastalized monsters they encountered remained emotionally stable. As long as the hunters did not initiate attacks or intrude into their territories, combat generally did not occur.
Bad news: the defense of these Terastalized monsters had increased dramatically, and their energy organs also seemed to have been significantly enhanced—far beyond what ordinary hunters could handle. Moreover, some Terastalized monsters appeared to be showing signs of changes in their energy attributes.
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---