Is that so? This means... I cannot allow Safi'jiiva's dragon energy to spread across the entire world?
When Asterion realized this, the blue aura rippling in the air suddenly froze, like drifting clouds suddenly locked in place.
Indeed, as long as he consciously reined it in and controlled it, the Bio-energy would naturally halt its expansion into the outside world, only multiplying or infecting other life forms within the boundaries he set. But the question was, how did Alatreon know this?
Asterion's gaze flickered slightly. Could this be the insight of a true veteran?
In the game, there wasn't much revealed about Alatreon's ecology or its past lore, so even Asterion had no idea what kind of experiences this guy had been through.
He recalled the various strange behaviors Alatreon had shown after arriving in the New World. This dragon, widely regarded as the incarnation of destruction and infamous for its terrible temper, hadn't wantonly flaunted its presence or engaged in meaningless destruction. Instead, it had inexplicably wandered around nearly half of the New World before suddenly changing its course—as if confirming some piece of information—and heading in a straight line toward Asterion's location.
Yeah, when you think about it that way, it suddenly makes sense.
As expected of a long-standing Forbidden Monster. Over the past few months, the Bio-energy had naturally spread to every corner of the New World like normal wind and rain. Traces of eerie blue crystals could be found everywhere, from the dense Ancient Forest to the miasma-filled depths of the Rotten Vale.
To the perception of the vast majority of creatures, and even some Elder Dragons, this energy was no longer any different from the New World's original natural energy. It had successfully integrated into the foundational ecosystem.
Yet, despite this, Alatreon had still detected the anomaly through its incredibly sharp energy perception. It had not only seen through the trajectory of the Bio-energy but had even deduced that Asterion possessed a considerable degree of control over the free-floating energy in the environment.
"Roar!" (I see ambition on your face.)
Out of nowhere, Alatreon let out a sudden, low growl.
"Roar, roar?" (Do you wish to challenge me?)
Alatreon's words left Asterion completely stunned. Isn't this guy a bit too perceptive?!
No, seriously. His face was covered in a thick layer of Safi'jiiva crystals. Uh, even without the crystals, his face was layered with fine, hard, shell-like scales. With this kind of physiological structure, it was logically impossible for muscle contractions to create what one would call a facial expression.
And yet you claim you can see ambition on my face?! Reading my expressions?
Are you Alatreon or a mind-reading dragon?!
What is the meaning of this?
Asterion didn't think the world's lore had broken down. This meant that behind Alatreon's imposing appearance—covered in inverted scales and looking like an incredibly violent, utterly uncommunicative hardliner—the dragon was actually a sensitive master of micro-expressions?
But... it hit the nail right on the head.
Making no attempt to hide it, Asterion's massive jaws cracked open slightly, revealing a mouth full of teeth as sharp as chaff-cutters. He was grinning. The moment he opened his mouth, wisps of dense, eerie blue energy wafted out from between his teeth.
Asterion truly wanted to fight Alatreon.
It had nothing to do with youthful arrogance or a petty clash of egos, nor was it a battle over territory. He simply wanted to see just what heights he had reached in this world after undergoing so many devouring evolutions.
There was no better touchstone than the Alatreon standing before him. After all, unlike Fatalis—who in Capcom's lore is a demon symbolizing the end of the human world, harboring absolute malice toward humanity, and cementing its place at the villains' table—Alatreon was a god that judged all things. It didn't care much about other creatures and usually stayed cooped up in its own secluded nest without ever stepping outside.
Using Alatreon as a benchmark for a challenge felt safer than facing Fatalis, and Alatreon's strength was more than enough to serve as the ultimate yardstick to measure his own progress.
In truth, even if Alatreon hadn't brought it up, Asterion had never intended to let the Bio-energy spread boundlessly to the Old World or other corners of the globe through the intricate underground network of the Everstream.
From the very beginning, Asterion had cordoned off a specific zone for the Bio-energy, restricting its flow entirely within the New World and forbidding it from leaking outward.
Under Asterion's sheer will, any Bio-energy attempting to drift beyond the New World's borders via ocean currents or veins of the earth would naturally re-route and return to the New World.
The same applied to creatures already infected by the Bio-energy. Once they left the New World, the energy within them would gradually dissipate, escaping their bodies to ultimately return to the New World.
This effectively prevented any accidental contamination of ecosystems in other parts of the world.
The reason he established such a core logic for the energy was, naturally, because Asterion loathed monotonous, unchanging scenery. His nest was the New World itself. Having only the New World dyed blue was more than enough, and his Dragon Kingdom only needed to exist there.
Think of it as a uniquely characteristic ecological landscape. That way, over his long future lifespan, if he occasionally wanted to gaze upon a primeval forest bathed in golden sunlight, view emerald plains rippling in the wind, or appreciate any other beautiful, unaltered natural scenery, he would only need to spread his wings and take a casual stroll over to the Old World.
If the entire world ended up looking exactly the same, life would become incredibly dull.
"Roar!" (Shall we test it out?)
Grinding his claws against the ground, Asterion issued a challenge to the old veteran.
Yeah, or perhaps it was a challenge from a newly risen junior to a senior?
Making his voice heard by those sitting at the absolute pinnacle of the species.
Among dragons—a race devoid of any warm, familial affection—even at the tier of Forbidden Monsters that reigned supreme over all creation, violence remained the sole arbiter of status and authority, regardless of their transcendent intelligence that easily rivaled or surpassed humanity's.
If he wanted these old-timers to take him seriously, to earn the respect he deserved, and to carry out his own will without interference, he needed to prove himself with the blood of an opposing dragon.
"Roar!" (Amusing.)
A series of low, rumbling chuckles escaped Alatreon's throat. Only now did this dragon—whose information had been entirely suppressed by human kingdoms and the Guild, spoken of only with absolute dread in surviving ancient texts as the incarnation of destruction—finally unleash a ferociously terrifying aura fitting of its title.
"Roar roar, roar roar roar!" (That's more like it! Just looking at your body of inverted scales, it's obvious you're not some good-natured fellow. Why bother acting so friendly?)
Asterion roared with laughter. The energy already condensing around him illuminated his entire body, and the air in the vicinity grew heavy and oppressive.
"Roar, roar roar." (Indeed... you are right. I am truly not adept at communicating with juniors.)
As it let out a low, wistful growl, the atmosphere suddenly plummeted into an eerie, suffocating silence.
An overwhelming sense of foreboding, like the oppressive weight before a cataclysmic tempest, saturated the battlefield. Aside from the massive crags vibrating and humming under the pressure of the immense energy and the low, howling whistles of power surging from the earth lines, all sound abruptly vanished between Asterion and Alatreon. The two dragons simply locked eyes, staring each other down.
Without a single redundant feint, the battle erupted in an instant with two simultaneous, air-shredding roars!
Alatreon violently unfurled its broad, pitch-black wings, which seemed vast enough to blot out the very heavens. In that exact fraction of a second, the moisture in the air for kilometers around felt completely vacuumed away. The previously clear sky filled with a dense layer of pitch-black storm clouds in under a second, with crackling tendrils of lightning occasionally flashing within them.
CRACK-BOOM!!
Accompanied by a tearing sound sharp enough to shatter the eardrums of ordinary Flying Wyverns, dozens of thick, cyan-blue lightning bolts materialized out of thin air directly in front of Alatreon's twisted, massive horns. Like a torrential downpour of pure thunder, they cascaded from the heavens, striking down with pinpoint accuracy toward Asterion's colossal, heavily armored body!
The sheer scale of this spectacle was preposterous. The speed of the lightning strikes far outstripped the speed of sound. A few stray bolts merely branching off from the main tempest obliterated several human-height, solid crags upon contact, the terrifyingly high temperatures and electrical currents instantly rendering the hard stone into a cloud of drifting powder.
Yet, Alatreon's assault was by no means limited to lightning alone. This monster, heralded as the master of all elements, possessed an absolute pinnacle of energy control. Unbound by any restriction that forced it to utilize only one element at a time, it excelled spectacularly at composite elemental assaults.
Almost simultaneously with the formation and descent of the lightning, Alatreon snapped its head up and thrust it forward, opening its maw wide. A blast of deathly white, ultra-frigid frost erupted from its mouth. Everywhere this freezing mist passed, it seemed to freeze even the wisps of dragon energy hanging in the air, forcefully sealing them within blocks of ice.
At a terrifying speed visible to the naked eye, jagged shards of ice as sharp as sword blades rapidly sprouted from the scorching volcanic rock below, mutating into a wildly spreading forest of ice that surged directly toward Asterion's position.
And within this flawlessly synchronized onslaught of thunder and ice, Alatreon's pitch-black wings underwent a sudden, dramatic transformation.
The pitch-black wings, normally bristling with inverted scales, had at some point been dyed a stark, glowing crimson. It looked as though hot, burning charcoal was glowing intensely within them. The tough wing membranes near the tips, in particular, were radiating a brilliant, golden-red light intense enough to melt one's retinas!
An immense amount of Fire element energy gathered across its wings, making the current Alatreon look much more like a crimson dragon—albeit restricted to its wings.
Suddenly, with Alatreon's body acting as the epicenter, a roaring, white-hot ring of fire violently erupted outward from between its wings in all directions!
The heat was so intense it warped the air, causing the surrounding rocky ground—completely devoid of any combustible material—to catch fire directly. No! Looking closer, one could see that it wasn't just the rocks burning fiercely; it was also Asterion's Bio-energy drifting in the air!!
The highly concentrated Safi'jiiva crystals covering the terrain actually began to melt rapidly under this absurdly high temperature, shifting from hard crystals into an eerie blue fluid. Some were even vaporized instantly into a gaseous state, rising as wisps of blue smoke and making the entire battlefield increasingly hazy.
The purity is too high.
Asterion's pupils contracted slightly. Alatreon truly deserved its illustrious reputation as a Forbidden Monster. It wielded the same five elemental energies—Thunder, Fire, Ice, Water, and Dragon—most commonly found in nature, but the intensity of the energy Alatreon unleashed was ten, or even nine times greater than that of an ordinary monster!!
The attacks from both sides were simply not on the same tier. At this moment, even the most basic burning flame could rightfully be dubbed the Fire of a God.
Because it was irresistible, because it was peerless!!
If nothing else, looking solely at Alatreon's mastery of the Fire element, it had taken less than half a second to forcefully transform this region of the Elder's Recess—originally composed of various high-strength mineral deposits—into a boiling sea of fire.
Solid energy crystals and boulders across the ground dissolved directly. Tons of rock instantly liquefied into flowing, golden-red lava, which continuously spat out acrid bubbles and vented all manner of toxic gases.
——Conversely, if an ordinary Rathalos were to unleash a similar attack, those guys would be lucky to merely scorch the outer crust of the rocks into a charred black color.
To cut a long story short, Alatreon's offensive came with extreme ferocity and left no room for error. Thunder, ice spikes, and raging flames—three elemental attacks completely antithetical to one another—arrived before Asterion almost simultaneously!
They would even react with one another, yielding even greater destructive force amidst the violent elemental collisions. Their combined might was enough to instantly slaughter an ordinary ecological apex predator like a Rathalos on the spot, leaving behind not even a corpse, either reducing it to powder or annihilating it entirely.
Yet, Alatreon, the perpetrator of this cataclysmic assault, maintained its initially cold and elegant posture. Even as its attack displayed a momentum capable of destroying all things, its dark red vertical slits peered through the obscuring flames and frost to look at this audacious young junior opposite it. It seemed eager to see how this bold newcomer would handle its offensive.
Would he stubbornly try to endure it? Or would he flee in a wretched state?
Or perhaps, would he display some method it had never witnessed before? Alatreon felt a long-forgotten spark of amusement.
To be fair, dodging such a wide-range, straightforward attack wouldn't be difficult for Asterion, given his exceptionally high mobility. There was still a considerable buffer distance separating the two dragons. As long as his dragon energy began to jet, Asterion could completely utilize the lift to instantly soar upward and clear this hazardous zone, causing all of Alatreon's attacks to miss entirely.
But... Me? Retreat from his edge?!
A fierce light flashed in his eyes. At least at this exact moment, Asterion had absolutely no intention of dodging. If he had to carefully avoid an attack that amounted to little more than a greeting, wouldn't this old dragon laugh at him?!
What kind of Forbidden Monster runs away the moment they exchange blows with their own kind!