Although players always called Glavenus's Tail Bite Great Spin an iai slash when playing the game, its Sword Tail was fundamentally no Long Sword. It was a heavy Great Sword.
Long Sword users couldn't perform an iai slash with a Great Sword.
Now, the heavy Great Sword swung around had cleaved straight through the bones in Sleepy Floater Dragon's left wing—much more easily than Xingyan had expected.
Sleepy Floater Dragon's bones couldn't stop his Sword Tail at all. Xingyan had wanted to stab straight through its round, fluffy belly, but unfortunately, the thing had at least some reaction speed. At the last moment, it flapped its wings and dodged upward. Only its wing was injured.
Oh, sorry, not "only"—an injured wing meant Sleepy Floater Dragon couldn't quickly escape through the air, even if its wings only served to propel it forward while flying.
Pain.
It was an important factor with a powerful impact that couldn't be ignored. Combined with the sudden fright, Sleepy Floater Dragon shrieked as it frantically beat its wings, trying to fly higher.
A dragon frightens a dragon; a dragon dies of fright.
Several seconds passed before it realized that the wing with the broken bone could now only hang limply at its side. Even a slightly forceful movement hurt like hell.
No matter how hard it flapped its good wing, all it did was spin in place through a wider arc.
"Gugluglugluglugluglu!!!"
It was seeing red.
Once its initial fright had passed, Sleepy Floater Dragon's huge eyes finally made out who had attacked it—a young Glavenus.
An adult Glavenus would've been one thing, but what did this barely grown Glavenus think it was doing?!!
Of course, it didn't have such clear thoughts, but the anger it felt at being attacked by a juvenile was universal.
Abandoning any attempt to escape by flapping its broken left wing, Sleepy Floater Dragon leaned back slightly, then abruptly spat a cloud of pale gray gas toward Xingyan. It was nearly invisible in the night.
Sleepy Gas Cloud!
Xingyan had expected this signature Sleepy Floater Dragon attack. An informed Glavenus wouldn't fall to something like this.
He didn't even need to retreat. Instead, Xingyan dashed forward a few steps and dodged past the cloud just before it hit the ground and burst.
Grazing Hit!
He wasn't in a hurry.
In a real fight, blood loss was an important factor that couldn't be ignored.
His Sword Tail had truly severed the bones and flesh of Sleepy Floater Dragon's left wing. So even in the dark, Xingyan could see blood dripping steadily from its body.
That was why wild animals, including most dragons, didn't readily fight creatures of similar size. Getting injured meant taking a loss, and it also meant risking your life.
No matter how much blood a dragon had in its body, it couldn't afford to keep losing it. Xingyan didn't believe Sleepy Floater Dragon could stay airborne forever.
The fact that Sleepy Floater Dragon didn't fly by relying solely on its wings actually helped it now, keeping it from dropping to the ground. But it also meant it couldn't grit its teeth and glide away quickly like other winged dragons, escaping to safety.
Like some deranged giant bat, Sleepy Floater Dragon kept spitting Sleepy Gas Clouds downward from the sky. Even though none of them hit Xingyan directly, they burst one after another on the ground, and gradually, a thin mist seemed to cover the whole area.
The Sleepy Gas grew thinner as it spread through the air, but once enough of it had accumulated, Xingyan still felt a little drowsy.
Seriously, how could you spew so much??
How much sleep-inducing stuff had you stored up??
It was seriously disgusting. Xingyan could only search for a relatively clear patch of ground to stand on. He didn't dare leave the area covered by the spreading gas; if Sleepy Floater Dragon glided away in another direction, he'd be in trouble.
If he were an adult Glavenus, he could easily reach Sleepy Floater Dragon at its current altitude. But Xingyan wasn't one, and even jumping wouldn't let him reach that high.
Most importantly, he didn't dare slash at Sleepy Floater Dragon's round, swollen air sacs. What if he damaged them, and they didn't have any effect when he ate them?
The abundant life force of the New World had made the abilities unique to these large monsters much stronger. And unlike the game, the real world didn't need to care about the players' experience. It didn't have to make the difficulty curve smooth.
Xingyan was already getting a little dizzy.
Even though it couldn't escape, Sleepy Floater Dragon had the advantage of being able to fly while its enemy couldn't hit it. It had already made him feel like he was spinning, and the whole thing was truly disgusting.
It was only a Sleepy Floater Dragon. If he had to deal with aggressive aerial fighters like Rathalos or Azure Rathalos, who knew how badly a pitiful dragon like him, unable to fly, would get bullied!
They could attack whenever they wanted and leave whenever they wanted, always keeping the advantage, occasionally spewing fire to bombard him...
That was absolutely unacceptable!
Xingyan could hardly imagine how disgusting it would be if some damn dragon started pooping and pissing on him from above just because it could fly.
Even if an enemy provoked him from the air, he needed to be able to chase it down and kill it—not just stand on the ground, defend himself, and knock off a few of the attacker's spikes to drive it away.
He wanted to take the initiative!
The feeling of standing there helplessly, looking up at Sleepy Floater Dragon as it went berserk, only made Xingyan more certain that he needed to find a way to fly.
Finally, Sleepy Floater Dragon's round body deflated. Spitting out those Sleepy Gas Clouds consumed the gas stored in its air sacs, and it couldn't breathe in while spewing it out.
Under Xingyan's eager gaze, the now-slimmed-down Sleepy Floater Dragon finally landed. The gray Sleepy Gas that had accumulated on the ground obviously couldn't put it to sleep, and its prolonged, frenzied attack had left it exhausted.
Even though it knew its left wing was injured and useless, its long-practiced habits still made Sleepy Floater Dragon instinctively try to flap it while airborne. It was just a reflex.
That habit made it hurt even more with every vigorous movement, and caused it to lose even more blood.
After coming to this world, Xingyan had realized that the most effective tactic was to make enemies bleed. His Sword Tail seemed tailor-made for the job. All he had to do was leave his enemy with a wound deep and wide enough, then wait.
How evil. Glavenus.
"Guglugluglugluglu!!"
Sleepy Floater Dragon was still roaring loudly as another gust of wind swept toward Xingyan—but its charge seemed far too slow to him.
At this point, Sleepy Floater Dragon was as good as dead. It couldn't escape.
When Sleepy Floater Dragon raised its head again and began gulping down air, trying to take flight, Xingyan—who had been waiting for this moment—burst into action with Dragon Shock Speed.
He charged, leaped, and landed—and his sharpened Sword Tail easily sliced off Sleepy Floater Dragon's head.
"Roar!!!"
Standing on Sleepy Floater Dragon's corpse, Xingyan let out a triumphant roar.
A flawless victory, apart from how annoying his opponent had been during the fight.
How easy had it been? Easy.
Xingyan conveniently ignored the fact that he'd ambushed Sleepy Floater Dragon and taken out one of its wings first.
At the moment, he was busy eating. He also had to carefully tear through Sleepy Floater Dragon's flesh and skin to find the air sacs inside its body. They weren't hard to locate, but carving up the corpse was a bit of a pain.
Xingyan's blade was sharp. Before long, he had extracted two large air sacs from Sleepy Floater Dragon's corpse. They looked a little deflated now, but he didn't hesitate to swallow them whole.
He was like someone who'd just transmigrated into the world of One Piece and eaten a Devil Fruit, afraid that if he didn't eat enough, he wouldn't get the power.
But there was no way Devil Fruits could compare to dragon meat.
After swallowing Sleepy Floater Dragon's air sacs, Xingyan immediately began repeating to himself:
"Give me air sacs, give me air sacs, give me air sacs, give me air sacs..."
"The air sacs can increase my buoyancy, but they can't reduce my fighting power or defense..."
"...They can't turn me into a fat dragon or affect my agility..."
"..."
Uh, it was practically like making a wish to some kind of being—and every wish was unbelievably greedy.
What a greedy dragon.
But when it came to being a dragon, who wasn't greedy?
To be honest, Xingyan himself had no idea whether what he was doing would work, or whether it would actually take effect. So he felt a little uneasy and decided to keep praying silently until the change appeared.
As he let his mind wander, wondering what form the change he wanted might take, Xingyan quickly ate the rest of Sleepy Floater Dragon's corpse. There wasn't much meat; it was practically scrawny.
Before long, he'd eaten most of it. After finding a desert cactus to quench his thirst, Xingyan set off for his nest.
A successful hunt. And until his evolution actually took place, Xingyan felt he'd need to hunt more Sleepy Floater Dragons.
Keep it up!
Although he was still considered a young dragon, Xingyan had already killed several adult dragons.
But he still had no territory of his own. He was always a little worried that he wasn't strong enough to openly claim one.
For all large monsters, territory was something they fought for. If two dragons wanted the same area, they would fight. They might not kill each other, but one of them would definitely come out on top.
After that, both would know where the other's territory lay, and they'd avoid each other's hunting grounds in their daily activities.
The Mudfish Dragon Xingyan had once defeated had indeed been the little lord of a patch of Flower Field Marshland Area. But its position was always challenged by a powerful Earth Sand Dragon. Now that the Mudfish Dragon was dead, the Earth Sand Dragon had claimed the area.
Whenever it had nothing better to do, the thing liked to bury itself in the mud.
Xingyan had no interest in picking another fight with Earth Sand Dragon. They had no grudge against each other. Although Earth Sand Dragon was also a carnivorous Beast Dragon Species, its diet consisted only of beetles and Ant Workers. Even its enormous crest was built for smashing anthills or insect nests.
Xingyan didn't like pointless fights, and he had no interest in the traits Earth Sand Dragon had evolved.
His unique Feast Evolution ability had already guaranteed he'd never lack for fights in this life. For now, the fewer the better.
At any rate, when Xingyan visited Flower Field Marshland Area to drink and hunt Aptonoth, Earth Sand Dragon didn't react aggressively. The two dragons had somehow developed a unique understanding.
They left each other alone.
He woke from a nap to another beautiful sunny day. The scorching sun felt more like a warm massage to Xingyan. He'd just eaten some Iron Plate Carapace Dragon Meat and was currently drinking water in Flower Field Marshland Area.
If the goal was simply to fill his belly, Herbivore Species were still the best choice. They had little ability to fight back and plenty of meat.
They were mild-tempered and rather like capybaras: live if you can, die if you can't. They were remarkably unbothered by it all. Most importantly, they were extremely numerous and laid plenty of eggs. It was almost as if they were saying, "If an enemy dragon wants to hunt us, let it eat us. We'll just carry on living afterward."
That was Sacrificial Flow for you.
But it had to be said that even though all kinds of dragons hunted them, and they even provided eggs to creatures like Kulu-Ya-Ku, Herbivore Species dragons had survived in all sorts of places and reproduced well.
Xingyan was currently on the outskirts of the Great Sand Sea, far from the truly barren desert. But for that very reason, there was still plenty of water around. Some came in with the sea breeze, while some flowed or seeped down from the more distant Ancient Forest.
Before the Lava Dragon had broken through the mountains and opened a path, there had been no direct route between the Great Sand Sea and the Ancient Forest. The piled-up, deformed layers of rock had perfectly blocked the way. The passage would open only briefly when the rock layers shifted and deformed again because of leyline activity or Elder Dragon activity.
So even though they looked close on a map, the only ways to get between them were by boat or by taming flying Wingdrakes.
He still couldn't forget that enormous Lava Dragon trace from before. In his memories, when the hunters followed the route of the Elder Dragon Crossing to the New World, the First Expeditionary Force had landed in the Great Sand Sea and established a base on the coast—the predecessor of Starry Base.
He didn't know which attempt this was for the Lava Dragon to enter the New World's Leyline Corridor. But now that he had some ability to protect himself—and could at least run away if he couldn't win—Xingyan felt he ought to visit the coast more often.
That was curiosity for you. Since he'd already transmigrated into the world of Monster Hunter, how could he not be curious about the game characters he'd known so well in his previous life?
Before you continue