Facing the Crimson Fanged Beast's descending pounce, the Hunters scattered at once.
The Fanged Beast's method of firing silk from its wrists to aid its movement defied everything they knew about such Monsters. Yet these Hunters had faced numerous high-threat Monsters and even had the "fortune" to confront an Elder Dragon head-on, so the Crimson Fanged Beast did not seem particularly fast to them.
Using silk and tree branches as leverage to move through three dimensions was certainly novel, but not enough to catch them off guard.
The Crimson Fanged Beast's pounce missed its mark, and its razor-sharp, scimitar-like claws, nearly a meter long, carved several deep furrows into the soft, sandy ground.
It landed at an angle, skidded ten to twenty meters across the ground to bleed off its momentum, then wheeled around and roared at the Hunters again.
"Waaah!"
"Isis! Pin it down in close combat! Keep it from moving!
Nymera! Stay out of the fight for now. Guard us and observe!" Altaïr rapidly issued his orders.
They had never seen or heard of such a Monster. By any measure, this was first contact.
From the Crimson Fanged Beast's last attack, however, Altaïr had formed a rough estimate of its strength.
It was limber and extremely agile, but its strength did not seem excessive. It was probably a little stronger than the Kecha Wacha he had fought, and roughly on par with Fanged Beasts of similar size, such as Congalala or Blangonga.
If it possessed the raw power of a Tigrex, that pounce would have smashed a shallow crater into the ground. The speed at which it had turned to shed momentum supported the same conclusion.
In terms of raw power, it was roughly equivalent to a 3★ threat-level Monster. Given its ability to fire silk and how little else they knew, they would treat it as a 4★ threat-level Monster for now.
Even so, they could not let their guard down. Fanged Beasts generally did not rank among the greatest threats, but there were exceptions, and caution was vital during a first encounter.
Meowster cried out sharply, "Try not to use shelling or any other loud attacks, meow!
We still can't rule out the possibility that it's a social animal, meow! If we draw a whole group here, we'll be in trouble, meow!
Drive it off and disengage as quickly as you can, meow!"
"Understood!" Isis shouted. She was already charging toward the Crimson Fanged Beast with her Large Shield raised.
The Crimson Fanged Beast instinctively swung a foreclaw, trying to swat aside this "little animal" barely larger than its own cub. But the instant its claws struck the Large Shield...
It felt as though they had slammed into a massive boulder. No, a boulder would at least have stayed put instead of ramming back.
At the instant of impact, Isis planted herself behind her Large Shield and used Insta-Block to overcome the difference in strength born of their size, winning the clash.
With sheer force, she pushed the Crimson Fanged Beast's foreclaw aside and left its front exposed.
"Hah!" With a short battle cry, Isis brought her Gunlance down with all her might.
The exceptionally broad blade of the Glavenus Gunlance sliced easily through the Monster's coarse fur, carving a gash across its head and exposing raw, bleeding flesh.
"Roooar!"
Shocked to find itself overpowered, the Crimson Fanged Beast howled in pain and stumbled half a step back, then immediately swept its claws sideways to drive away the Hunter before it.
Isis did not dodge. Without even raising her Large Shield, she twisted through her waist and legs and swung her Gunlance horizontally to meet the blow.
Blade and claws collided again, scattering sparks as the two locked in a stalemate.
Normally, Isis would already have woven shelling between her slashes to sustain a relentless assault. But Meowster's reminder to "avoid shelling" still echoed in her ears.
Unlike Sword and Shield, the Gunlance was not an agile weapon. Wielding it one-handed generated tremendous momentum, and without the recoil from intermittent shelling to counterbalance it, she could not chain her attacks smoothly.
Fortunately, she was not fighting alone.
Isis stepped aside. Mistaking the movement for a retreat, the Crimson Fanged Beast instinctively lunged in to bite her.
Altaïr stepped through the opening behind Isis and brought down a fully charged Strong Charged Slash. The immense power stored in the fused "Great Sword," with blade and scabbard joined as one, erupted on impact.
The blow caught the Crimson Fanged Beast off guard and slammed its outstretched head hard into the ground.
Empowered by Partbreaker, the strike drew another howl of pain. The Monster clutched its wounded head and reared up, nearly dislodging the cub clinging to its back and making it squeal in panic.
Noticing the cub slip, the Crimson Fanged Beast forgot the dangerous enemy before it and hurriedly raised its foreclaws to shield and steady the cub on its back.
Then it backflipped away in haste, as though afraid its cub might be hurt.
Altaïr's eyes narrowed. He seemed to have found the Monster's true weakness.
"I'll handle it."
Calling out to Isis as she prepared to charge, he drew his blade, split Tyrant Blade [Solar Eclipse] back into its Long Sword form, and sprinted toward the Monster with the weapon trailing diagonally behind him.
The moment he reached the Crimson Fanged Beast, he planted the sword's pommel against the ground to brace it, then wrenched the Long Sword upward with its tip aimed directly at the cub peeking out from behind the Monster.
It was the Blade Dragging Slash he had learned from watching Haifa. He had yet to grasp its essence, and his execution remained clumsy.
Even so, he felt the technique had enormous potential worth exploring.
Faced with the Hunter's targeted attack, the Crimson Fanged Beast roared in fury. Ignoring its own injuries, it raised a foreclaw and blocked the strike.
"Just as I thought."
Altaïr immediately activated Demon Mode, and his swings accelerated sharply. Blow after blow rained down on the Crimson Fanged Beast's head, neck, and chest, interspersed with the occasional upswing or thrust aimed at the cub. Forced to defend on two fronts, the Monster struggled to protect them both and was quickly overwhelmed.
The Crimson Fanged Beast was no fool. It quickly realized that both it and its cub would die if this continued, yet it still showed no intention of abandoning its young.
Instead, it braced itself to endure several more cuts from the Hunter's blade, snatched the cub from its back, and shifted it to the relatively safer position behind its waist.
Once the cub was secure, explosive strength surged through the Crimson Fanged Beast's limbs, and it bounded thirty to forty meters away.
Altaïr did not charge after it. Instead, he sheathed his weapon and entered an Iai stance.
Meowster had made the priority perfectly clear. They were to repel it, not kill it.
If the Crimson Fanged Beast fled, there was no reason to chase. If it was merely making space for a special attack, entering an Iai stance in advance would let Altaïr respond flexibly to whatever came.
As expected, the Large Monster was not so easily intimidated.
The Crimson Fanged Beast fired two streams of silk from its wrists and anchored them firmly to the ground on either side of Altaïr.
It reared back and took several steps away, stretching both silk strands taut as if loading itself into a Slinger.
Even the cub poked its head out from behind the Monster's back, chirping and screeching as though cheering it on.
Altaïr could already guess what his opponent was about to do.
The attack was sure to be both powerful and incredibly fast. In exchange, its windup was obvious and lengthy.
Only an inexperienced rookie overcome by panic would fail to react in time.
"Waaahhh!" With a bizarre, theatrical roar, the Crimson Fanged Beast launched its attack.
The twin strands of silk snapped it forward, its nearly ten-meter bulk blurring into a streak as it hurtled at Altaïr in a flying tackle.
Altaïr drew his blade in the same instant and surged forward. Hunter and Monster flashed past each other.
Keeping his center of gravity extremely low, Altaïr skimmed just above the ground and slipped beneath the Monster's all-out pounce.
Their combined speed more than doubled the power of his Spirit Roundslash. The blade swept across the Monster's ribs, tearing open a deep, vicious wound.
"Wooowaaah!"
The heavy blow struck in midair and threw the Crimson Fanged Beast off balance. It crashed to the ground with its cub, and the two tumbled together, struggling and howling in agony.
Altaïr and Isis both looked to Meowster.
The Crimson Fanged Beast was not among the weakest Large Monsters in either size or physical strength, but it still belonged firmly in the lower tier.
If Meowster gave the word, they were confident they could end its life before it rose again.
But Meowster clearly had no intention of killing the mother or her cub. He gently shook his head at the Hunters.
The Hunters exchanged glances, put their weapons away, and returned to Meowster's side.
The wounded Crimson Fanged Beast struggled back to her feet, gathered her wailing cub into her arms, and held it protectively against her chest. Then she fled in a desperate scramble deep into the forest and vanished from sight.
(Translated by yourtl.app)