Isis charged first, launching a surprise attack on the Pariapuria.
After her previous encounter with one, she was reluctant to close the distance with Blast Dash.
A Pariapuria's mouth was simply enormous. The one they had brought down alongside the Lolo Gougarf had nearly swallowed her whole, shield and all.
The Pariapuria before her was roughly the same size as the previous one, if not slightly larger. She had no intention of hurling herself straight into the Monster's jaws at the very start of the fight.
Altaïr did not circle around as he usually did. Instead, he launched a frontal assault alongside her.
The relentless Machine Cannon barrage had badly wounded this Pariapuria, and being forced to flee all the way here with the Hunters in pursuit had exhausted it further. It might not have been on its last legs, but it was in anything but peak condition.
He intended to coordinate with Isis, keep it suppressed, and end the fight quickly.
The Pariapuria juveniles lurking in the shadows of the cave surged forward.
They did not dare steal the "food" from under the adult Pariapuria's nose, so they set their sights on Morgan and the others instead.
Theo stood ready with his Sword and Shield, guarding Ms. Meow-It-All and Honeysuckle as he retreated step by step under the cover of Morgan's gunfire.
They had spotted a rocky alcove nearby. If they could reach it, they would no longer have to worry about attacks from every direction.
"Skree!"
A juvenile smaller than a Felyne leaped from a stalactite on the cave ceiling, trying to ambush Honeysuckle while she carried her cub.
Quick to react, Theo lashed out with his sword and cleaved the small juvenile in two in midair. Its bloody corpse landed beside them.
"Hurry and throw the body away, meow!" Ms. Meow-It-All shouted.
Realizing the danger, Theo immediately bent down, grabbed the still-twitching corpse, and hurled it away with all his strength.
As expected, the fresh blood on the corpse immediately drew the surrounding juveniles. They did not care what kind of meat it was; as long as it fit in their mouths, it was food.
The juveniles' assault faltered amid the frenzied scramble, allowing the group to seize the chance to fall back.
Just then, a juvenile over two meters long approached, half running and half sliding. The rear half of its body already showed signs of developing fleshy, clawlike limbs.
The smaller juvenile's corpse had been torn apart and devoured in the blink of an eye. Having missed out, the larger creature naturally chose the still-living "food" as its next target.
"Bang! Bang!" Morgan raised his Heavy Bowgun and fired twice in quick succession, blowing its head apart.
With a new source of food before them, the pack preparing to pounce changed targets again and fought frantically over the fresh kill.
As Morgan watched the juveniles of every size pile on top of one another, his eyes showed both relief and undisguised disgust.
If they had all attacked at once, the juveniles could have caused the group real trouble. Yet the moment one of their own died, the rest pounced on it and fought to devour the corpse.
Some of the larger ones even switched prey outright, snapping left and right at the smaller juveniles packed around them and chewing until blood slicked the ground. In the end, only a handful remained to surround the group...
While the juveniles tore into one another, the group reached a hollow in the rock face. They ushered Ms. Meow-It-All and Honeysuckle, who was holding her cub, inside, while Morgan and Theo took positions on either side and shielded the opening with their bodies.
Theo twirled his blade with a flourish and grinned. "I'll handle any that slip through. The rest are yours, tough guy."
Ignoring his companion's teasing, Morgan set up his Heavy Bowgun and muttered to himself.
"What a disgusting creature..."
Paying no attention to the few small juveniles pursuing them, Morgan trained his muzzle on the distant pack fighting over their kin's carcasses.
"Bang! Bang! Bang!" Several rounds of Spread Ammo erupted from the barrel, their fine but razor-sharp pellets spraying blood across the tightly packed juveniles.
The volley threw the frenzy into even greater chaos. Even the few juveniles about to lunge at the group turned back, drawn by the heavy stench of blood.
Theo had been smiling while inwardly bracing for a difficult fight, but now he froze in surprise. The expected siege had ended before it could even begin.
He casually cut down two small juveniles that strayed too close, picked up their corpses, and tossed them back toward the pack. All at once, he found himself with time to spare.
He sheathed his weapon, removed the Maca Alchemy Barrel from his waist, and shook it vigorously.
—--
With the situation there stabilizing, the battle on the main front at the other end of the cave grew fiercer.
"Take this, meow!"
To avoid hitting his companions, Sajji had waited for the perfect angle with his rocket launcher. The moment he found it, he pulled the trigger without hesitation.
Instead of the roar of a Bowgun or Cannon, the launch produced a howl like a violent gust of wind as a conical rocket shot from the muzzle of the Rathian Model-1 Rocket Launcher.
This time, Sajji was not using cheap, flashy "firework ammo."
The rocket struck beneath the Pariapuria's rib cage and happened to hit the inside of one hind leg. Once the conical warhead buried itself in the Monster's flesh, its fuse ignited the powerful alchemical explosive Theo had carefully prepared.
Fire flashed and vanished almost at once as yellow smoke billowed outward. The shock wave, nearly as powerful as a Large Barrel Bomb, lifted the Pariapuria's hind leg clear off the ground.
Locked in a fierce exchange with the Hunters, the Pariapuria was swiping with its foreclaws when it suddenly staggered.
The Pariapuria's quadrupedal frame gave it immense stability. It roared and shifted its center of gravity, managing to stay upright but inevitably leaving itself open.
Altaïr and Isis had been waiting for exactly that.
Before it could fully steady itself, Isis rammed her Gunlance into its gaping mouth.
"Wyvern's Fire!"
"Boom! Boom! Boom!"
The impact snapped the Pariapuria's head and most of its body backward as though it had taken a crushing uppercut, exposing an even larger opening.
Altaïr immediately raised his Long Sword and aimed its tip forward, focusing both his gaze and his stance on a single point.
The instant before the Pariapuria regained its balance and its foreclaws touched the ground, he blurred and vanished.
Instant Slash!
The next moment, blood burst from the wrist joint of the Pariapuria's newly planted foreclaw.
Excruciating pain made the foreclaw spasm and threw the Pariapuria off balance again. Isis seized the opportunity, roaring as she slammed down her Gunlance and drove its head into the ground.
That Instant Slash had driven his Spirit Gauge to its peak. Sensing it, Altaïr darted behind the Pariapuria and followed through, allowing him and Isis to attack fiercely from opposite ends.
Several consecutive slashes struck the Pariapuria's thick tail. As Altaïr built momentum through the sequence, his Spirit Gauge, already compressed to its limit and unable to hold much more, began to tremble on the verge of instability.
In the past, he could only have let the excess Spirit dissipate. Forcing Spirit beyond his control into the Gauge would have destabilized it completely and might even have injured him.
Now, however, his deeper understanding of swordsmanship had revealed another possibility beyond that "limit."
Master Amos called the technique "Spirit Release."
Under the life-or-death pressure of his battle with Guanzorumu, Altaïr had used the technique inadvertently. Now, he could wield it at a rudimentary level.
Rather than risk using Spirit Thrust or Spirit Helm Breaker unnecessarily, Altaïr took a deep breath and released his control over the Spirit Gauge all at once.
The condensed Spirit along his blade suddenly swelled into a violent gale.
Gripping the violently trembling hilt, Altaïr delivered two consecutive rising diagonal slashes, carving a cross-shaped wound into the Pariapuria's tail.
Violent currents of Spirit lingered inside the wound. As he swept his blade one final time and stepped aside, the energy swirling around the gash expanded to its limit.
He stopped and braced his blade.
Driven by the flow of Spirit, the power coiled around the wound in the Monster's tail erupted all at once.
Countless Spirit Blades tore through the thick tail and severed it in two.
P.S. Spirit Release Unsurpassed Slash uses essentially the same movements as Frontier's Release Combo. It also resembles Spirit Release Slash from Rise. Since both techniques share "Release" in their names, they are treated here as the same type of technique.
(Translated by yourtl.app)