"You would be better off using that clumsy Saintess's power! What is the difference between pulling out this ridiculous weapon now and giving up?!"
Madam Calamity did not give Kyo a chance to catch his breath. She raised her sharp claws and struck directly at him.
But after dodging the claw strike with agile footwork, Kyo stabbed his blade into Madam Calamity's dragon claw.
-8.
The mont this damage number popped up, Madam Calamity truly wanted to laugh out loud. No wonder Kyo had chosen to use Oath's combat system first to wear down her health.
If he had used these nail clippers to give her a pedicure from the start, Kyo might not have been able to shave off even a tenth of her health in his entire life!
"Let's end this! Otherwise, I will start getting sleepy too!"
Madam Calamity swept her sharp claws across in one motion.
But while Kyo had supposedly been "sleeping," he had actually been secretly watching Carl's long sword tutorial.
As Madam Calamity's claws swept toward him, he imdiately used the long sword's core counter skill, Foresight Slash!
Kyo took a small step back, and Madam Calamity's dragon claw brushed past him by an impossibly narrow margin.
At the sa ti, Madam Calamity felt the montum and power of her attack being stolen by Kyo after he dodged it in such a teasing manner.
After being stolen, that power transford into Spirit Gauge energy and condensed onto Kyo's blade.
Taking advantage of the recovery window after Madam Calamity's strike, Kyo followed up the Foresight Slash with a Spirit Roundslash on her wrist!
The long sword in Kyo's hand glowed with a faint white light, raising his Spirit Gauge to the white level.
"Nothing but petty tricks!"
Madam Calamity gathered a breath attack. After Kyo landed a glancing blow on her abdon, he imdiately perford a Special Sheathe.
Almost at the sa ti, Madam Calamity's destructive breath turned into a fireball and shot toward Kyo, who executed a draw slash at that exact mont.
This move was called Iai Spirit Slash. Its effect was that if the user drew the blade the instant before an enemy's attack landed, they could dodge the attack while countering and raising their Spirit Gauge level.
The fireball from the breath attack exploded the mont it hit the ground, but it did not harm Kyo in the slightest.
The arc from his draw slash landed on Madam Calamity's tail, leaving nurous sword marks of varying depths on those dragon scales.
Because he had opened the fight with a barrage of abilities from Oath's base characters, Madam Calamity's body had already been tenderized until it was springy and succulent.
Simply put, his blade would not bounce off any scale it struck on Madam Calamity's body.
Madam Calamity soon discovered that with this clone's Data Volu, no matter how she attacked, she could not touch Kyo.
The dragon's massive body instead beca a burden against Kyo's agile footwork. Every one of her attacks was nimbly avoided by Kyo using Foresight Slash.
But the damage Kyo dealt seed completely painless to Madam Calamity.
This led Madam Calamity to change her primary targets to the Saintess and Hasumi.
"Since I can't catch the mosquito, I will start with you two."
Madam Calamity's claw struck directly at Hasumi, who had finally built her Spirit Gauge up to the red level and was preparing to use Spirit Helm Breaker.
"!"
Originally, Kyo had been drawing Madam Calamity's aggro, and Hasumi had been quite happy secretly poking the red dragon's big butt from behind.
Although Hasumi had not yet mastered techniques like Foresight Slash or Special Sheathe, simply performing basic Spirit Blade combos to build her Spirit Gauge gave her a sneaky sense of satisfaction.
Who would have thought that Madam Calamity's aggro would suddenly shift to her? Just as Hasumi flew into midair to attempt Spirit Helm Breaker, Madam Calamity swatted her to the ground.
"Next is..."
Madam Calamity turned her tail into a spear and thrust it straight at the Saintess, who was chanting magic in the distance.
But suddenly, her body stumbled violently.
What happened?
Madam Calamity was stunned for a mont as an indescribable sense of dizziness and fatigue washed over her.
At that mont, Carl's voice rang out at just the right ti beside her ear.
"The power of this long sword is constructed based on Hasumi's Data Volu. After receiving an enhancent, Hasumi's Data Volu has reached around twenty-three thousand."
"But this weapon, built from all of Hasumi's Data Volu, only deals single-digit damage to you. Aren't you curious what its Data Volu was used for?"
Hearing this, Madam Calamity's vertical pupils suddenly contracted.
Yes, after transforming into her SP form, Hasumi's original stats had been reduced to insignificance. But what she gained in exchange was chanics! Ultimate chanics!
These chanics included the invincibility fras, lasting only a fraction of a second, when using the long sword's Foresight Slash.
Though they were short enough to make one sigh, this chanic, where the player could dodge the vast majority of a monster's moves as long as they could react, then counter and grow stronger, was exactly one of the things that made the long sword so addictive.
And the other incredibly captivating chanic was not the long sword's Spirit Helm Breaker.
It was the mont in Monster Hunter that made every player's blood boil!
Oh no!
By the ti Madam Calamity realized the source of her dizziness, it was already too late. Within her field of vision, Kyo had already leaped high into the air after stepping off her neck at so point.
The blade in his hand condensed a burning red light. He held it high above his head, poised to strike.
Actually, Madam Calamity knew very well that even the long sword's strongest Spirit Helm Breaker would not reduce much of her health. She did not need to care about this mosquito-bite attack at all.
But!
"Kneel!"
Kyo shouted at the perfect mont. As the blade slashed down onto Madam Calamity's massive dragon head, a barrage of sword-light arcs flashed in an instant.
That intense dizziness overwheld Madam Calamity's entire body, as if her massive fra had been struck head-on at high speed by an even larger monster.
Madam Calamity howled toward the sky, her feet slipping uncontrollably, and she fell straight down before these three weak humans!
What kind of hellish combat design is this?!
Damn it! Damn it!
Sacrificing damage just to see her fall? Is this fun?! Is it fun?!
The previously invincible red dragon, who looked as though she could destroy an entire city, was now struggling on the ground like a child.
She could not get up! She simply could not get up!
Madam Calamity found her body feeling as if it were stuck in a quagmire. No matter how her claws searched for leverage, she could not stand!
At this mont, she could only watch in humiliation as Kyo, Hasumi, and the Saintess did as they pleased with her!
Then the intense sense of accomplishnt that erupted from Kyo in an instant told Madam Calamity the answer.
Yes, it was fun! It was very fun!
This way of fighting, seeing through all of a monster's behaviors, dancing around it while controlling it, and finally toppling it to watch it struggle on the ground, provided a peak sense of achievent!
"Hasumi, Saintess, focus your attacks on that dragon scale on the tail! It's just a little away from being peeled off!"
Kyo imdiately commanded his two teammates to deal damage without rcy while Madam Calamity was down and unable to rise.
"O-Okay!"
At this mont, Hasumi also drew her blade and stepped onto Madam Calamity's tail, performing her first real Spirit Helm Breaker in actual combat.
"I did it, Madam Calamity! I didn't an to!"
Just as Hasumi wanted to celebrate finally mastering so of this long sword's combat techniques, the arc of light flashed after her strike.
Madam Calamity's round and plump tail was severed clean in two by Hasumi's blade.
This terrified Hasumi.
And this was the third chanic Carl had given Hasumi, Part Break!
Madam Calamity, who had just barely recovered from the dizzy state, was struck by another heavy blow from the pain of having her tail severed.
Accompanied by a surge of intense pain, her massive body rolled several tis on the ground, struggling in a different posture on another patch of earth as she tried to stand.
At this mont, everyone present stopped, because the bet was already over.
Never mind peeling off a single scale. Hasumi had cut off her own superior's tail, which was truly brutal.
"You, you people!"
Madam Calamity finally struggled to her feet. Carl observed that the Data Volu on her body began to rise rapidly, and the ground condensed an imnse amount of heat.
"An Imperial Consul shouldn't be so untrustworthy, right?"
Anan stepped forward to block everyone's way, looking at Madam Calamity in dragon form, who was now missing a tail.
"Heh. I'm starting to regret promising a so-called dragon scale. I should have known to fight until one side was defeated!"
Madam Calamity glanced at her remaining health. The damage Kyo dealt with the long sword had not even reached one percent!
If not for the damage dealt by the Oath characters earlier, her tail would never have been severed so easily.
"But fine. This ti, you win! Go ahead and hold onto those weak weapons. I want to see how long you can last against the invasion of the Plague Torrent with weapons that can't even reduce a fifth of my clone's health!"
Madam Calamity's figure disappeared from before everyone. She felt that if she did not leave now, she would be so angry that she would blow up the entire Netherworld Village.
"What... what do we do? If Madam Calamity really decides to lead the Plague Torrent toward the City of Glory..."
Hasumi asked worriedly while looking at the plump tail Madam Calamity had left behind.
"Don't worry. Your fifth ability is being able to use Carving Materials from monsters to craft brand-new weapons."
As Carl spoke, he threw the still-twitching large tail to Hasumi.
"When the ti cos, I will also open a system for hunting those imperial war pets and plague monsters, then using Carving Materials from them to craft equipnt and weapons."
"When that ti truly cos, it will be hard to say which places players see as protected zones and which places they see as hunting zones."
This was the real reason Carl implented the Monster Hunter system on Hasumi.
If the Empire sent war beasts to invade the Pokémon' ecological zones, intending to treat the Pokémon as food to be devoured...
Then if the players discovered that the furs, scales, and claws of those war beasts could all be crafted into powerful equipnt...
In the end, it would truly be hard to say who would be the ones needing a sanctuary.
(To be continued.)
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