"Thud! Thud!"
The Duramboros's steps were not frequent, but each stride was quite long and exceptionally heavy. Every footfall of this behemoth, weighing over a hundred tons, sent tremors through the ground, like a continuous minor earthquake.
If you stood even slightly close, you could feel unsteady on your feet.
Altaïr noticed this and deliberately maintained a safety distance of more than one body length from the Duramboros.
Though this creature looked bloated and slow-moving, its sheer size meant that once it got going, its straight-line sprinting speed could actually outpace a Hunter.
Altaïr relied on his own nimble agility, constantly making sharp turns to change his escape direction, or using the obstacles scattered throughout the Jungle to alter his path.
For a giant beast over a hundred tons in weight, running at full speed, changing direction on the fly was no easy task.
Turning ninety degrees might require a run-out of two or three hundred meters just to barely avoid toppling over. When encountering obstacles like large boulders or giant trees, it couldn't dodge them, instead, it simply lowered its head and charged right through.
Altaïr vaulted over a fallen, rotten log roughly as thick as Francesca was tall. Before he could run much farther ahead, a loud "Boom!" sounded behind him.
The Duramboros, in full pursuit, lifted its head and hooked upward with its curved horns, tossing the rotten log high into the air. The several-ton log traced a high arc, flew over Altaïr's head, and crashed down onto the ground twenty or thirty meters ahead of him.
This startling sight made Altaïr quickly change tactics. He no longer dared to use obstacles that, to the Duramboros, were little more than stumbling blocks to hinder its movement. Instead, he forced the Duramboros into constant turns with more frequent and sharper-angle maneuvers, thus maintaining the distance between them.
Although this meant running a lot of extra, pointless distance, it was necessary for the sake of the lure strategy and his own safety.
And so, one chased, the other fled. After leading the Duramboros in a winding path for nearly one or two kilometers, Altaïr suddenly felt the thunderous footfalls behind him gradually slowing and softening.
He glanced back over his shoulder and saw that the Duramboros had actually given up the chase, slowing to a halt, and was now hunkering down beside another long-fallen, rotten log covered in mushrooms, its wood long gone soft and pulpy, taking big, voracious bites.
This left Altaïr somewhat exasperated.
A temperament more lazy than gentle, coupled with a low desire to pursue, was one of the main reasons the Duramboros's threat rating wasn't particularly high.
Other Large Monsters, like the Tigrex they'd encountered on the Ancestral Steppe, wouldn't give up even after a whole day of chasing, let alone just a kilometer or two.
Nothing like this creature here, which, mid-chase, seemed to have already dissipated its earlier rage and simply turned aside to start eating.
For someone who genuinely needed to escape pursuit, the Duramboros's behavior would be a tremendous relief. But the problem was, he wasn't truly fleeing; he was trying to lure the Duramboros to a suitable battlefield for the hunt.
The Duramboros suddenly giving up the chase halfway was indeed not part of their plan. Helpless, Altaïr had no choice but to stop and turn around, closing the distance once more.
The Duramboros, which had been busily gnawing on rotten wood, noticed the Hunter's approach and paused its feeding. It raised its head, alert and irritable.
It had given up the chase, but only because its simple brain had decided that the little creature before it posed no real threat. Continuing to expend precious energy on pursuit wasn't worth it, so it had chosen to stop and eat instead.
That didn't mean its temper had cooled.
The wound blasted open by the Wyvern's Fire still throbbed painfully. Even if it couldn't immediately find the culprit, it really wanted to stomp something flat to vent its fury.
Seeing the white steam puffing from the Duramboros's nostrils, Altaïr decided to add fuel to the fire.
He took out the horn and blew it hard. The shrill sound made the Duramboros toss its head and roar in irritation. At the same moment, he flicked his wrist, launching another Paintball right at the monster's face.
This series of actions was like throwing a handful of gunpowder onto the Duramboros's smoldering anger. The beast roared explosively, shoved aside the giant tree it had barely taken two bites from, and once again began its heavy-footed charge toward the annoying figure in its sight.
Altaïr chuckled and turned, sprinting at full speed.
And so the chase resumed, a back-and-forth tug-of-war that lasted several dozen minutes. The Duramboros, never good at prolonged running, gave up the chase once more.
This time, even blowing the horn until it cracked couldn't rekindle its rage. Left with no other option, Altaïr had to risk drawing his weapon. Seizing the moment while the Duramboros was lowering its head to feed, he landed several slashes on its skull.
This action finally made the latter realize that it probably couldn't eat in peace without dealing with this pest in front of it. Only then did it rouse itself once more and start moving.
The distance from the Duramboros's nest to the battlefield they had chosen in advance wasn't actually far in a straight line. The original plan was to complete the luring operation within a quarter of an hour, half an hour at most. Yet, dragging on and on, it ended up taking over an hour.
—--
Isis and Nymera, who had arrived early and lain in wait for a long time, were starting to grow uneasy. Finally, they heard the sounds of the Duramboros approaching.
Following the tactics discussed beforehand, the two quickly hid behind an Ancient Giant Tree whose trunk was a good seven or eight meters thick and whose crown was incredibly vast and dense.
In the Jungle area with its extremely poor visibility, the heavy footsteps grew closer and closer. Along with them came Altaïr's loud shout, "Ready?"
"Ready!" Isis shouted back from behind the giant tree.
Bursting out from the dense forest shadows, Altaïr sprinted at full speed toward that giant tree. Two or three seconds later, the Duramboros, like a moving hill, followed close behind, crashing out of the Jungle zone.
In their chase, the distance to the ambush point narrowed.
If possible, Altaïr naturally wanted to lead the Duramboros into ramming that astonishingly thick tree trunk.
Even with the Duramboros's size and strength, it was unlikely to smash through a giant tree of that scale in one head-on collision. The terrifying impact force from its heavy body was bound to inflict serious damage.
But the Duramboros wasn't blind either. After charging out of the Jungle and noticing an enormous tree thicker than its own body directly ahead, it consciously slowed its pace and began to turn sideways, preparing to avoid it. Noticing this, Altaïr immediately made a sharp right-angle turn.
Since he couldn't lure the Duramboros into crashing into the tree, he would force it to expose a weakness in another way!
The Duramboros, which had already been preparing to turn sideways, noticed the Hunter's change in direction and immediately leaned harder into the turn, trying to cut him off first.
But just as its center of gravity shifted and it committed fully to the turn, Altaïr, running ahead, suddenly spun around, raised his left arm, and fired a Flash Pod from his Slinger.
During the previous lengthy baiting operation that had lasted over an hour, he had faced danger several times but had stubbornly refrained from using the Flash Pod, all for the sake of this moment's surprise.
The Duramboros, completely unprepared for the Hunter to unleash a blinding light, not only temporarily lost its vision, but the intense light also instantly disrupted its cerebellum's control over bodily balance, causing dizziness.
Its thick, powerful, but not particularly agile hind hooves tangled together. The massive body, caught in a sharp turn, couldn't stabilize its center of gravity. Dragged down by inertia, it toppled sideways onto the ground. Unable to dissipate the enormous impact force, it sent earth, stones, and turf flying. The fallen Duramboros tumbled forward several more times before barely coming to a stop.
"Attack!" Altaïr, who had been chased for over an hour with pent-up frustration, shouted the command.
Isis, Nymera, and Sajji, lying in ambush, immediately rushed out from behind the giant trees they were hiding behind.
Isis charged straight up to the Duramboros, roaring fiercely.
To achieve substantial attack results, she should indeed target the soft hump on the Duramboros's back, but what she needed to do now was firmly capture the Duramboros's attention.
And there was no better choice than attacking right in its face.
The heavy Gunlance felt like a light wooden stick in her hands as she slammed it down against the side of the Duramboros's head. Simultaneously, she repeatedly pulled the trigger.
"Full Burst!"
(Translated by yourtl.app)