Red Snow [Monster Hunter Story] /english ver.

Chapter 13

The Blangonga focused all its attention on the four Hunters.

It walked towards them with slow and heavy steps. The pack of Blangos drew its circles around them and finally cut off the last hope of escape.

Brandon and Tess turned around and unsheathed their weapons. Donniel looked at his leader.

"What's the plan?"

'The plan..?'

Brandon no longer had a plan.

This whole time he tried to think of ways to slay the monster as flawless as possible. But never before had so many things gone wrong.

He began asking himself if he truly was ready to be in charge of a hunting party. After all, his team was in very bad shape and the situation looked grim.

This was no longer a quest they tried to complete – this was a fight for survival.

"Don't die..." he responded.

Donniel and Tess looked at each other and they too realized that everyone would now be on their own. There were just too many enemies to support one another.

The Blangonga roared and started running at them. But before the monster could reach the Hunters, a sudden outburst of the storm made it stop in its tracks.

The wind became so strong the Hunters had to protect their eyes.

A hellish screeching erupted between the clouds, but it was impossible to see anything from the ground.

The Blangonga turned in circles as it tried to locate the source, but the one-eyed beast wasn't able to see it either.

Just a moment later the Blangonga got smashed into the ground. A massive wave of snow exploded in all directions around the monster.

Brandon didn't understand what he just witnessed.

The monster was lying before him on the ground – dead.

It must've been shattered by a great force, judging by the way the corpse was left behind. But Brandon could've sworn he didn't see anything hitting the Blangonga. It just collapsed under sheer pressure.

The Blangos howled in unison and scattered immediately. The sight of their dead leader was enough to scare them away.

"What the..." gasped Donniel.

The winds kept getting stronger and forced the Hunters down to their knees. Brandon jumped over to Runa and held her tight.

"What was THAT?!" yelled Tess, "Another monster?!"

Even though they were right next to each other Brandon had to scream in order to have a chance against the raging winds.

"I don't know! I couldn't see anything! It just got kind of... crushed!"

Brandon raised his head from behind his arm and searched the skies for whatever could have caused this. He struggled to keep his eyes open, but eventually he thought he saw something.
Nothing specific, more like a shadow dashing throw the clouds.

"Guys! There is something in the air. Don't know what, but it's huge!"

Donniel and Tess also tried to find it, but before they could spot it, the assassin revealed itself on its own.

As if by magic, the wind suddenly vanished completely and uncovered the sight of an impressive creature hovering before them in the air.

Everybody immediately realized they weren't dealing with a normal wyvern. The features of the creature resembled those of beings they'd only ever heard of from legends.

Six separate limbs – four legs and two wings.

Even if it was hard to believe, there was only one category of monsters housing these creatures.

'An Elder Dragon...'

A cold shiver ran down Brandon's spine at the pure sight of this mighty being.

He had studied all kinds of monsters during his training, Elder Dragons included, but he'd never seen or heard of this specimen before.

The dragon landed on the ground and abruptly spread out his wings. Brandon felt like glued to the ground; he just couldn't take off his eyes from this spectacle.

Now that the monster was out of the sky, he was able to get a better grasp at the true size of the creature. Just in height it trumped the Blangonga by twice the amount and its wingspan dominated even the largest Rathalos.

But what fascinated him the most was the jet-black scale armor encasing the dragon. Darker than the night itself, it let the giant beast disappear against the ominous skies above them.

The creature's long neck ended in a spiked head.
Two large horns crowned the Elder Dragon and gave it an intimidating presence.

The Hunters were at a loss for words. No one of them had expected to face off against the most powerful entity they would ever come across.

The frozen dictator - The steel dragon.

Kushala Daora!