Keeping close to the ground, Altaïr slid down a slope. Before he reached the bottom, he planted both hands on the ground and vaulted upright.
"ROAR!"
The Brute Tigrex followed close behind, appearing at the top of the slope. After a thunderous roar, the ferocious beast lunged forward and crashed down at the base, exactly where the Hunter had been sliding two seconds earlier.
By then, Altaïr had already fired his Clutch Claw and hooked a large boulder atop a low cliff in the distance. As the cable retracted, it pulled him up to the top.
He rolled across the ground to bleed off his momentum, then kept sprinting until he disappeared beyond the cliff's edge.
The Brute Tigrex let out another furious roar. Its muscular limbs surged with power as it leaped, landing at the base of the cliff, which stood less than twenty meters tall.
That height was nothing to it. It reared up, hooked both claws over the cliff's edge, and began hauling itself up.
But the moment its head emerged above the cliff, it was startled to find that the Hunter had not fled at all. Instead, he was waiting in the blind spot created by the difference in elevation.
The instant their eyes met, Altaïr charged forward and unleashed a Blade Dance on the Brute Tigrex's exposed head.
"GROOOAAAGH!" the Brute Tigrex bellowed in rage.
A difference of a dozen meters in elevation was nothing to it. It could climb up in seconds.
The Brute Tigrex instinctively swung a claw, intent on shredding the infuriating Hunter before it, but it had forgotten that they were not on level ground.
Ready for the attack, Altaïr precisely dodged the incoming claw, then used Demon Flurry Rush to dash toward the other claw hooked over the cliff's edge.
The ice-blue Dual Blades, wreathed in frost and mist, spun into a vortex as he turned, hacking repeatedly into the claw with a rapid series of metallic clinks.
The Cool Cleavers were a fine pair of Dual Blades, but even they could not cut through the Brute Tigrex's astonishingly hard claws.
Even after that flurry of strikes, the shell on the Brute Tigrex's claw remained intact. However, the biting cold and damp seeped through the gaps in its shell and deep into the bone.
With its abnormally fast metabolism, the Brute Tigrex had an instinctive aversion to damp cold, much like a person's reflexive response to touching fire. It jerked its claw back.
Half its body was already over the cliff's edge, mere moments from reaching the top, but the Brute Tigrex lost the support of both foreclaws and tumbled backward with a roar.
A thunderous crash rumbled from below the cliff.
The Brute Tigrex had fallen. In theory, this was an ideal opening to attack, but Altaïr knew the time was not right yet.
He did not even pause to see how badly it had crashed. After quickly sheathing his weapons and downing another Dash Juice, he kept running.
Seconds later, a roar far louder and more terrifying than before erupted behind him.
"GROOOAAGHHH!!!"
The Brute Tigrex was enraged.
It backed up a few steps, then pushed off hard and launched itself onto the cliff.
Its heart pounded wildly, sending nearly boiling blood surging through its veins. Its murky yellow eyes turned bloodshot red, and crimson patterns emerged across its neck, chest, and claws.
"Yes, that's it." Altaïr glanced over his shoulder at the Brute Tigrex's frenzied state, a hint of amusement flashing in his eyes. "This way, it'll burn through its stamina even faster!"
Altaïr accelerated around a boulder taller than a man. Only seconds later, the Brute Tigrex smashed it to pieces with its head.
The distance between them was closing rapidly.
Empowered by the Dash Juice and Demon Mode, Altaïr was certain he was faster than Jara had been when he led a Tigrex on a chase all over the mountain years ago. However, this Brute Tigrex was also faster than the poor Tigrex they had tricked into falling to its death.
Now that the Brute Tigrex was enraged and its physical abilities had increased even further, there was no way Altaïr could outrun it in a straight line.
But he was not running aimlessly. He had scouted and planned his escape route in advance.
The area had clearly undergone geological upheaval. Rocky platforms, low cliffs, and collapsed boulders lay scattered everywhere.
Relying on his agility and footwork, as well as the help of his Clutch Claw, he vaulted and leaped between the jagged rocks.
The massive Brute Tigrex could not navigate the complex terrain as easily as he could.
It could simply smash through smaller rocks or send them flying. Larger boulders were another matter. Even if it broke them apart, it would likely batter itself bloody in the process, and some of the largest rocks were beyond even its ability to shatter.
It had no choice but to go around those obstacles or climb over them.
That inevitably slowed its pursuit, and the gap between them, which had narrowed to less than thirty meters, began to widen again.
Once Altaïr had established a relatively safe lead, he began deliberately luring the Brute Tigrex into charging at the smaller boulders.
It certainly looked impressive when the Brute Tigrex sent a boulder flying with a swing of its head or, in its fury, bit another one to pieces. It made the feat look effortless and majestic.
But the stamina it expended and the damage it suffered in the process were very real. Nothing seemed wrong for now, but over time, these small burdens would become the final straw that broke it.
"ROOOAR!"
The Brute Tigrex sent yet another boulder flying, and its breathing grew noticeably heavier.
It seemed to realize that continuing like this would only waste its stamina. It would never catch a Hunter even more agile and irritating than a Vespoid.
But it was not ready to give up.
It let out another furious roar, then quickly climbed a low hill beside the path.
Altaïr glanced back and watched it.
After being subjected to more roars than he could count, he had gradually grown accustomed to them. In fact, he had even begun using them to his advantage.
He had noticed that whenever the Brute Tigrex grew agitated and prepared to make a move, it always liked to howl first.
From his perspective, it was practically shouting a warning: "I'm coming for you!"
The Brute Tigrex scrambled a few steps up the low hill, then pushed off with all four limbs and launched itself dozens of meters into the air.
It spread its rarely used wing membranes and swooped toward the Hunter in a half-flight, half-glide.
Low-altitude flight was still flight. It easily cleared the obstacles on the ground and closed the distance with the Hunter at an alarming speed.
The shadow cast by the Brute Tigrex's massive body was about to engulf Altaïr, but his face showed no trace of panic or even tension. If anything, his expression looked peculiar.
He turned, stopped in his tracks, and hurled a Flash Pod at the diving Brute Tigrex.
The Brute Tigrex was already a poor flier, barely able to maintain a stable glide and control its angle of descent. The blinding flash erupting before its eyes instantly left it dazed and off balance.
Like a bird with a broken wing, it plummeted headfirst toward the ground.
Unable to arrest its momentum, it tumbled across the earth until it slammed into a protruding rocky platform and shattered a large section of it.
The Brute Tigrex lay on its back amid the rubble, howling in pain. The fall had dealt it serious damage.
Two of the secondary bones supporting its wing membrane appeared to have snapped, with stark white splinters jutting through the membrane. Unable to fold or retract, the torn membrane hung limply to one side, while the shell covering its head had lost a chunk during the "face-first landing."
If any other large Flying Wyvern had suffered a damaged wing membrane, it would have been excellent news. But as Altaïr watched the Brute Tigrex lose its ability to fly, he felt only a twinge of regret.
If he could make it crash a couple more times like that, he might as well start preparing to finish the hunt.
A Tigrex should stick to running on the ground. Why did it have to fly? Even that Grimclaw Tigrex had been left reeling by Nymera's Flash Pods...
The prolonged chase, combined with its recent crash, had severely drained the Brute Tigrex's stamina.
The red glow across its head, chest, and claws gradually faded. The heightened physical abilities of its enraged state came at the cost of several times its normal stamina consumption. Under the combined strain of fatigue and dizziness, it could no longer sustain that state.
Seeing this, Altaïr brandished his Dual Blades and charged straight at the Brute Tigrex as it struggled on the ground.
"Now it's my turn."
* * *
2 more chapters will be released soon
Warhammer: Wait, Do I Have to Sit on the Golden Throne Too? is also available here on Webnovel. Thank you for reading.