Perhaps still hoping it had escaped notice, the bizarre Elder Dragon concealed atop the giant tree made no attempt to reveal itself.
The Hunters had already located their target, however, and had plenty of ways to force it into view.
Nadia raised her weapon, and the six barrels of its specially modified rotary assembly began spinning at high speed. Amid the roar of gunfire, streams of Flaming Ammo poured out like torrential rain, blanketing a wide area across the crown of the giant tree.
Some rounds flew wide or struck the branches, but many others vanished into thin air as though swallowed by something invisible.
That immediately revealed the target's location. Nadia focused her sweeping fire on that point, nearly emptying a large drum magazine in a matter of seconds.
Under the concentrated barrage of Flaming Ammo, a colossal transparent silhouette atop the tree began to ripple violently, like a curtain of water suspended in midair, swaying, trembling, and finally shattering.
A bizarre, dark-purple dragon materialized before their eyes.
"Keeeaaaw!!" Burned by the Flaming Ammo, it let out a shrill cry of pain.
"Ew! It's so ugly!"
The instant Tala saw the purple Elder Dragon's true form, all her romantic notions about Elder Dragons shattered.
Compared with this creature, even a Yian Kut-Ku and its spoon-shaped beak looked handsome...
"Oooh! I knew I hadn't imagined it! It's Chameleos! It was hiding right above our heads all along!" Kral shouted excitedly.
Nadia removed the spent drum magazine as quickly as possible and reached for another on her Ammo belt. "We'll keep it occupied! You two, fall back immediately!"
Reloading inevitably created a brief gap in the Gunner's fire. To prevent their opponent from exploiting it, Altaïr lunged in front of Nadia, reversed his grip on his great scythe, and entered his Long Sword charging stance.
His gaze remained fixed on the target.
Chameleos clung to a branch more than ten meters above the ground. Altaïr's attacks could not reach it there, but the creature would have to return to the ground eventually.
Its body was not built for the agility of a Nargacuga or Tobi-Kadachi. Remaining in the tree would only leave it exposed to Nadia's gunfire.
She completed the reload in an instant, and the Rathalos Light Bowgun in her hands once again unleashed its devastating firepower.
Just as Altaïr thought Chameleos would have no choice but to leap from the treetop, giving him an opportunity to strike with a Charged Spirit Roundslash while it was unsteady upon landing–
Thick white mist poured from its body, swallowing it in an instant before spreading outward at alarming speed.
Having lost sight of the target, Nadia had to track Chameleos by sound. She adjusted her aim and continued firing with Rapid Fire, but after only two or three seconds, she was forced to stop shooting blindly.
The sounds of her rounds flying wide told her that she had lost the target. Ceasing fire would also make it easier to hear any noise Chameleos made as it moved.
Yet there was nothing.
It was as though the dense fog had swallowed every sound. Blanketed in white mist, the jungle fell utterly silent.
Nadia's brow furrowed.
Altaïr, standing guard beside her, suddenly tensed. "This is bad... Could it be circling around to attack Kral and Tala?"
Nadia immediately raised her voice. "Tala! Kral! Watch out! Come back!"
"Wha...t?" Kral's voice came through the mist, muffled and distant.
Something was clearly wrong. Only a few seconds had passed between Chameleos revealing itself and disappearing into the dense fog. Kral and Tala could not have run very far, so why did his voice sound so faint?
Nadia had no time to consider the question. She could only continue shouting to guide the pair back toward them.
Kral and Tala realized the problem as well and began calling back. In fog so dense that they could not see their hands before their faces, sound was their only means of finding one another.
Once he had roughly determined their position, Altaïr signaled for Nadia to stay alert and slipped into the dense mist.
He soon returned with the two, who had not managed to get far.
Altaïr and Nadia had not changed their minds about the retreat. With the area engulfed in thick fog and the target's location unknown once more, however, Kral and Tala were safer staying close than trying to leave.
Altaïr and Nadia shielded the two noncombatants as they slowly withdrew to the giant tree. With their backs against its trunk, they formed a protective barrier around the pair.
To prevent Chameleos from circling back, Nadia raised her muzzle and swept the branches above them with gunfire.
Once they had confirmed that there was no immediate danger overhead, the four remained fully alert, waiting for the fog to disperse while considering their next move.
Crouching beneath the giant tree, Tala gently tapped at her ears. "This fog feels... strange.
"My ears feel as though they've been stuffed with cotton. It isn't just distant sounds. Even when we're speaking face-to-face, everything sounds muffled."
Kral held one palm before his eyes and examined it carefully, then licked it and brought it close to his nose. "It isn't just our hearing. Our sight and smell have been dulled as well.
"Could some kind of toxin in the fog be causing this?"
Altaïr frowned, took out a bottle of Antidote G, and drank it. After quietly gauging its effects for a moment, he shook his head. "I don't know whether a toxin is responsible, but the Antidote G isn't helping."
"Oh! This is an important discovery!" Kral exclaimed. "At first, we believed Chameleos turned invisible simply by changing the color of its skin, like a chameleon.
"Later, we discovered it wasn't that simple. Objects landing on Chameleos vanished along with it, just like those falling leaves earlier. We therefore concluded that it must be capable of creating some sort of optical illusion around its body.
"Now it seems that, in addition to those two mechanisms, the fog plays a key role in Chameleos achieving complete invisibility. It obscures vision, while some substance suspended within it dulls the other senses.
"That leaves even an opponent with keen senses unable to locate it by smell or sound!
"Ah! I almost forgot. Samples!"
Kral excitedly took out a glass sample bottle, uncorked it, and swept its open mouth through the air.
Apparently deciding that the palm-sized bottle could not hold enough fog, he emptied his water pouch, inhaled a deep lungful of mist, and blew it inside. Then he inhaled and exhaled into the pouch again, repeating the process several times.
Altaïr watched him with a crawling sensation across his scalp.
Had Kral forgotten that less than half a minute earlier, he had suggested the fog might be poisonous?
"That Chameleos has probably left," Nadia said suddenly.
"Yeah." Setting aside his concern for the young Royal Paleontology Scrivener, Altaïr nodded. "Earlier, while we were scattered and before we reached cover, it had the perfect opportunity to ambush us.
"Now that we've regrouped with our backs to this giant tree, it will have a much harder time catching us by surprise."
"So... what do we do now?" Tala asked nervously from behind them.
Being enveloped in the dense fog was even more unsettling than facing the ugly Elder Dragon head-on.
Nadia's voice remained calm. Compared with everything she had experienced before, this was a minor predicament.
"If it has left, the fog will disperse on its own. If it hasn't, we'll wait it out. Stay ready to evade poison gas or venom and use antidotes as needed."
Just as the four settled on cautiously holding their position and waiting for the fog to lift, a muffled shout came from the distance.
"Huh? Where did this fog come from...? Ah! My rations!"
* * *
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