Name: Dara Amadyura

Pronunciation: DAH-rah AH-mah-DYOO-rah

Latin Name: Anquis custos millaminis – "serpent keeper of a thousand blades"

Element: Unknown

Weakness: Dragon?

Family: Elder Dragons

Class: Godly class

Threat Level: Omnipotent

Physical Description: This Elder Dragon of near-god strength has only been discovered in recent years, just after the monster war ended. She is one of the biggest monsters ever known, resembling a monstrous blue-green serpent with jagged spines running along her lengthy spine. Two of these spines, found near her shoulders, are massive and blade-like. A pair of terribly huge arms with wicked talons help her to clamber through her mountainous home. Her head resembles a python's, only increased to tremendous proportions, with red eyes and jaws lined with teeth as long as a human is tall. The tail is relatively thin and possesses a pair of sword-like blades.

Habitat: Dara Amadyura hails from the mysterious Nameless region, a place that we still have much to learn about. Apparently, her existence has been rumored for centuries beyond count, and has featured in many myths and legends told by the natives, especially those from Shinato Village in the eastern mountains. On the greatest of all mountains, simply called Heavenly Mountain, it is said that Dara Amadyura can be found in deep slumber.

Recently, rocks could be seen falling from the sky all over Heavenly Mountain, and no one could tell where they had come from. The mystery was solved when a team of hunters journeyed to Heavenly Mountain to slay the deadly Shagaru Magara, and ended up chasing the beast all the way up to Thousand Blade Mountain, the very pinnacle of the mighty peak that they had been fighting on. There, they encountered the awakened Dara Amadyura, whose movements had been causing the rockslides on Heavenly Mountain.

Amadyura sleeps on Thousand Blade Mountain, according to the legends. Most ancient pictograms and hieroglyphs found in mountain caves depict the Elder Dragon coiled around a blade-shaped spire, but it isn't known if she actually sleeps in exactly that fashion.

Diet: The residents of Shinato Village say that Dara Amadyura awakens once every thousand years, for about a day or two, in order to feed. But what could such a legendary beast possibly feed on? The answer – everything.

Dara Amadyura is large enough and powerful enough to eat anything she wants. Her jaws could easily swallow a Zinogre whole – and when you consider that most snakes can unhinge their jaws and expand their stomachs, then it isn't hard to imagine Amadyura swallowing a full-grown Lao-Shan Lung without any trouble. When she does awaken once every millennium, the legends say that it takes until she awakens again for the Heavenly Mountain to become prosperous once more. And then the vicious cycle repeats itself.

Does Dara Amadyura have predators?

… What do you think?

Biological Adaptations: Even a monster of deity-like strength must have been modeled by evolution. But the truth is, when it comes to powerful Elder Dragons, the line between laws of nature and supernatural phenomena becomes very blurred.

So blurred, in fact, that it is suspected that Dara Amadyura might wield magical powers, similarly to Alatreon and Shagaru Magara.

Amadyura's head is snake-like in nature and, size notwithstanding, quite similar to the Remobra's. It is long and narrow, with jaws that can open wide to display needle-like teeth and a forked tongue. While the heads of Remobras and ordinary serpents have adapted in accordance with their environment, the reason why Amadyura's head is the way it has been shaped is unknown. Perhaps its sleek, streamlined form helps her to burrow through the mountains with ease. When Amadyura becomes enraged, blood vessels around her face will expand and become more noticeable, similar to monsters such as Akantor and Tigrex.

The forked tongue, obviously, is used to catch the scents of prey monsters, which is essential to her survival. When Amadyura moves, earthquakes and rockslides follow, which send the monsters scattering at her approach. Without any way to detect the fleeing monsters and follow them, Dara Amadyura would surely starve. Her numerous teeth curve backward, making it impossible for any prey snagged in her jaws to escape.

While Dara Amadyura has no need for venom of any kind, it has been noted that her tongue is able to paralyze any living thing with just a touch. It is unknown why this is so.

Dara Amadyura's back is lined with massive, forward-pointing spines. The purpose of these spines are still being debated, but it is mostly generally accepted that the Elder Dragon either uses these to keep a grip on treacherous mountain terrain, or to help burrow through the ground. Because her head has no beak, drill, or horns of any kind (unlike most burrowing monsters) it isn't known how she breaks through the ground in the first place – but you can't argue with the power and skill with which she tunnels. Once in the ground, she seems to almost disappear, while her burrowing causes the mountains to collapse around her.

Indeed, Amadyura has long been said to be able to cause entire continents to sink into the ocean. While this is highly unlikely, the Shagaru Magara hunters that met her reported later that several of the spires that give Thousand Blade Mountain its name crumbled into nothingness when she dug underneath them.

Two of her large back spines are much bigger than the rest, taking the form of giant, blade-like projections coming off of her shoulder blades. Although I'm already tired of saying this, their function is completely unknown, as they would be more of a hindrance than a help when she burrows.

Some legends say that her scales are tougher than iron, and it is indeed fact that the scales and spines on her chest, at least, are incredibly hard. However, her chest is also crisscrossed with strange, glowing red markings, almost like scars. These 'scars' output some kind of extremely powerful energy that leaks out when the Elder Dragon becomes enraged, as noted by the sole survivor of the Shagaru Magara hunters that encountered her. That particular eyewitness noted that the energy took the form of blue, ember-like fog that heated up the surrounding area to an extreme degree. This energy can also be channeled by Amadyura, allowing her to spit bluish fireballs and immense streams of indigo flames.

From the hunter's description, particularly of the flamethrower attack that he called 'The Great Bluefire Blast', it doesn't seem like Dara Amadyura doesn't control the Fire element, but something else entirely. Magic? Perhaps.

Amadyura, like most serpent-like monsters, is in possession of legs. However, she only has two of them – her back legs have devolved into useless spurs reminiscent of a python's. The forelegs, on the other hand, are appropriately massive and heavily muscled. They are used to help Amadyura climb over mountain ranges and drag her titanic weight across Heavenly Mountain, and they do their job extremely well. Aside from being powerful, her forelegs are also tipped with wicked talons that cut through rock with ease.

With such a long and flexible body, Dara Amadyura is easily capable of twisting around the huge spires that make up Thousand Blade Mountain. Like other serpentine beasts such as the Lagiacrus and Garara Ajara, it is thought that her spine is made up of hundreds, or even thousands, of vertebrae that allow her to contort her body without causing any harm to herself.

It is difficult to tell where the tail ends or begins on a serpentine monster, since the spinal cord extends all the way down to the very tip. Dara Amadyura's tail probably begins just behind her vestigial hind legs. While it is useless when it comes to burrowing, since her claws and back spines do all the work, the tail is extremely flexible and covered in razor-like blades. The two blades at the very tip are much longer than the others, giving the Elder Dragon's tail an axe or halberd-like appearance. One lash of that tail is capable of splitting boulders in half, so it isn't farfetched to believe that Dara Amadyura uses it to dispatch larger monsters, at least on occasion. She may also use it to constrict prey to death.

Behavior: The Nameless region is very mysterious, and we still have much to learn about it. Thus, not even the myths and legends of Dara Amadyura – never mind her actual behavioral habits – are very well known to most of the known world. However, I will try to include all the information here that I have gleaned from the Nameless.

Dara Amadyura sleeps within Thousand Blade Mountain, on the very peak of the much larger Heavenly Mountain. The people of Shinato Village, which live on a neighboring mountain, travel to Heavenly Mountain and leave offerings of food at one of their old shrines in hopes of appeasing her when she eventually awakens. As noted earlier, Amadyura is thought to awaken once every millennium or so, although it is unknown if this is actually true. What is known is that when she did awaken, very recently, the villagers were forced to evacuate in order to escape the destruction that the Elder Dragon brought with her.

Other legends say that Dara Amadyura is in fact a goddess, similarly to how the people of Yukumo Village view Amatsumagatsuchi. The Elder Dragon is revered as a deity representing wisdom, simply because of her speculated age (she is thought to have been born alongside the rest of the world) and her accumulated experience from such a long lifespan. But because she spends most of her life asleep, the myths dictate that she absorbs her vast knowledge from the earth and the mountains around her. This particular legend also leads people to believe that Amadyura is also, in fact, a goddess of the earth. Wisdom and earth are often connected in many cultures around the known world.

The legends also frequently mention that Dara Amadyura can control a kind of mystical blue fire, exactly like the strange element that she was witnessed using in battle with the group of hunters. It doesn't seem to be any kind of Fire element or Dragon element that most are familiar with, or even one of the combined elements that some monsters in the Great Frontier can use. A lot of people consider it to be magic fire, and there's one myth that states it as being 'the tool of the gods'. However, no other magical Elder Dragon is able to control anything like this.

Some people wonder if the events leading up to Dara Amadyura's awakening actually caused her to emerge from Thousand Blade Mountain. No accounts of Shagaru Magara sightings have been recorded as far as researchers are concerned, except for a few obscure documents dating back several hundred years. The appearance of a Shagaru Magara, which was followed by the awakening of Dara Amadyura, is rumored by the villagers of Shinato to be connected somehow, and for some reason, I don't blame them for thinking such a thing.

And now, for the facts. Amadyura actually attacked the hunters that chased the Magara onto her mountain, meaning that she is either territorial or she is aware of the kind of damage humans can do. The latter case is much more likely, seeing as humans don't even measure a hundredth of her size, and thus shouldn't matter to an Elder Dragon of such enormity.

If indeed she does have some kind of territorial instinct, then it is likely that she sees the entirety of Heavenly Mountain as her domain, or perhaps even the entire mountain range that dominates the eastern part of the Nameless. In legends, Dara Amadyura is often depicted as coiled around the greatest of the great pillars that can be found on Thousand Blade Mountain. Those I have spoken to have explained that she is watching over her expansive kingdom from the top of that spire.

Because, so far as it is known, there is only one Amadyura, we don't know how she can reproduce or otherwise keep her species thriving. Many other close-to-omnipotent Elder Dragons share this same mystery. Of course, it's always possible that they are actually gods and goddesses, and don't even need to reproduce. That would certainly explain why no hunter during the entire centuries-long war could ever kill one.

Another trait that Dara Amadyura shares with monsters in the Godly class is her immense age and wisdom. No one can doubt that such a huge creature, spoken of in legends since practically the dawn of time, has had a remarkable lifespan and possesses an equally remarkable wealth of knowledge. We can certainly make inferences about her intelligence, not to mention her linguistic skills, but we can only guess how old this Elder Dragon really is. She certainly can't be as old as the planet itself, like the myths say.

… Right?

Ailments: Dara Amadyura has some kind of paralyzing saliva on her tongue that is able to inflict the Paralysis ailment with just a simple touch. Paralysis, of course, prevents all movement by locking certain muscles into a frozen state. Thankfully, this ailment wears off after a short amount of time, which usually isn't long enough to survive and avoid an attack from Dara Amadyura.

The ghostly blue fires that Amadyura spouts from her jaws isn't capable of inflicting any known status ailment – but then again, no one's survived a blast for long enough to tell.

Relatives: Many researchers make judgments on appearance alone, and thus a staggering amount of people infer that Dara Amadyura's closest relations are the other Snake Wyverns slithering around the Nameless region – namely, Remobra, Garara Ajara, and the recently-discovered purple Ajara subspecies.

However, it is undeniable that Amadyura's amazing power sets her apart from the serpentine crowd. Some researchers classify her as being a close relative of the Raviente and White Raviente, which is also a serpentine Elder Dragon that dwarfs even Amadyura in size. Still others believe her as being descended from aquatic monsters, much like the Ceadeus. But, as is the norm with classifying Elder Dragons, her true origins are shrouded in mystery.

How to Approach: Don't even think about it. This queen of serpents has most likely settled back down for another thousand years after consuming Heavenly Mountain's entire ecosystem. And if she's still awake… please don't bother saying your prayers.

Summary: Dara Amadyura is the most recently-discovered of omnipotent forces in this world, a serpentine empress that slumbers for hundreds of years at a time before awakening with a terrible appetite. Rumored for centuries to be a goddess with mystical powers, she was only confirmed to exist recently. Her tunneling destroys entire mountains, and when she's not looking for food, she is staring reverently down at her domain from the peak of Thousand Blade Mountain. Much about her is still unknown, and most likely will be for another millennium at the very least.

-.-.-.-.

Dara Amadyura, the Serpent King Dragon, is the final boss of MH4. I think it's about time Monster Hunter got a giant snake for an Elder Dragon, don't you? (Raviente doesn't look like much like a snake if you ask me.)

Also, MH4U has recently released a trailer that has revealed a bunch of new monsters. Until the game comes out here in the West, I'm going to carry on publishing this guide as normal – but then I'm going to go back and update every chapter that I can. New English names will mean that, inevitably, some chapters will be switched around to keep things in ABC order.

Stay tuned, review, and wait for the appearance of another new Elder Dragon…

Next chapter: Daren Mohran!