"Roar, roar, roar!!"
The stinging pain brought by flames burning its skin not only failed to make the Rajang retreat, but instead completely aroused its savagery. In its rage mode, the muscles of its twin fists swelled and flushed crimson, their hardness surpassing steel; every hollow hair was filled with golden lightning.
Scalding blood coursed rapidly through its body, and in such a searing environment, it made it feel as if hot blood was flooding its whole being.
Put simply, it was high on it—thrilled out of its mind!
As one of the few territory-less monsters, the Rajang was also one of the very rare monsters that would launch fights for no reason and revel in battle.
Thus, after running into this Flame Rathalos it could fight, it could no longer hold back from venting the brutality in its heart.
Only, as it kept fighting, it noticed that the surroundings suddenly grew much quieter, and those strange flames stopped flying over.
Just as the Rajang smashed apart a fireball with one fist and threw back its head to roar amid the smoke, a gust of wind blew past, scattering the dust.
Its roaring cut off halfway and caught in its throat, stopping in an instant.
Four Fire Wyverns, their whole bodies igniting in flame and their true forms obscured, had already surrounded it, each fixing it with a hostile gaze.
In a heartbeat, this brutish monster instantly calmed down, and a frantic danger warning surged up from the bottom of its heart.
Only now did the Rajang realize that that Flame Dragon couple had slipped away at some point, leaving only it still foolishly entangled with the Flame Rathalos.
One versus many—this was not something that had never happened in the Rajang's career; after all, many monsters were social creatures, and a battle-loving Rajang accustomed to living as it pleased was bound to clash with such monster groups.
Only, by relying on its combat strength like a flaw in the world, it had hammered those groups into utter submission.
But now!
Three Fire Wyverns each slightly superior to its normal state, plus one monster exuding Elder Dragon pressure and able to match the Teostra, had it surrounded.
How was it supposed to fight this?
Even a Rajang that took joy in battle couldn't help but feel its head go blank at this moment.
The hot blood that had gone to its head was forcibly cooled back down under the crisis of life and death.
"Roar."
Perhaps the Rajang had some plan, or perhaps it had the idea to fight to the death.
In any case, just as the Rajang made a slight move and had only just let out a small, intimidating roar, Logan—already irritable from the resonance of the Everstream—directly poured down a clustered breath in his Calamity Flame form.
The explosion in that instant sent Aki and the others flying backward for a short distance.
This arena had already been made precarious by the continuous scorching of high-temperature flames; under Logan's full-power breath, it collapsed outright.
A large amount of basalt fractured, and the Everstream—already rendered unstable by the resonance—detonated with a roar under Logan's breath, breaking through the restraints of the fractured basalt and bioenergy crystals and beginning to spew magma.
Amid the wavering firelight, Logan saw only the Rajang's figure fall into the magma and be driven far away by the raging flow.
Up in the sky, the four figures of Logan and the others burst out of the thick smoke; meanwhile, in their claws, Aki and the Scorching Heat Rathian were each carrying the corpse of a Dodogama that seemed kind of dead.
Obviously, despite also using fire, the Dodogama still died under absolute high temperature.
But who could it blame?
At the very start of the battle, when the other monsters were all running for their lives, those two were still there huffing and gnawing on bioenergy crystal ore, with no eye for the situation at all.
On the way back to the nest, as they moved away from the main aggregation area of bioenergy crystals, that annoying noise finally lessened a lot.
Their minds, which had been unbearably irritable, finally settled down again.
The Flame Rathalos, which had been riding the updraft vortices Logan created to ascend, finally started flapping its wings anew, moved close to the Scorching Heat Rathian whose own flames could not be extinguished, let out a few low growls in reassurance, and then flew back behind Logan.
One of the highest points of the basalt jungle—this was the nest Logan chose.
Once, this place had belonged to a Bazelgeuse, but after a friendly exchange with Logan, that Bazelgeuse quite aptly ceded the nest and then vanished without a trace.
From the basalt rim here, one could take the entire Elder's Recess into view; gazing at the volcano that kept erupting and the tremors that came now and then, Logan had already begun to consider whether to move.
Mainly, although both were volcanic lava zones, this place in the Elder's Recess happened to be a bend of the Everstream, and moreover an overflow point of life energy within the Everstream.
Here, even the slightest movement made by the Shara Ishvalda would be amplified.
The stronger a being's sensitivity to life energy, the more greatly it would be affected.
Forget about getting a good night's sleep—Logan felt that being able to maintain a calm state of mind already counted as having strong self-control.
He didn't even know how that egg deep beneath the bioenergy crystals could bear it.
"Roar, roar~~"
After the Flame Rathalos gave a rather aggrieved explanation, Logan finally understood the cause of the battle.
This fellow really was unlucky. On his way back with the mate he had finally found, he had merely wanted to rest for a bit on a huge rock—yet by sheer bad luck, he ran right into the Flame Dragon couple, who were suppressing their auras and focusing on incubating their egg.
Even more coincidentally, that originally steady magma flow suddenly erupted, and when the huge rock they were standing on bore the added weight of two large monsters, the basalt base could no longer support it. It fractured and was swallowed by magma.
Just like that, the Flame Rathalos and his couple was laid bare before the Flame Dragon couple.
At that point, it wasn't merely charging up to their doorstep—they had already barged into their house and even caused damage inside.
The Teostra, who had been holding in frustration ever since his previous confrontation with Logan and had even sulkily moved to a new home, was immediately triggered.
Without a word, he began a relentless pursuit, while the Lunastra only joined after securing her egg.
Sometimes, luck truly was inexplicably strange.
Half a month after their last encounter, Logan once again clashed with the Teostra. If not for this sudden earthquake and "singing," who knew how far this fight would have gone? It might even have drawn other Elder Dragons over, and by then, an all-out Elder Dragon brawl could well have erupted across the Elder's Recess.
"Roar!"
Two roars suddenly entered the ears of Logan and the Flame Rathalos. Turning back, they saw that at some point, Aki and the Scorching Heat Rathian had started confronting each other, each refusing to back down, exchanging mutual displays of dominance.
It looked like a disagreement over food distribution.
Casting a glare at the Flame Rathalos, who didn't even dare step in to stop them, Logan spread his wings, unleashed his Pressure Trait, and instantly enveloped the Scorching Heat Rathian.
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