Along the way toward Logan's nest, feeling the pain spreading across his body, the Flame Rathalos had to admit that he had been somewhat careless.
Clearly, Logan had already warned him beforehand that there was a very dangerous monster prowling nearby, and told him and the Scorching Heat Rathian to be more cautious.
Yet perhaps out of anger—or perhaps because, over these years, apart from suffering setbacks under Logan and the Elder Dragons, everything had gone smoothly for him—he had lost the rational judgment he should have had when facing the Savage Deviljho.
That creature had already revealed such a terrifying form, and yet he had not immediately taken the Scorching Heat Rathian and flown out of the lava cave. By the time the Savage Deviljho launched its attack, it was already too late.
One strike had left him seriously wounded, his combat power greatly reduced; had it not been for the Scorching Heat Rathian's quick wits in finding a way to hinder the Savage Deviljho's assault in time, what awaited the Flame Rathalos would have been nothing short of grave injury—or even death.
...
Basalt region, within Logan's nest.
Logan looked on speechlessly, watching as the Flame Rathalos couple gulped down Mega Potions one after another, as if eating hard candies with fillings—without even spitting out the bottles.
The Mega Potions in that pouch were visibly decreasing; this one session alone equaled five or six days of Aki's consumption.
If not for the fact that they indeed looked rather pitiful, Logan would have already smacked them away with his tail.
He truly hadn't expected that, even after he had given them a warning, the Flame Rathalos couple could still end up so heavily injured. With their combined strength as a pair, plus their advantage of flight, unless they were ambushed like the Azure Rathalos, then even the Savage Deviljho could not so easily inflict such severe wounds upon them.
Unless, of course, they had foolishly gone to engage the Savage Deviljho in close combat.
Looking at the once-arrogant Scorching Heat Rathian—who had even competed with Aki—now crouching like a quail, wings folded, quietly waiting for the potion to take effect, Logan let out a low growl telling them to rest well.
Then, spreading his wings, he glided down toward the basalt below.
First the Azure Rathalos, and now the Flame Rathalos couple—would the next be Aki, or perhaps Logan himself?
Even if it was merely coincidence, for Logan—who had more than once experienced assignments from the "Boss of Nature," and had even integrated himself into the ecological cycle—there was no such thing in this world as so many coincidences.
At a time when life energy was surging and the Elder Dragons had departed from the Bioenergy Crystal area due to the tremors and the "song," in this place that could be called the very heart of the New World, such a powerful monster with boundless appetite and indiscriminate aggression suddenly barging in—could the Boss of Nature truly remain indifferent?
Would he not hasten to find a way to have it killed, instead of waiting for it to starve to death on its own?
Perhaps it was not directed specifically at Logan, not a call for him to act, but rather an intent to make the other powerful monsters of the Bioenergy Crystal area, after suffering the Savage Deviljho's indiscriminate attacks, band together to eliminate that creature.
This way, not only could that cancer be dealt with, but these powerful monsters could also undergo another round of brutal trial during this period of life energy activity.
Only, with his subordinates running into accidents one after another, Logan could not be bothered to think that much anymore. Having already been holding in frustration over the "song," now that he had been "provoked," wasn't taking the initiative to vent it only natural?
The Bioenergy Crystal area was not large, yet neither was it small. Coupled with the complex and interwoven terrain and the many lava caves of all sizes, finding a single monster was still quite a difficult task.
Even with Logan deliberately searching for it, it still took a full two days before he finally found the Savage Deviljho deep within a forest of Bioenergy Crystals, ferociously biting down on a Dodogama to use it as a weapon while continuously attacking a Brachydios.
Among the Brute Wyverns, the Brachydios's body size counted as one of the smaller types. Even this specimen living in the Bioenergy Crystal area was only about 17 meters long. Its obsidian-mixed, explosion-resistant shell—able to withstand both blasts and magma erosion—had been splattered with a great deal of crimson blood under the Savage Deviljho's frenzied assault using the Dodogama as a club.
It was impossible to tell whether that blood belonged to the Dodogama or to the Brachydios itself.
Coated with explosive slime, the Brachydios's thick forelimbs—unlike those of other Brute Wyverns—slammed violently against the Savage Deviljho, forcing it back slightly while also leaving a patch of green slime upon its body.
As the Savage Deviljho, relying on its powerful hind legs, forcibly stabilized its stance and swung its head, smashing the Brachydios away once again with the Dodogama greatsword—the green slime upon its body rapidly oxidized, shifting from green to yellow, and finally to bright crimson.
Immediately afterward, as the Savage Deviljho took a step forward, it exploded violently.
The force of the blast threw the Savage Deviljho off balance, nearly forcing it to loosen its jaws and allowing the dying Dodogama to escape.
Unfortunately, even though it was a point-blank explosion, the Savage Deviljho's skin merely split open with a few bloody cracks; the blast had failed to inflict any significant damage.
After staggering a few steps, its tilted body quickly regained balance.
Its pair of scarlet eyes fixed upon the Brachydios, which had just rolled over and was gasping heavily, and the Savage Deviljho once more bit down on the Dodogama and charged forward.
At that moment, several blue-violet fireballs descended from the sky, blocking the Savage Deviljho's path while engulfing it completely.
Amid a series of successive explosions, the unprepared Brachydios was directly blown off its feet by the shockwaves, rolling across the ground several times before finally coming to a stop.
A charred segment of tail flew high into the air, and from within the thick smoke came the Savage Deviljho's furious roar.
Black-and-red energy surged, and its crimson figure raised its head to the heavens with a wrathful roar.
Within the power of those few fireballs, the Savage Deviljho instinctively sensed danger!
"Roar!"
"Roar!"
Lowering his altitude slightly, Logan faced the Savage Deviljho, whose upper body was entwined with black-red Dragon-element energy, as if wrapped in an abyssal breath, and roared back.
Calamity Flame began to burn from the gaps between his scales, slowly covering his whole body.
Sunlight spread over a localized area, the air temperature soaring; the Dodogama corpse on the ground spontaneously ignited without fire.
In an already blazing volcanic environment, it now felt like stepping into an oven. Even an Brachydios, which lives in magma zones, found it hard to endure the high heat that scorched with every breath. It let out a whimper, dragged its injured body, and hobbled away quickly.
At this moment, the Savage Deviljho locked dead onto by Logan had not yet completely lost its reason. Thus it did not choose to give chase, but instead kept agitating the Dragon-element energy within its body, letting it flow through its whole frame and further swell its musculature.
[Thump, thump.]
With its swelling and contracting muscles, a powerful heartbeat sounded. As its blood churned, the already scorching field heated up again due to the massive Dragon-element energy.
It wanted to enter its strongest state in the shortest time and obtain combat power comparable to mighty Elder Dragons.
Suddenly, without any warning, the Savage Deviljho spewed a great mass of black-red mist. Red arcs of lightning kept bursting within the fog, completely shrouding its figure and removing it from Logan's sight.
Inside the black fog of Dragon-element energy, the Savage Deviljho's muscle groups went taut all over; its legs secretly stored power, taking on a posture ready to blast forward at any moment.
Through the black fog, its scarlet eyes stared fixedly at that bright silhouette in the sky. So long as the other side descended even slightly, what would greet him would be the Savage Deviljho's slingshot charge.
One second, two seconds.
[Bzzz~]
The wind picked up!
A strong wind!
All around, the black-red smoke became incomparably bright, and the shrieking sound of razor wind kept drilling into the Savage Deviljho's ears.
The Bioenergy Crystal dust beneath its feet slowly rose; in the very next second, countless Bioenergy Crystal fragments, like the blades of a meat grinder, kept rotating and splattering, striking the Savage Deviljho's body at high speed and shattering into powder.
Though the damage was insufficient, that needle-prick sting still drove the Savage Deviljho into a fury.
But in the next second, the high-temperature Dragon-element energy—clearly manifesting only in a fog-like form—began, drawn by the gale, to dissolve from the outside in.
Before the Savage Deviljho could react, the black fog of Dragon-element instantly dispersed. Blinding light, accompanied by high-temperature flames, swept over its whole body, forcing it to reflexively narrow its eyes.
Fire!
Endless fire!
It was as if the whole world had turned into endless blazing flames!
Amid the howling gale, fragments of Bioenergy Crystal were swept into the sky.
Within this Calamity Flame fire tornado that far surpassed ordinary flames, the Savage Deviljho could no longer tell east from west, nor find any point of reference. Only high above, the silhouette of a god hovered atop the flames.
The flame tornado that connected heaven and earth scooped up the volcanic dust clouds of the Elder's Recess, and the roaring sound of thunder and lightning rang out within the churning dust clouds.
The Bioenergy Crystals and other matter drawn up near the flame tornado were wrapped together with the dust clouds pulled in by the gale. Then they were ignited by Calamity Flame spilling from the top of the flame tornado, turning into flaming meteors that were flung out by the gale, trailing long tails of fire as they fell across every part of the Elder's Recess.
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