Looking at the Azure Rathalos lying curled up on the ground, with wounds still faintly oozing blood and a small pool forming beneath it, Logan's anger subsided considerably.
He no longer stopped Aki from dragging over the medicine bag, and turned to pass through the arched hollow, entering deeper into the nest.
Strictly speaking, what Logan had here was not really a nest but a territory, since the inside was so vast it could easily accommodate them all, each choosing a spot of their own to build nests.
Only after Logan's figure vanished into the shadows did the Azure Rathalos finally lift its head, somewhat dejectedly swallowing several bottles of potion, then dragging its body inside the nest entrance. As if knowing it had made a mistake, it didn't dare take another step further inside.
It simply lay there at the entrance, serving as a sentry.
Meanwhile, in a canyon of the Old World where thunder rumbled all year long, a Kirin ten meters long leapt onto the cliff's summit. The beard-like hair beneath its chin had turned a shade of grayish white.
After carefully discerning the direction, it cast a somewhat nostalgic gaze toward the dwelling place where it had lived for several centuries, and then, stepping upon thunder, it transformed into lightning and galloped off into the distance.
In a recess near the top of the canyon stood a small mobile tent equipped with a lightning rod.
A veteran Hunter from the Research Commission watched the lightning vanish into the distance, made his notes, and immediately began packing his gear.
The "Mythical Beast" Kirin, which the Research Commission and the Guild had been jointly observing for years, had left its dwelling place for the first time since the observation began—this report had to be sent back at once.
It might very well be a precursor to another Elder Crossing.
After all, according to the Research Commission scholars' analysis, this Kirin was already quite old.
They had originally thought this canyon was the place it had chosen for its final slumber, yet now that it had chosen to leave, it was hard not to associate this with an Elder Crossing.
...
In the Elder's Recess, the pheromones of Xeno'jiiva had, over time, reached their peak of influence and had even begun to show signs of decline.
This phenomenon had made the Elder Dragons actively seeking it even more frenzied, and for a time, friction among them had grown increasingly intense.
Even Logan now felt an indescribable sense of loss.
It was as if he were about to miss out on a treasure.
And that sense of loss only grew stronger as the pheromones continued to fade.
It even made him unable to resist wandering around the Elder's Recess twice.
Fortunately, he was still young, and the Elder Dragons he encountered were all ones whose lifespans were not yet a concern, so although they crossed paths, they did not fight.
At present, the fiercest battles were all between the aged Elder Dragons. Based on pheromone analysis, that pure life energy existed in only one source; with so many monks and so little meat, the fact that they hadn't bashed each other's brains out already was proof enough of how tenacious Elder Dragon vitality was.
And under such circumstances, an aged Elder Dragon finally could no longer hold on.
Indeed, it was the Kushala Daora that had been entangled with Nergigante.
After continuous fighting during this period, its physical strength and energy had been consumed to the point of being beyond recovery.
Sensing that death was near, it no longer searched for the elusive source of the pheromones. As though it had achieved enlightenment, it silently withdrew from the battlefield, left the Elder's Recess, and took one last bite of its favorite Bioenergy Crystal–mixed ore.
Then, resolutely, it flew toward the far end of the volcanic region, in the direction of the Coral Highlands.
Leaving behind only a solitary silhouette.
Kushala Daora's exit naturally drew the attention of the Nergigante that had been pursuing it all along, but just as it happily planned to catch up, finish off Kushala Daora, and have a hearty feast, an Elder Dragon appeared abruptly and blocked the Nergigante's path.
This act made the Nergigante extremely vexed; roaring, it tried to break through this Elder Dragon's blockade, even at the cost of taking its attacks head-on.
But the result was that, having just broken through this Elder Dragon's interception, the next one appeared.
The state of the aged Kushala Daora was very clear to the Elder Dragons who had lived in the Elder's Recess for years. On ordinary days, no matter how the Nergigante hunted other Elder Dragons, they would not intervene, but not now.
The aged Kushala Daora had reached the end of its life and willingly went to the place of slumber to await its death. After it died, its vast life energy would transform into nourishment for the New World.
And as the turning point of the Everstream and also a place where energy settles and dissipates, the Elder's Recess would keep fully half of Kushala Daora's life energy here, turning it into incomparably pure Bioenergy Crystals, benefiting all life in the Elder's Recess.
Therefore, the Elder Dragons would not allow the Nergigante to hunt Kushala Daora at this moment, even if it meant being targeted later by the small-minded Nergigante.
In the end, the Nergigante could only watch as the departing figure of Kushala Daora turned into a tiny black dot and then vanished completely from sight.
Seeing this, the Elder Dragons blocking the road also left quickly. So long as Kushala Daora did not continue to release its own scent, with the New World so vast and the Rotten Vale all the more intricate, the Nergigante would have no chance to find it again.
[Boom!]
On the rim of a volcanic crater, an irregular boulder was flung high and then crashed heavily into the distant, still-calm lava.
The Nergigante, hoarse with fury, kept wrecking everything around it—wings, tail, and massive horns crazily smashing the surrounding basalt. Under such devastation, gray-black volcanic ash billowed, forming a black fog that shrouded the crater.
No creature knew what had happened there; even passing Flying Wyverns could only hear, from within the volcano, that at times whimpering, at times berserk dragon's roar like a demon from the abyss!
Frightened, the passing Flying Wyverns beat their wings faster and quickly fled this volcanic crater.
Kushala Daora's departure also drew the gaze of a dragon.
That was Logan.
By coincidence, as the ambient pheromones lessened and he grew somewhat restless, Logan went out wandering—and happened to encounter the passing Kushala Daora.
With just a glance, Logan judged Kushala Daora's current state.
"This is what an Elder Dragon looks like at the end of its lifespan? It seems… a bit miserable."
A weight pressed on Logan's heart.
In his perception, Kushala Daora at this moment clearly had no obvious external injuries, yet the life energy within its body was becoming hard to control, constantly seeping out from its mouth and from the cracks in its carapace.
It was as if Kushala Daora's now-elderly body could no longer store so much energy. That life energy, which should have been under an Elder Dragon's control, was actually swelling Kushala Daora's decaying body like a balloon that might explode at any moment.
One could say that right now, with every beat of its wings, Kushala Daora felt extreme discomfort from the agitation of that vast life energy.
Not only that, the life energy was also keeping Kushala Daora's mind in a state of excitation, which made it constantly aware of its own bodily decay. For an Elder Dragon that had been proud for countless years, this was undoubtedly a double torment of body and spirit.
This was likely one of the reasons why, once Elder Dragons sensed there was no hope of breaking through their lifespan, they willingly went to their deaths.
Compared to such days, death instead became the best release for the proud Elder Dragons.
Out of curiosity, after calculating Kushala Daora's route of travel, Logan first returned to the nest to give Aki and the others a heads-up, telling them to stay in the nest as much as possible during this period and, if they hunted, to hunt nearby, even though Elder Dragons rarely visited the basalt region.
But this was an active period for Elder Dragons. Even if their combined strength meant they would not fear ordinary Elder Dragons, it was best to be cautious in all things.
After that, he stirred Gale Wings to accelerate himself. Once he had re-acquired Kushala Daora's position, he tailed it from far behind.
Kushala Daora seemed to sense Logan's presence as well, but at this moment it no longer had the spare energy to care.
Guided by that call from the unseen, it flew over one volcano after another and finally arrived at the cliff edge of the Great Ravine.
Without the slightest hesitation, it folded its wings and plunged headlong toward the underside of the Coral Highlands.
Seeing this, Logan hastened his pace and quickly followed.
This was his first time truly entering the Rotten Vale.
That previous time, he had only flown over the miasmic region above the Rotten Vale without actually entering it.
But this time, Logan watched with his own eyes as Kushala Daora plunged into the thick miasma and vanished from sight. Gritting his teeth, he stirred the dragon-element energy of the Marvel Scale to cover his scales and likewise dove straight in.
Before these microorganisms could even approach Logan, they were scattered by the air pressure of his rapid flight; those that barely managed to get close were annihilated by the high temperature and dragon-element energy.
For most creatures, the miasma was no less than a virus of slow death, yet it could not affect Logan in the slightest.
Under his high-speed dive, he soon broke through the miasma and reached the lower levels of the Rotten Vale.
Long veiled by dense miasma, the harshest environment in the entire New World now appeared before Logan's eyes.
The whole region was nearly built from the piled corpses of animals, plants, and terrestrial corals. The excessive number of corpses had even formed, in the middle and lower layers, massive colonies of white microorganisms born to decompose them—these microorganisms, gathered like white fog, were what was called the "miasma."
No miasma spores were needed; the corpses themselves were the best breeding ground. And the excessive accumulation of corpses easily caused the miasma to gather—this was the work of the Vaal Hazak, the master of the Rotten Vale.
It would absorb this miasma, store it within its gill glands, and evenly distribute it to every corner of the Rotten Vale, allowing the New World's "internal circulation" system to function with greater stability.
And this harsh environment also made food acquisition here extremely difficult, scarcely less so than in the Elder's Recess.
Yet the number of monsters here was still considerable!
With such limited food resources, the competition for food had become exceptionally vicious. But it was precisely this brutal and intense struggle for survival that allowed the number of monster corpses in the Rotten Vale to accumulate massively. Together with Elder Dragons coming here to slumber, this long-term dual cycle had successfully made the entire New World's "internal circulation system" operate within a single region.
One could say that the deaths of the creatures within the Rotten Vale had brought about the birth of new life across the entire New World.
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