The vortex of flames couldn't hold Nergigante, and Logan had anticipated that long ago. He hadn't expected to rely on this move to trap Nergigante until it died; he simply wanted to use it as a way to burn through Nergigante's energy.
After all, no matter how you looked at it, Nergigante was still just a melee-type Elder Dragon. Forcing its way out of the vortex of flames was sure to cost it more energy than what Logan spent creating it.
But what Logan hadn't expected was this: Nergigante's eyes were already bloodshot, and it looked as if it was about to lose its reason to rage—yet once it burst out of the vortex of flames, it actually stopped fighting?
Was this still the same musclebound brute he knew?
When faced with Logan's provocations, Nergigante did nothing more than occasionally respond with a slightly aggrieved look. When faced with Logan's long-range attacks, it dodged whenever it could, and when it couldn't, it simply relied on its own Regeneration to take them head-on. Its whole approach was basically, You chase if you want, I'm going my way, refusing to cooperate in the slightest.
As Nergigante was about to fly into the rift in the wasteland below and its aura began rapidly withdrawing, it was now Logan's turn to start panicking a little.
This was already beyond the scope of his plan.
In Logan's plan, regardless of whether Nergigante had a deep relationship with the Qurio or not, he was certain that these Qurio—whose owner, if any, he still didn't know—would definitely not pass up two Elder Dragons that had just fought an all-out battle and burned through huge amounts of stamina and energy.
By gathering a massive number of Qurio together and achieving a large-scale extermination, he could effectively hold their numbers in check and also allow his grand purge to be completed more quickly.
Yet, what he never imagined was that the one element of his plan least likely to change—Nergigante—would suddenly go against all expectations at this moment and become the biggest variable of all.
He watched as Nergigante was about to run beyond the maximum support range of the Radiant Crystal Butterflies Logan had hidden.
Having no other choice, Logan could only grit his teeth. Both wings flared with searing white light, and as they sliced through the air with an ear-piercing whistle, he shot toward Nergigante at high speed.
Bone spikes gave off faint cracking sounds under the intense heat, and his outer skin was split open by the high temperature. His scarlet blood evaporated before it even had a chance to spray out.
Nergigante, who was single-mindedly planning to find another place to absorb some Qurio and replenish its own energy, had not expected that Logan, who had been harassing it from long range this whole time, would suddenly accelerate and even use close-quarters combat to land a heavy blow on it.
The pain brought by this blow made Nergigante feel surprise even more than anger.
Although its brain was sometimes not all that sharp, judging from Logan's action of insisting on keeping it here even if it meant taking the initiative to fight in close quarters, it could also guess that Logan definitely had some other plan, and that it itself seemed to play a not insignificant role in Logan's plan.
Although, as an Elder Dragon that preyed on other Elder Dragons, Logan's behavior carried a sense of being looked down on—a kind of humiliation—to it, Nergigante did not really care too much.
For it, it was not afraid of Logan having some other plan; what it was afraid of was him not giving it a chance.
Now, Logan's choice to take the initiative and fight at close range was him voluntarily giving up his original advantage of combining speed with ranged attacks and handing a certain degree of initiative in the battle over to Nergigante. For Nergigante, this was an enormous boon!
This also meant that once Logan wanted to kite it, it could simply leave outright, and as long as Logan did not want his plan to fail, he would have to use himself as bait, thereby giving Nergigante a certain chance!
"Roar!!"
Its wounds healed at high speed, and Nergigante, wearing a feral grin, chased after Logan and once again soared up into the sky.
Just as it had thought, in order to keep it here, Logan's way of attacking began to shift to a combination of speed and close-range strikes.
His blazing blade-like wings sliced across Nergigante's body, and no matter how much damage they caused, Logan always struck once and then pulled back, never overextending for another hit.
As for Nergigante, after failing to catch Logan in its attempts to pursue him, it also changed its own fighting style.
Since it could not catch up, and Logan, worried about it leaving, would take the initiative to attack, it simply could not be bothered to give chase anymore. Instead, it focused entirely on rousing all the spikes over its body and poured all its attention into defense and counterattacks.
Although doing this meant giving up the initiative and often having to defend once or twice before it could seize a chance to strike back at Logan, and although on the surface Nergigante's injuries really did look more serious than Logan's, with Regeneration at work, in Nergigante's view, all of this was still a net gain.
As the injuries on both sides continued to pile up, Logan's scales had gradually shattered in many places, most of them concentrated around the leading edges of his wings and his chest.
The scorching cuts from Logan's blazing blade-like wings could indeed break through Nergigante's spike defenses and injure its body underneath, but it could not be forgotten that, at this moment, Nergigante was basically an oversized hedgehog. Every one of Logan's attacks would be scraped by spikes in other places, and on top of that, whenever Nergigante happened to catch an opening between attacks, it would suddenly hit him once more.
Although this damage was not heavy, once it accumulated many times, it still became rather considerable.
High above the sky, relying on its powerful visual lock-on ability, Nergigante once again caught sight of Logan weaving through the clouds. Watching as Logan adjusted his position and then spread those dazzling white wings before charging toward it again—
Nergigante's massive body tensed, and each of its catalyzed black spikes bristled slightly outward, reducing its defensive surface while increasing its options for counterattacking after guarding.
Seeing Logan draw closer and, based on the experience gained from many battles, judging that Logan was now unable to make a wide adjustment to his attack angle, Nergigante shifted its body slightly to the side, allowing the adamant spikes hidden among the black spikes to strike Logan more cleanly.
After finishing all of this, all it needed to do next was wait to take the hit!
Just as Nergigante expected, Logan's blazing blade-like wings slashed through its flesh, tearing open another long gash on its shoulder with that ear-piercing sound. Nergigante endured the pain, and as it breathed heavily, its wings gave a slight twitch.
The adamant spikes within them were like a prepared spear formation, causing the charging Logan—unable to stop in time—to "ram into them" himself.
[Bang!!]
A deep, metal-like cracking sound rang out.
The adamant spikes collided with Logan's scales. The "spears" shattered instantly, but the "shields"—the scales—did not fare well either. The overwhelming penetrating force pushed through the Multiscale layers and struck the flesh hidden beneath. Then the shattered fragments of the adamant spikes slashed across Logan's body again, and some of the smaller pieces managed to slip through the gaps between his scales, leaving him with several lacerations.
With an aerial flip he had long prepared for, Logan avoided Nergigante's follow-up wing strike. Then, in a graceful swallow-reversal maneuver, he regained the speed he had lost after attacking. Under the catalysis of his energy, the scales pierced by the adamant spikes shed rapidly, and new scales formed at great speed, covering the wounds beneath once more.
The white light on Logan's wings turned into flames and then quickly dispersed. After colliding at high speed again and again, even Logan felt somewhat exhausted. The many puncture wounds, lacerations, and the injuries he had taken head-on from Nergigante's counterattacks all throbbed with pain.
Looking down at Nergigante, whose wounds were rapidly healing, Logan finally understood how troublesome this guy was. Trading injury for injury was practically routine for it—disgustingly so!
If he didn't know that the other side's energy and stamina had also been heavily drained, Logan would probably have thrown in the towel by now!
Fortunately, this situation was still within his expectations, and the battle just now had, almost without him noticing, pulled the battlefield back to the original location. Next, it would become a war of attrition.
Below, seeing Logan stop attacking and even the flames on his wings fade away, Nergigante mistakenly thought he had exhausted too much stamina and could no longer maintain that extreme-speed state. It immediately charged up with an excited expression.
Yet in the next second, Logan flapped his wings, stirring up a violent pressure wave that disrupted Nergigante's charge, and then in one motion darted back into the white clouds above, hiding himself within them.
"What—again?"
Having been fooled once already, Nergigante watched Logan's movements and suddenly felt as if a bucket of cold water had been poured over its head. The hot blood that had been burning ever since its close-quarters "contest" with Logan seemed to cool significantly.
Still, now that its fighting spirit had already been stirred, Nergigante wasn't about to just give up because of one setback. It cautiously changed positions under the cloud layer, trying to pinpoint Logan's exact location and figure out what, exactly, he intended to do.
If Logan wanted to create another vortex of flames, then it would simply wait under the clouds. As long as it didn't go up, Logan would have to keep burning energy. They would see who outlasted whom.
Thus, Nergigante was in no hurry. It continued sensing and locking onto Logan's presence within the clouds while recovering its stamina at the same time.
Meanwhile, within the clouds, Logan also noticed that Nergigante had no intention of coming up after him. He dispersed the fiery wind vortex forming beneath his wings and slightly increased his altitude once more, beginning to mobilize his life energy.
At this moment, the distance between him and Nergigante, as well as the obstructed line of sight, already met the conditions for exiting combat.
"Regeneration, huh? I can do that too!!"
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---