Two streams of light streaked across the Wildspire Waste, accompanied by a thunderous roar. The creatures below lifted their heads, but all they could see were two distant afterimages receding into the horizon.
Because he was still not very familiar with this ultra-high-speed flight method—one fundamentally different from flight driven by wingbeats—several of Logan's proactive attacks were evaded by Valstrax through all kinds of flashy maneuvers.
For example, things like a full seven-hundred-and-twenty-degree spin, or cutting the turbine thrust before explosively accelerating again.
Watching Valstrax spiral and dart about chaotically, constantly attempting to disrupt the airflow around him while searching for a suitable opportunity to attack, Logan truly had no good countermeasure against it for the moment.
Seizing the initiative in battle through speed—this point was displayed to the fullest on Valstrax.
Of course, this did not mean there was no way to deal with it.
Valstrax excelled in speed, but aside from that speed and the defensive capability that matched it, the rest was merely average—among Elder Dragons, it was considered one of the weaker types.
Therefore, in order to achieve greater lethality, this meant that Valstrax needed to employ speed to empower its attacks, and only then could it execute the corresponding finishing moves.
And this was precisely its strength—and likewise, its weakness.
Thus, the best way to deal with it was defensive counterattacks.
By avoiding its finishing strike, or by dodging or forcibly withstanding its attacks, once the speed boost was gone, Valstrax's threat level would drop drastically.
The other option was what Logan intended to do at this moment: to completely suppress the opponent in terms of speed.
When conditions were lacking, allowing the opponent to seize the initiative was unavoidable.
But when the conditions were present—when all of his own attributes aside from speed far surpassed the opponent's—why should he still have to endure such frustration?
What was more, Logan had also more or less figured it out: this Valstrax had, in all likelihood, been forcibly arranged by the "boss of nature" through various "coincidences" to intercept him.
Or rather, calling it a "warning" would be more appropriate.
Not to mention that Logan's current nature affinity is at seventy percent—by any measure, he could be considered a dragon aligned with the will of the boss of nature.
Just looking at the present, he had completed an even more powerful metamorphosis. Whether in terms of life tier or in terms of strength, he was unquestionably an existence at the Disaster tier. Leaving a place like the New World, where Elder Dragons clustered together, and being placed within some smaller "civilization circles" of the Old World, he would be a bona fide apex presence at the very top of the ecosystem.
Therefore, as long as Logan was not—like the future Shara Ishvalda—so inflated that he wanted to use his own will to let the New World change recklessly according to his wishes, thereby usurping the role of the host, then the consciousness of nature would not casually hand down a death sentence.
A positively oriented Disaster-level Elder Dragon, so long as things were arranged properly, was entirely sufficient to establish an ecosystem highly conducive to ecological development; describing it with the phrase "a cornerstone of the world" would not be an exaggeration.
For example, that diligent one whose primary job was collecting metal and whose side job was opening up tributaries of the Everstream—the Mother Goddess Kulve Taroth—once spared no effort, little by little filling in and forging, from a mass of Dalamadur corpses, the New World's Shara Ishvalda.
Which one of them was not, at one time, the boss of nature's most beloved child?
Zorah Magdaros concerned the boss of nature's plan. It was its test for the "ecosystem maintainers," and it was also its important fallback plan for Xeno'jiiva.
This could not be something Logan was allowed to casually destroy. Otherwise, if the ecosystem maintainers did not have the strength to contend against an Elder Dragon of this level, then—given the previous situation where they had mobilized large numbers of Disaster-level Elder Dragons to hunt that Safi'jiiva that had been driven out from the depths of the New World, leading to the present shortage of Disaster-level Elder Dragons here in the New World—
They would probably truly have to pay some price and conscript those "collaborators" to resolve it.
The boss of nature truly did not want to create some kind of "divine realm" in the New World!
Knowing that even after dealing with Valstrax, there would definitely still be other Elder Dragons waiting for him afterward, Logan also set aside the idea of going to join the battle. In any case, his initial plan had only been to intercept Nergigante. Even if he was not there, presumably Mother Chameleos could do it herself, right?
That's right!
Compared with Logan—who could pose enough of a threat to Zorah Magdaros, and who was already in the same ecological niche—the boss of nature did not pay much attention to Mother Chameleos over there.
After all, judging by Mother Chameleos's current degree of symbiosis with the Research Commission, this fellow could already be considered combat power on the Commission's side. What was more, on a battlefield against an ultra-colossal Elder Dragon, Mother Chameleos was at most a top-tier support rather than the main offensive force. For a body of Zorah Magdaros's sheer size, how much of her medicinal mist would it have to inhale before any effect appeared?
No longer in a hurry to head to the Great Ravine, Logan continued like this—on one hand dealing with Valstrax's painless, inconsequential harassment, and on the other learning the opponent's flight techniques, while also testing just what limits his current speed could reach.
...
The Great Ravine, deep in the middle of the night.
This barren land—aside from the occasional monsters attempting to enter the Rotten Vale and then turn toward the Elder's Recess, it was ordinarily a place rarely visited by living creatures—was now brightly illuminated.
An interception wall, assembled from the New World's uniquely hard timber, stretched straight across the ravine, cutting it off in two.
Dozens of cannons and ballistae had long since been pre-positioned at designated firing points, while flocks of Wingdrakes and packs of Jagras continuously transported logistical supplies into the excavated mountain caves.
At this moment, no one felt the slightest drowsiness. Everyone waited quietly at their respective posts for Zorah Magdaros's arrival.
On the Old World, compared with the natural disasters triggered when ordinary Elder Dragons passed through, it was often these migrations of ultra-colossal Elder Dragons that caused far greater devastation.
As for ordinary Elder Dragons, aside from certain special cases, so long as defensive measures were prepared and they were not provoked, once they left, the crisis could basically be resolved.
Ultra-colossal Elder Dragons, however—aside from forcing them to change course through battle—there truly was no effective way to continue preventing the disaster.
And once a drive-off failed, the losses were often immeasurable.
This time, facing Zorah Magdaros, their objective was capture. As for how high the success rate might be, no one could say.
They could only steel themselves with the resolve to fight to the death and carry out this interception operation that could only be described as insane.
At the highest command post, the Commander stared toward the entrance of the Great Ravine, his brow never once relaxing.
"Is there still no news of the Sunblaze Dragon?"
"No!" The hunter shook his head and sighed with deep concern.
Ever since the transport team last saw the Sunblaze Dragon flying past two days ago, it was as if it had suddenly vanished from the world. Two full days had passed without any news at all. If not for the fact that the Sunblaze Dragon had always possessed an image of exceptional reliability within the Research Commission, many people would probably have thought that it had stood them up.
"Something unexpected must have happened. In any case, make preparations under the assumption that there will be no Sunblaze Dragon support. When the morning sun rises tomorrow—that will be the moment the war begins!"
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