Darren raised one hand before him, blocking the violent wind and sand from pouring into his eyes through the gaps in his helmet. Through the dust, he could faintly see two colossal beasts tearing at each other within the storm. Bursts of energy exploded along with their movements, ring after ring of scorching shockwaves solidifying within the haze as they expanded outward without cease.
It forced the hunters to retreat again and again, lest they be caught in the aftermath of Their battle while their vision was obstructed.
As the fight continued, before long the dust kicked up by the recent impact rapidly dispersed. When the hunters finally saw clearly the monster battling Safi'jiiva, the wavering in their hearts solidified once more. Even in such a perilous environment, muffled cheers broke out.
"Great—it's the Sunblaze Dragon! He really is in the Guiding Lands!"
"Counterattack, counterattack!!"
"Kill this creature that dares to profane the ecosystem!"
A group of them howled as they rushed forward to 'help' Logan, only to be stopped by the Admiral, whose arm was still dripping with blood, as he raised his hand to block them.
"Wait! Don't act rashly!"
The hunters' formidable mental discipline kept them from being carried away by Logan's sudden appearance. Though they could not understand why the Admiral had made such a decision, they knew that a veteran hunter like him would never act without reason.
Thus, even Darren—who had already aimed at Safi'jiiva's body, preparing to fire his Clutch Claw—silently lowered his arm.
"Something's wrong! Boss Fire Wyvern's current state isn't right!"
As the one present who understood Logan best, the Admiral easily discerned something different through Logan's current behavior.
It was not something as superficial as a change in appearance or a more savage fighting style, but a deeper, more fundamental feeling.
In the past, when Logan faced powerful foes—even when confronting Nergigante, who had driven the Qurio into motion and nearly devastated the ecology of the Wildspire Waste—the Admiral had sensed anger in Logan's emotions, even killing intent. Yet what dominated more than either of those was a feeling as though he were carrying out a certain task.
It was the sense that, if his own life were endangered, He would decisively abandon the mission and withdraw.
Of course, that feeling did not affect the Admiral's impression of Logan. On the contrary, he greatly approved of that mindset. For an Elder Dragon aligned with the ecosystem like Logan, survival itself was what mattered most.
Now, though?
There was no sense of responsibility, and no emotions like anger either.
Instead, what dominated was greed!
A kind of greed that was determined to claim the 'prey' before him—greed that even wanted to devour it clean to the last scrap!
Under the influence of such emotions, Logan's bestial nature was clearly greater than His reason, and this was extremely evident in Logan's fighting at this moment.
He did not even show the slightest regard for the hunters nearby. In His eyes there was only Safi'jiiva before him—nothing else existed beyond that.
This abnormal behavior made the Admiral hesitate. He was not sure whether, if the hunters charged up now, they would be helping Logan—or whether they would instead be covered within His attack range as well, because of the hunters' 'getting in the way.'
This was an extraordinarily difficult choice.
The battle between Safi'jiiva and Logan almost entered a white-hot state the instant they hit the ground.
After being pounced on from the sky by Logan, through sensing the energy, Safi'jiiva realized that Logan was like It—both of them were beings that did not belong to the ecological chain.
This meant that It had been completely exposed, and that Logan was the organism arranged by the world to carry out an absolute kill against It.
Therefore, after adjusting Its position midair and taking the damage from the supersonic dive head-on, Safi'jiiva no longer held anything back. It went all out—directly entering the critical state. Its entire body radiated blue energy as It launched a full-force counterattack against Logan.
And Logan, after noticing that His supersonic dive pounce did not have much effect against Safi'jiiva—whose defensive capability was not inferior to His—made the same choice as Safi'jiiva. He fully drove His Terastal energy and engaged the other side in a slaughter of energy against energy, flesh against flesh.
There was nothing fancy about a battle between Forbidden-level beings.
After all, whether it was energy resistance that could be called energy immunity, or physical defense that had already reached a damage-reduction state, even the energy reserves within their bodies were all far beyond common sense.
Compared with other monsters' careful calculations, Forbidden-level beings relied more on brute force—because Their output threshold was terrifyingly high. Even a simple outward release of energy was already what most living beings would call an ultimate move.'
And likewise, it was precisely because this fighting style inflicted the greatest destruction upon the ecosystem that battles between Forbidden-level beings were often called planet-class battles. If they fought without end, even destroying all life on a planet was something they could accomplish.
"ROAR!"
Logan roared as He swung His right wing. Enormous wind pressure became like blades as it struck Safi'jiiva's scales. His crimson wingclaw slashed across the other's head, and then—at the point of collision—pure Terastal energy erupted. The massive energy fluctuations tore through the defense of the other's side of the face, explosively shattering those tiny scales and leaving behind ghastly wounds after wound.
Under that strike, Safi'jiiva staggered back several steps, then followed through with a tail sweep that lashed against Logan's chest. Amid an eruption of azure energy, it knocked Logan back and halted His continued pursuit.
The two colossal beasts thus traded blows—one claw for one tail, one breath attack for one beam—while the surrounding environment continuously transformed under the influence of pure Everstream energy and crimson Terastal energy.
Both sought to create a battlefield most suited to themselves. That slight difference was precisely the key for Forbidden-level beings like Them to secure final victory in a battle of the same tier.
"Withdraw for now! In a battle like this, intervening rashly will only interfere with the Sunblaze Dragon's judgment of the situation!"
Seeing both sides begin to abandon defense and exchange direct assaults in absolute 'critical state,' and as the aftershocks of the battle started spreading across the entire area, the Admiral made his final decision.
Leave the battlefield to the Sunblaze Dragon!
At least before this indiscriminate exchange of attacks ended, they had no good opportunity to join in.
Though unwilling, the hunters looked at the two Forbidden beings before them. Even a simple slam from either could trigger a massive energy explosion. Gritting their teeth, they could only retreat from the battlefield at speed.
Not long after the hunters withdrew, the battlefield was rapidly covered by pillar after pillar of Terastal crystal.
Having entangled with the hunters for too long and absorbed too much Everstream energy—leaving too little within this combat zone—Safi'jiiva finally suffered the backlash.
In this contest over control of the terrain, needing to mobilize greater power to draw out deeper Everstream energy from underground, It ultimately lost out slightly in timing. Logan seized the opportunity and, in one stroke, secured the final advantage over the battlefield.
Precipice Blades!!
The Precipice Blades—which, when facing Shara Ishvalda, had once required prolonged charging and precise control—could now be unleashed with ease. Even one was not enough; Logan could release several in succession.
The internal energy circulation that formed an energy perpetual engine did far more than merely stabilize life. As long as His energy recovery speed could keep up, He could unleash multiple ultimate techniques of this type within an extremely short span of time.
Just like Safi'jiiva's Sapphire of the Emperor—after It released it, Its energy was not truly exhausted. It was merely that too much had been discharged at once, requiring some time to recover. Absorbing Everstream energy to replenish Itself only accelerated that recovery process.