While reflecting on his new trait, the Charred Body covering Logan suddenly activated on its own, without him consciously triggering it.
Looking up, he noticed the air above had, at some point, begun to shimmer with a purple hue. Looking closer, he saw it was filled with tiny, mist-like scales—so fine they were barely visible to the naked eye.
"What's going on? Is there another Gore Magala nearby?"
Logan instinctively assumed it was the work of a Gore Magala, but the very next second, he realized something was wrong.
Gore Magala, without a Shagaru Magala to suppress them, would not normally share territory.
After all, Gore Magala were blatant rivals. Each one sought to evolve into a Shagaru Magala first, in order to crush and enslave the others. With such a relationship, how could there possibly be another Gore Magala appearing at such close range?
Furthermore, the number of Gore Magala was not particularly high. Over all these days, even with targeted searching, Logan had only managed to find nine. And that was after scouring nearly half of the Coral Highlands.
Most importantly, having fought them himself, Logan knew full well—Gore Magala's scale dust was never this fine, never this infectious.
In the very same region where Logan stood, the Chaotic Gore Magala—struggling to complete its final metamorphosis—suddenly collapsed to the ground in agony. The balance it had barely managed to maintain between the powers of Shagaru Magala and Gore Magala within its body was now breaking apart.
The half of its body that remained Gore Magala could no longer withstand the force surging from the Shagaru Magala side.
The two powers coiled, clashed, and twisted endlessly within it. The pain, tearing through every part of its body as if from death by a thousand cuts, nearly caused its mind to shut down altogether.
The power of the Shagaru Magala ceaselessly urged it to complete the final molt. Yet the pitch-black half of its body had, at this moment, utterly lost the qualification to metamorphose.
Its growth was completely suppressed!
It had, in the end, fallen a step behind!
That fully transformed Shagaru Magala had finally pursued it here. Even if the complex terrain of the Coral Highlands obscured its exact position, the opponent could still spread its scale dust across a vast area to completely terminate its growth.
Now, the Chaotic Gore Magala could neither advance into Shagaru Magala nor retreat back into Gore Magala form.
What awaited it was nothing but the endless torment of colliding powers, until life itself was extinguished.
The Frenzy power of the Shagaru Magala was both overwhelming and pure—so much so that even a Gore Magala could not endure it.
Tormented to the extreme, the Chaotic Gore Magala clawed desperately at its own head, as though trying to rip away the black scales that still marked it as half Gore Magala.
With time, the agony only drove it into further madness. The urge to vent its power, to destroy everything, consumed its heart completely.
Bursting recklessly out of its coral reef lair, the Chaotic Gore Magala spewed spheres of energy tainted with the Frenzy Virus from its maw.
The rocky terrain shattered beneath the blasts, the Frenzy Virus it carried seeping into the air as well.
Even in its normal state, the Chaotic Gore Magala possessed Elder Dragon-level combat power. And now, as it endured unbearable pain while forcing itself to wield the Shagaru Magala side's strength, its overall might surged even higher.
Even though half of its Gore Magala body could no longer endure the strain—forcing it to use only part of its power—it was still not to be underestimated.
It was precisely because of this strength that it had managed to survive while fleeing with all its might, escaping from the Elder Dragons of the Coral Highlands.
And to avoid being surrounded, it was forced to change its location almost every day.
At first, it had thought that by doing so, it could stall until its metamorphosis was fully completed. It had even fantasized about returning to the days of the Forbidden Grounds.
But in the end, all of it had proven futile—
Within what little reason remained in the Chaotic Gore Magala, there was only regret.
If only it had never left. Had it stayed in the Old World, then at worst, its fate would have been to remain in Gore Magala form until the Shagaru Magala there finally died.
Not like now—enduring this agony in silence, feeling life's countdown tick away.
The commotion stirred up by the Chaotic Gore Magala was immense.
Almost at once, it drew the attention of both Logan and the Nergigante that had long been prowling the area.
Logan's body ignited in flames as he flew warily toward the source of the disturbance.
By now, the light in the sky had already dimmed somewhat, while scale-dust filled the air like an unrestrained fog.
Before long, as he drew nearer, the sounds of battle reached his ears.
The abyssal wails of the Chaotic Gore Magala resounded again and again.
Logan quickly ascended higher, his wings stirring the currents to sweep aside the fog before him. And in that instant, he saw it—
A Frenzied Chaotic Gore Magala, fighting like a lunatic, throwing itself recklessly against a Nergigante.
"Chaotic Gore Magala is actually suppressing the Nergigante?"
At first glance, Logan saw that Chaotic Gore Magala, relying on the advantage of its extra pair of wing-claws, had managed to block Nergigante's rising assault head-on. With a sudden sweep of those claws, it even landed a resounding slap across Nergigante's face.
Caught completely off guard, Nergigante's head rang with a dull thud, leaving it momentarily dazed.
The next instant, Chaotic Gore Magala threw its head forward, roaring madly right in its face.
Rage flared in Nergigante's eyes. Black regenerative carapace spread wildly across its body, sprouting sharp white spikes that, under its deliberate control, quickly darkened to black.
Those black spikes were Nergigante's deadliest weapons. Their hardness and defense far surpassed the white ones—so much so that they even hindered its movements to a degree.
Chaotic Gore Magala's attacks against the black spikes did little to inflict any real damage. Only when it struck with full force using those wing-claws could it barely manage to snap one or two.
But in the very next second, the broken spikes regenerated—white at first, then darkening swiftly to black once more.
On top of that, the spikes were razor-sharp, as if Nergigante were clad in a suit of thorns. Every melee strike Chaotic Gore Magala landed only wounded itself further.
This was precisely why most Elder Dragons avoided close combat with Nergigante whenever possible.
It was simply too unfair!
Suddenly, Nergigante seized an opening in Chaotic Gore Magala's assault. With a sharp twist of its head, its twin horns shoved the wing-claws aside. Then, relying on brute force, it threw its opponent back in one mighty heave.
Its foreclaws lifted high and came crashing down like a clenched fist.
Chaotic Gore Magala, caught off balance, had no way to dodge and took the blow squarely.
In the next moment, black spikes shattered, blood arcing through the air.
The spikes had broken from sheer force, not because Nergigante had relaxed its control over them. That alone showed just how much power it had poured into that strike!
Chaotic Gore Magala let out a cry of pain, wings flapping frantically as it retreated.
But the damage was clear. On its pitch-black flank, two of Nergigante's spikes had pierced clean through the gaps between its scales. Around those impact points, other scales split and bled freely.
Pressing its advantage, Nergigante unfurled its wings, gathering momentum before diving forward with a crushing body slam.
The movement was so blatant that Chaotic Gore Magala, gritting through the pain, managed to dodge. Yet it hadn't expected that when Nergigante's slam missed, the force of its arms striking the ground would unleash something else—the bend of its elbows snapped its black spikes loose, sending dozens of them shooting outward like a storm of flying needles, raining down upon Chaotic Gore Magala.
In an instant, blood sprayed everywhere, blossoming crimson across the black half of its body.
High above, Logan watched closely. Every one of Nergigante's attacks was aimed at that pitch-black side of Chaotic Gore Magala.
This wasn't the mindless fury of a brute. It was a calculated effort—to maximize damage with the least possible effort.
It seemed Nergigante knew Chaotic Gore Magala well enough, fully aware of its weak points. Throughout the fight, it had deliberately kept the black spikes grown on its left side, using them to block strikes from Chaotic Gore Magala's platinum-colored half—while relentlessly targeting the vulnerable darkened half in return.
The right side of its body went all out, hammering mercilessly at the crippled, sluggish black half of Chaotic Gore Magala.
Even after actively triggering Frenzy form, Chaotic Gore Magala barely managed to hold its ground against Nergigante for a short while. Yet under such deliberate, targeted pressure, it was still beaten down like a child.
Its most threatening weapon, the Frenzy Virus, wasn't even worth a common cold in the eyes of Elder Dragons. In close combat, the extra pair of wing-claws allowed it to suppress some ordinary Elders, but against Nergigante, such tricks were nothing but child's play.
So—unable to win head-on, with energy attacks useless against Nergigante—the only option left was to fight dirty.
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