The flames roared across Logan's entire body. Under his deliberate command, his Charred Body ignited to the fullest, turning him into a dragon of pure fire.
Mind's Eye activated, his senses locked onto Shagaru Magala.
An enormous fan-shaped torrent of flame burst forth, bolstered by the fierce wind currents generated between his wings.
Shagaru Magala's scale dust served as the perfect fuel.
The flames spread rapidly through the black mist, in an instant engulfing the area Shagaru Magala had occupied.
The next moment, twin wings gleaming with platinum light tore through the blaze, plunging straight into the vast shroud of black mist.
Logan's instincts screamed in warning. Mind's Eye flared with alarms. He cut off his breath at once, adjusted his wings at a subtle angle, and released four small spirals of compressed air above his wing membranes. The force slammed against him, propelling Logan sharply and unnaturally down into the white mist.
A heartbeat later, the spot he had just vacated erupted—Shagaru Magala's Frenzy Virus dust detonated in a sudden chain reaction. The entire region went up in explosions.
A chain of dust blasts, interwoven with Shagaru Magala's viral might, tore through the fog of black and white, carving open a massive gap by sheer force.
The coral plateau beneath was pulverized in the blast, then ground completely to powder by the successive explosions.
Not even a stray pebble was left behind.
Logan's body shot straight toward Chameleos, wings spread wide. Using the shockwave from the explosion to propel himself, he surged forward at even greater speed.
Though Shagaru Magala remained hidden in the black mist above, Logan's sharpened senses—empowered by his Mind's Eye—and the occasional gleam of its wings allowed him to lock onto its position with precision.
With a snap of his wing bones, his wings—far broader than those of an ordinary Rathalos—shifted once more. Augmented by both his acceleration trait and the Gale Wings, he harnessed the raging winds stirred by the explosion. His blazing form streaked over Chameleos' head, leaving behind a fiery trail that roared with the sound of a sonic boom.
Target locked!
A vortex coiled around him—this was no mere whirlwind, but fire itself!
In an instant, a towering Fire Tornado formed, pulling in the black scale dust as fuel to feed its inferno.
Following in Logan's wake, it surged forward with world-devouring force, tearing across the realm of black and white at supersonic speed, bursting into a blinding crimson blaze.
The roaring Fire Tornado opened a massive maw, tens of meters wide, swallowing the Shagaru Magala before it had any chance to evade.
Inside the tornado—a world of howling wind and raging fire—everything drawn into its grasp was destined to be incinerated.
Chameleos' jaw dropped open, its round eyes bulging in shock as it stared at the flaming cyclone piercing the heavens. In such searing heat, in this storm's relentless pull, even its camouflage faltered and broke apart.
"What the—? You're going all out?"
Chameleos had thought that once Logan joined the fight, he would just use his unique flames to lend support from the sidelines—spitting fire now and then, easing the pressure, dragging things out until other Elder Dragons arrived. With a group assault, victory would have been assured.
But never in its wildest imagination had it expected Logan to fight like this!
Not only had he seized control of the battle in an instant—he had unleashed a catastrophe-level assault on his own initiative.
"You're really something, huh?"
Because the Fire Tornado kept expanding, Chameleos had no choice but to beat its wings and quickly shift position, lest Logan's attack sweep it up as well.
At this moment, Chameleos couldn't even tell anymore—just who was the real Elder Dragon here?
How could a mere Rathalos possibly wield such overwhelming, almost fantastical power?
And then, recalling the Frenzy Virus dust explosion Shagaru Magala had triggered just moments earlier, it felt oddly out of place.
All it could do was turn invisible, spread poison mist, spit venom, and flick out its tongue.
In front of Logan and Shagaru Magala, it seemed painfully ordinary.
Inside the Fire Tornado, Shagaru Magala was forced to both ward off the flames and explosions carried by the raging winds, and fend against Logan's relentless assaults.
Logan split his focus in two—darting through the Fire Tornado while directing streams of flame-laden air to lash at Shagaru Magala.
At the same time, he cloaked himself within the roiling blaze. While Shagaru Magala was distracted by the assaults and unable to pinpoint his position, he launched supersonic strikes.
Such bursts of power consumed immense stamina and energy. Before his reserves ran too low, Logan needed to inflict serious damage. Only then, with Chameleos joining forces beside him, would they stand a real chance of seizing victory.
For a brief span, Logan's sudden eruption of power actually suppressed Shagaru Magala, reversing the natural order of the food chain.
Any scale dust it released was instantly sucked into the spinning inferno and turned into fuel.
Its heat-sensing vision failed within the endless sea of fire.
Its mighty physique, those thick and agile wing claws—without a target to strike, they were rendered useless.
It tried to fly clear of the blaze, but its speed wasn't fast enough, and Logan hounded it relentlessly.
At that moment, Shagaru Magala had no choice but to switch into a defensive stance.
Amid the blazing firestorm, Logan relied on his speed and flames, relentlessly entangling himself with the Shagaru Magala. He kept trying every possible method to land a decisive blow—ideally one that could heavily wound it outright.
Although that was unlikely—after all, the vitality and defenses of an Elder Dragon were nothing to scoff at—Logan still threw himself into the attempt.
Since the fight was already underway, why not go all in?
If he didn't unleash his full strength now, who knew when he'd next get another chance?
Outside the fiery vortex, the Chameleos—half-doubting itself—wasn't idle either.
Seizing the moment while the Shagaru Magala was tangled up with Logan, and with no dragon controlling the Frenzy Virus scales outside, it quickly released its poisonous mist. The toxins devoured the virus in a frenzy, striving to claim full environmental advantage before the Shagaru Magala could break free.
With so much mist suppressing the Frenzy Virus, how much time and energy would the Shagaru Magala need to claw its way back to dominance?
Sometimes, battles between Elder Dragons weren't about raw damage, but about who could endure the drain on energy.
While Chameleos fought in its own way, Logan began to grow restless.
The firestorm was overwhelming in scale, and maintaining it consumed immense effort.
Now that the Shagaru Magala had stopped scattering scales, Logan had to continuously pour flames into the vortex, manipulating the air currents to sustain its pull. This imposed a crushing strain on both his stamina and energy reserves.
That was why he kept launching attack after attack—he wanted to bring things to an end quickly.
But he had underestimated the Shagaru Magala, and overestimated himself.
The Shagaru Magala was no ordinary Elder Dragon—it stood on the same tier as Nergigante, perhaps even stronger. Ordinary Elder Dragons couldn't compare to it.
For now, the Shagaru Magala was indeed trapped within the vortex of fire, and because of its own reckless, it couldn't escape.
Unable to fix its position, it couldn't counterattack and was forced into a purely defensive role.
In truth, Logan really had suppressed the Shagaru Magala.
But he couldn't break through its defenses.
It wasn't that he couldn't cause injuries—but the damage was far below what he'd hoped for.
Given the absurd vitality of Elder Dragons, the wounds he inflicted amounted to nothing more than superficial cuts.
If he wanted to inflict truly effective damage, he would have to focus his power and raise the temperature of his flames.
Yet the moment he began charging, he wouldn't be able to spare the focus needed to control such a massive vortex.
And once freed, the Shagaru Magala would never be struck so easily by a charged attack.
All at once, Logan found himself caught in a dilemma.
As time passed, the wounds across the Shagaru Magala's body gradually multiplied. With long defense comes eventual weakness, and at last Logan managed to score some respectable hits.
But that was all.
All the while, the Shagaru Magala, waiting patiently on the defensive, keenly noticed that Logan's speed had begun to drop. The firestorm's pull was weakening, and his fiery strikes came less and less frequently.
After weathering yet another of Logan's assaults, it felt the searing pain flaring across its wing as he brushed past. A strange thought flickered through the Shagaru Magala's mind—
Had the fire Wyvern's flames grown hotter?
But the idea was quickly discarded. Flames only weakened as energy drained. How could they burn hotter the longer the fight dragged on?
One could only say that the Shagaru Magala had lingered in the flames for too long, its scales damaged and brittle, which was why it had suffered such injuries.
After all, this fire Wyvern was not an Elder Dragon. Even in that brief eruption of power, it had only barely touched the threshold of Elder Dragon level—no different from those Deviljho driven mad and strengthened by its virus.
They, too, could temporarily reach the level of an Elder Dragon, even contend with one for a short while.
But only for a short while!
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