By now, the fiery vortex had reached its final stage. In a single instant, the Shagaru Magala spewed out a vast torrent of highly concentrated Frenzy Virus from its wings and mouth. Wrapped in its energy, the virus tore through the surrounding flames and erupted in a chain of violent explosions.
A fierce countercurrent of air burst forth. Logan, though he immediately recognized the Shagaru Magala's move, was too drained of strength to stop it.
All he could do was watch helplessly as the vortex was shattered.
With no other choice, Logan dashed madly through the remnants of the still-burning flames, drawing on his Charred Body to absorb them in desperation.
At that moment, he could only replenish as much fire energy as possible, however little it might be.
Though he hadn't achieved the results he wanted, he had at least inflicted a degree of respectable damage. Hopefully, Chameleos could hold up its end—together, perhaps they might just drive this thing back!
As the fiery vortex collapsed, the Shagaru Magala immediately began scattering massive quantities of scales. But the area was already thick with Chameleos's poison mist. Crushed by sheer numbers, the Frenzy Virus scales, despite their higher quality, were forced into a confined space.
"Nicely done!"
Logan's eyes lit up at the sight. He dove swiftly into the white mist, denying the Shagaru Magala any chance to single him out.
The Shagaru Magala, realizing what had happened, had intended to first deal with this unstable element. Yet it hadn't expected Logan's reaction to be so quick.
Logan darted into the white mist and vanished from sight.
Now, the Shagaru Magala's main opponent shifted once again—this time, back to Chameleos.
But the Chameleos had learned its lesson. It frantically spread its poison mist, smothering the black scale dust completely, leaving no chance for it to disperse.
Without the scale dust's heat-sensing guidance, the Shagaru Magala couldn't pinpoint Chameleos' location.
The fight had reached another stalemate—only this time, it wasn't a clash of bodies, but of energies.
For reasons it couldn't quite explain, the Shagaru Magala suddenly felt the urge to curse its fellow dragon!
Meanwhile, things weren't easy for Logan inside the white mist.
In order to thoroughly suppress the Shagaru Magala's scales, Chameleos had released an overwhelming amount of poison mist—far too much, far too dense.
Nearly one-third of the Coral Highlands plateau was shrouded in its white fog.
Such an exaggerated spread left the Kirin, who was rushing over, thoroughly displeased—it hurled down a few bolts of lightning in irritation.
The Chameleos' mist was toxic!
Truly toxic! It even blocked the Kirin's ability to sense the life energy of the Elder Dragons within it.
The moment it plunged into the poison mist, it instantly lost its bearings.
The same thing happened to the Nergigante, which had just finished digesting the Chaotic Gore Magala's energy. Mid-flight, it suddenly found itself disoriented as well, forced to keep flying blindly in the direction it had sensed earlier.
Because of this immense and poisonous coverage, Logan had no choice but to keep his Charred Body burning. He had planned to rest, to recover stamina and energy, but now his reserves were draining once again.
"Damn it—what a pig-headed teammate!" he cursed inwardly.
With a sigh, Logan forced himself upward, trying to climb higher and break free of the white mist sooner—if only to carve out some time to recover.
But as he rose, with his stamina and energy slipping away, the temperature of his flames slowly approached a threshold.
A transformation—was about to begin.
The exterior of the Charred Body gradually, almost imperceptibly, took on a bluish-violet outer flame.
As he flew, Logan noticed that the Blazing Fire Sac within him—previously consuming energy at a heavy rate—suddenly felt warm. The consumption of fire-attribute energy plummeted, and the energy conversion between his Charred Body and the sac became far smoother.
This sensation was all too familiar. It was exactly the same flow he had experienced when, through his Flash Fire trait, he absorbed enough flame to temporarily molt into a Silver Rathalos.
But there was a difference. When absorbing fire through Flash Fire, his Blazing Fire Sac would be filled with converted fire-attribute energy—a pure case of quantity sparking a qualitative change. Even if his body was exhausted, his energy reserves would still remain overwhelmingly abundant.
Now, however, Logan could still feel his energy and stamina being consumed. The only thing that had changed was the quality of his fire-attribute energy.
At that moment, with the breakthrough of the zero boundary point, searing heat swept across his body. The bluish-violet flames completely replaced the former orange-red fire.
Ignite!
The Charred Body once again showed its worth, rapidly boosting his defenses.
Yet the familiar trait Sunlight did not trigger—Logan's form remained the same.
"Blaze, huh? So it really does only boost the quality of the flames."
Logan finally remembered the new trait he had just obtained. In his obsession with hunting the Gore Magala these past days, he had almost forgotten about it.
"But even a qualitative upgrade alone is more than enough!"
Now that Logan had patched up the weakness in his flame attack power, he undoubtedly possessed combat strength on par with an Elder Dragon.
After sensing the energy he had left, he ceased his ascent.
The Chameleos's poison mist—without the infusion of life energy—couldn't even approach under the searing heat of Calamity Flame. It was evaporated from a distance.
Flapping his wings to drive the fire, Logan surged forward once more. Wrapped in blistering heat, he plummeted into the black scale-powder zone like a meteor.
"Damn it, I'm back again!"
[Boom!]
The Shagaru Magala, who had never imagined Logan would turn back, was still pouring out scale powder charged with the Frenzy Virus, attempting to suppress the Chameleos. Yet the Chameleos was also releasing its poison mist at full strength to keep the scale powder from breaking through.
Locked in this deadlock, poison mist and scale powder alike kept building up in the area, until the scale powder grew so dense that visibility dropped to nothing.
And into this field, Logan suddenly charged in with his transformed Calamity Flame—without the Shagaru Magala being prepared in the slightest.
Even though the scale powder had been activated by the power of Frenzy, under such intense heat, a tiny spark was still ignited.
That single, insignificant spark shattered the balance in an instant.
Flames expanded, energy was unleashed.
Within this dense space choked with scale powder, it was as if gunpowder had been lit—radiance and heat exploded outward with terrifying speed.
And so, under the simultaneous gaze of disbelief from Logan and the Shagaru Magala, the flames swept through the entire "Dark Abyss," a sphere nearly 300 meters across.
[BOOM!!!]
An explosion unlike anything before erupted across the Coral Highlands, wiping away what little remained of the already shattered terrain.
Flames shot skyward, scattering the clouds above, blowing the miasma clear from the Rotten Vale, and obliterating countless coral platforms.
The deafening roar was so overwhelming that Chameleos's ears went momentarily deaf.
The white mist was driven away. From above, it looked as if a whole section of the Coral Highlands had been gouged out—an uneven terrain of ridged platforms suddenly missing a vast chunk.
It resembled a cream cake, with a massive spoonful brutally carved away.
Ugly. Shattered. Broken beyond repair.
Smoke and dust billowed upward, refusing to dissipate for a long time.
Chameleos's body crashed heavily into a reef. The coral, normally hard as stone, crumbled like sand beneath the impact of the beast the size of a small mountain, scattering fragments in every direction.
The explosion had already stripped away its invisibility. Now it lay on its back among the rubble, its body aching with raw pain. Staring up at the sky revealed by the blast—the pure, piercing blue above—the Elder Dragon let fall two enormous tears.
These dragon tears, shed only under rare and extraordinary circumstances, crystallized the instant they fell, sliding along the scales of its cheeks before striking the ground.
Regret. Bitter, searing regret.
In all its centuries of existence, when had it ever suffered such torment?
Yes, it had only been caught in the edge of the blast, and it had responded in time with its defensive measures. For a creature like Chameleos, such wounds amounted to no more than a light injury.
But still—hundreds of years had passed without it once being harmed. And now, it had been wounded.
Caught so suddenly, it was difficult for it to accept.
Drawing a breath, Chameleos knew the ordeal wasn't over yet.
Propping itself up with its tail and wings, it rose, and out of the corner of its eye it noticed the two crystallized dragon tears. Instantly, a thought surfaced—back in the Hunters' outpost warehouse, it had seen items like these. If memory served, they were rather valuable.
Thinking that Logan might well go to the Research Commission to claim some kind of reward, perhaps out of guilt, Chameleos actually extended its tongue and tucked the two tears it had shed into the scales on its chest. It planned to secretly place them into the warehouse once it returned.
"This should cover it, right? These are Elder Dragon tears, after all… probably."
It wasn't entirely sure. Even though it had lingered around humans for several years and had even learned their language, it paid little attention to such things in daily life. It really didn't know if this would be enough.
If not, it would think of something else—perhaps leave behind a few scales or claws.
With this in mind, Chameleos, braving the lingering heat that still hadn't faded from the air, swiftly flew toward the center of the blast.
At that moment, amidst the ruins left behind by the explosion, Logan gritted his teeth as he fixed his gaze on the distant Shagaru Magala—its scales blackened, one wing claw snapped clean off.
In that cataclysmic blast just now, neither of them had managed to raise a proper defense. Both had been forced to take it head-on with nothing but their bodies.
The good news was that Shagaru Magala had finally suffered the heavy injuries Logan had hoped for. With one wing claw crippled and its body marred by wounds both large and small, at last its movements would be hindered.
The bad news was that Logan himself was hardly in any better shape.
If not for his flames having advanced into Calamity Flame, the Charred Body bolstering his defenses to match those of a true Elder Dragon, and Flash Fire allowing him to absorb some of the brief fire surge during the explosion to cut the damage…
Otherwise, just that one exchange would have left him with no choice but to turn and run.
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