Once Logan departed, the cavern fell silent once more.
In one corner, a few golden-yellow chunks of some unknown metal glimmered faintly in the magma's crimson glow.
The return path was once again a dizzying maze of forks and tunnels. Just like when they came, without Aki leading the way, it would have been all too easy to get lost among them. Logan had no idea how she managed to find this place in the first place.
Still, this trip had resolved one of his long-standing doubts—why Aki, born in the Wildspire Waste, possessed talent far beyond that of a typical Rathian.
In the Wildspire Waste, every Rathian mother was a "loser." Even if Aki's father had been a powerful Rathalos, by probability alone, her talent should never have been this high—let alone so much greater than that of her siblings born in the same clutch. She was, without question, an anomaly.
And today, the existence of that ley line tributary had explained everything.
With such abundant ley line energy, it was only natural for an anomaly to be born.
When they returned to the younger sister's nest, they found her gnawing noisily on a Noios she had caught at some point.
The moment she saw Aki and Logan return, she quickly clamped the Noios in her jaws and backed into a corner, guarding it as though it were some rare delicacy.
Logan couldn't even bring himself to look. Aki, however, called to her younger sister a few times, gave a few instructions, and then left the nest with Logan.
They flew along the swamplands for a while until they found a group of Kestodon drinking at the swamp's edge. They easily brought down two, devoured their fill, and then carried the remaining portions back to their new home.
In the days that followed, Logan and Aki would spend each day patrolling their new territory and traveling back and forth between the ley line tributary and their dwelling.
Gradually, they also became more familiar with the younger sister. The only pity was that, in the new territory, the Fire Wyverns still kept to the rules from the Ancient Tree, and the younger sister's strength was not yet enough for her to live there alone. Aki also refused to allow her into the new nest.
In the end, Logan came up with a solution—having the younger sister settle in a spot within the nearby forest, close to the new territory.
This way, even if she could not integrate into the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern group, her safety would be greatly improved.
And so, as time passed, the new territory gradually settled into order. But with the Fire Wyvern group's dominant arrival, trouble soon began to follow.
...
The outer reaches of the Ancient Forest and the Wildspire Waste had already seen a surge of large monsters due to the miasma, causing the once-abundant—one could even say slightly overabundant—lower-tier "food" to become scarce.
The living space for each monster was heavily compressed, turning the entire region into a "too many predators, not enough prey" situation, with monsters fighting daily over territory and food.
In some places, the frequency of such battles had grown so high that a strange trend began to emerge—certain monsters, having fought too often, now avoided needless conflict and left one another alone.
But with the sudden arrival of the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan—a massive influx of high-ecological-tier Fire Wyverns—the situation instantly became far more complicated.
Fire Wyverns hunted often and ranged far, their territory sweeping across numerous hunting grounds in a single go.
If this had been only a short stay, the large monsters might have endured it and waited it out.
But as the Fire Wyverns remained longer, survival pressure forced these monsters to regard them as direct competitors.
As a result, clashes between monsters and Fire Wyverns became far more frequent.
Almost every hunt saw a Fire Wyvern encounter a challenger, sometimes even turning into chaotic multi-way battles.
This constant interference began to lower the Fire Wyverns' hunting efficiency. Many times, even if they successfully took down prey, they were dragged into a fight before they could eat.
Their aerial advantage gave them a dominant edge in combat, but sometimes, an opponent would go as far as to injure itself just to tear off a chunk of meat from the kill.
And in large melees, there was always some opportunist who would sneak in while the Fire Wyvern was fighting, snatch the prey, and vanish.
Without prey, the reason for fighting vanished too—leaving the Fire Wyvern no choice but to fly to more distant hunting grounds, only to fall back into the same cycle.
By the end of the day, they would have caught little prey yet burned through massive amounts of stamina, leaving their bodies weakened. Over time, even a high-tier predator like the Rathalos began to face a food crisis.
If it were only this, it might still be tolerable. After all, the Fire Wyverns of the Ancient Tree clan were formidable; even if hunting had grown harder, they could grit their teeth and endure.
But the real problem was that the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan numbered nearly a hundred—over forty hatchlings, and more than a hundred cats!
So many mouths to feed meant a staggering amount of food consumed each day.
In their current territory, prey was still reasonably plentiful, and in the early days, the Fire Wyverns could sustain the overall consumption with effort.
But as time passed, the growth rate of prey here would inevitably fail to keep up with the consumption rate.
Simply put, the addition of the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan had pushed the number of hunters in this region beyond its carrying capacity.
This was not a good sign.
For now, the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan remained together thanks to the cats, but under prolonged survival pressure, Fire Wyverns would eventually strike out alone in search of new territory.
When that day came, it would mark the collapse of the fragile racial unity of the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan—and the beginning of the end for the hard-won new symbiotic relationship.
This wasn't something Logan had noticed himself—it was a problem discovered through careful observation by the Grimalkyne elder.
If there was anyone who least wanted this symbiotic relationship to collapse, the Grimalkynes were certainly more anxious than the Fire Wyverns themselves.
Thus, when the Grimalkyne elder realized that such a breakdown might occur, he and the Fire Wyvern Grimalkyne chief quickly convened an emergency meeting of the Grimalkynes.
Some Grimalkyne warriors even began venturing out to gather various plants and vegetables, as well as hunt small creatures, hoping to ease the Fire Wyverns' hunting burden and reduce the frequency of their hunts.
But the same problem remained—the Grimalkynes were simply too many. They were no longer the small tribe they once had been, and such efforts were nothing more than a drop in the ocean.
In the end, with no better option, the Fire Wyvern Grimalkyne chief went to Logan and laid out the situation in detail.
Compared to the elder's anxiety, the Fire Wyvern Grimalkyne chief was far more composed.
It was true that the number of Fire Wyvern Grimalkynes had grown considerably compared to the past.
But first, they were the most unique branch within the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan, backed by both Logan and Aki.
With the intelligence and sense of responsibility of Logan and Aki, abandoning them was simply not an option.
Second, their relationship with the Research Commission was closer than that of any other group.
With this double layer of security, at the very least, the Fire Wyvern Grimalkynes could be certain they would weather this potential crisis intact.
The chief's thinking was not cold-blooded, nor did it mean he failed to regard other cats beyond the Fire Wyvern Grimalkynes as companions. Rather, in his lifetime, he had witnessed many occasions where a tribe, in order to survive, had no choice but to "split the household" so that more cats could stay alive.
After hearing the chief's explanation, Logan's expression turned a little odd.
These past days, he had been shuttling back and forth with Aki between two locations every day, paying little attention to the state of the other Fire Wyverns.
Moreover, because their hunting grounds were a fair distance away, his and Aki's hunts did not overlap with those of the other Fire Wyverns. Combined with their strength, they never lacked for food, bringing back roughly the same amount each day as before. As a result, he had never considered how the other Fire Wyverns were faring.
If not for the Fire Wyvern Grimalkyne chief bringing this matter to his attention, he wouldn't have known that the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern clan was now living in such hardship.
As the one currently benefiting most from all these relationships, Logan had no wish to simply stand by and watch them collapse—at least, not unless it was unavoidable.
But the crux of the problem lay in the fact that the number of prey in this region was limited. To solve it, they would have to either reduce the number of hunters or increase the prey population.
Neither option was easy.
Reducing the number of hunters would mean launching a large-scale slaughter of other monsters. Even setting aside whether such an action might drive those monsters to unite against the Fire Wyvern clan, there was the question of how many Fire Wyverns would die in such desperate battles.
No one knew exactly how many monsters roamed this region, and such an approach would be no different from sending the Fire Wyverns to their deaths.
Besides, this was merely a temporary settlement meant to last a few years—not a breeding ground like the Ancient Tree, where generations of Fire Wyverns had been born. Paying such a cost here would be putting the cart before the horse.
As for increasing the prey population, that was no simpler. Fire Wyverns mainly hunted Aptonoths and other herbivorous wyverns, supplemented by various wingdrakes.
But whether herbivores or wingdrakes, they were also the main food source for other carnivorous monsters. Even if the Fire Wyverns limited their hunts, the other predators would not stop.
Aptonoths were not penned livestock; they were constantly on the move. The Fire Wyverns could restrain themselves, but they could not stop other monsters.
---
I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. >> patreon.com/TitoVillar
---