Outside a huge grove of vines and several towering trees, a small group of six Rathalos accelerated.
Fire element energy surged. The patterns on the membranes of their wings gradually took on a faint red hue, and with each flap hot wind spread outward.
At the sharp crow of a cock, several Seregios leaped from among the great trees, shrieking as they charged toward the Rathalos group.
Facing the oncoming force of eight Seregios, the small group of Rathalos dove fearlessly, and a chaotic clash between monster and monster unfolded high above this area.
On the ground, a brightly colored, tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku peeked its head out from the bushes, blasé as ever at the skyfight. It wagged its tail and tiptoed toward the great grove.
Those newcomers' eggs—over the past year it had only once managed to steal one—oh, the taste! Simply divine!
If it could get to taste one again, it would gladly die for it!
Oh, but no—this year the Ancient Tree's Fire Wyverns had returned, and seeing how each of them seemed to have changed as if mutated, their eggs' flavor might have changed along with them.
So, set a small goal: the next destination is the Ancient Tree!
As long as it can get a taste of the new eggs, even being thrown down from the Ancient Tree by an angry Fire Wyvern would be fine!
With that thought, the tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku slipped along a route it knew well, circling past one rugged bend after another, forcing its way into the blind spots of those Seregios watching the battle and entering this grove.
For today, it had spent a full 2 months scouting, attacked by Seregios and escaping by the skin of its teeth more times than it could count, finally summing up the safest route.
It had even waited several extra days to raise its chances, only moving once the Fire Wyvern packs came looking for trouble with the Seregios again.
"Eggs! I'm coming!"
The tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku was so excited it almost wanted to shout.
It stuck out its tongue to lick its long beak, eyes resolute as it slipped once more into a dark, narrow tree hollow.
In the sky, though outnumbered, relying on tacit coordination and a faster, more powerful barrage of flames, these 6 male Rathalos were actually pressing 8 Seregios hard.
You have to know, although they all occupy the same high ecological niche among powerful Flying Wyverns, in truth the Rathalos are somewhat weaker than Astalos and Seregios.
Yet under the mutations brought by the Symbiosis trait, these Fire Wyverns had, as time passed, somehow taught themselves to convert and wield fire-aspect energy.
A lineup of 6 Rathalos could raise the concentration of fire-aspect energy in the air within the area, thereby creating an energy environment favorable to their side.
Paired with more savage spines, more stable flight, and stronger flame power—and finally these newly gained high-temperature wings further boosting their close-quarters ability—
Their overall strength saw a not-insignificant rise.
In battles between non–Elder Dragon creatures, numbers are also one of the factors that decide victory and defeat on the field.
Often, having one more or one less individual leads to a different outcome.
Under the pressure from the Rathalos group, in the end there were Seregios that could no longer stand it.
With another piercing cry, 2 more Seregios burst from the woods to reinforce them. With their addition, the fight at last steadied again.
However, this group of Seregios that had migrated from the Old World had never been very numerous to begin with. After several years, the first batch of eggs hatched in the New World had only just shed their juvenile stage. On top of that, after the departure and non-return of their leader and two high-end fighters in previous years, the entire group seemed even weaker.
Fortunately, Seregios also belonged to the type of Flying Wyverns that possessed a sense of pack consciousness, and only because of this did they barely manage to gain a foothold after migrating from the Wildspire Waste to the forest.
What no one had expected was that in such a vast forest, their territory actually overlapped with that of the Fire Wyvern group of the Ancient Tree!
Ordinary Fire Wyverns, even the native ones of the New World, were nothing for the Seregios to fear. They could even rely on their advantage in numbers to forcefully drive the others away.
But what they encountered instead was the Fire Wyvern group of the Ancient Tree—one that also possessed pack instincts and had grown stronger through mutation. The Seregios' greatest advantage when facing high-tier monsters completely vanished.
Luckily, the overlap between the Seregios territory and the Fire Wyvern group's was only in two or three hunting grounds. It wasn't enough for the Fire Wyvern group to go to great lengths to drive them out.
Only occasionally would small Fire Wyvern parties assigned to these hunting grounds come looking for trouble, using such encounters to establish the positioning of each pack.
That's right—the ultimate purpose of the Fire Wyvern parties was only to determine the standing of both sides within the ecological chain of this region.
For high-tier monsters, determining status through battle was of the utmost importance!
Only the information obtained this way was the most accurate.
Only creatures like the Pukei-Pukei—lacking both strength and intelligence—would determine an opponent's power purely by size.
Back when the Seregios flock first migrated, the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern group had still been lingering in the Wildspire Waste, and so the clash between the two sides was missed. When the Seregios attempted to confirm their standing in the ecological chain of the Ancient Tree area, the ones they faced were merely the Fire Wyverns that had usurped the territory. At that time, not even the veteran pair of Tempered Azure Rathalos nor those returning aged Tempered Fire Wyverns were present.
If not for the Seregios flock sensing the lingering traces of Kushala Daora at the top of the Ancient Tree—and, at the time, having lost their leader and high-end fighters, unsure whether they could successfully take the Ancient Tree—then when Logan led the Fire Wyvern group of the Ancient Tree back afterward, they would likely have been facing this Seregios flock.
A single battle dragged on for nearly 2 h and finally ended with the small Rathalos party withdrawing.
Ten Seregios—an entire ten Seregios!!
And they only barely managed to suppress six Rathalos on the other side.
For the Seregios watching from the sidelines, this was undoubtedly a huge psychological blow. It also meant that, at least for ordinary Seregios, they were on the weaker side of the ecological chain here.
In the future, when they ran into the Fire Wyvern group of the Ancient Tree during a hunt, they would be the first to disengage once things reached a stalemate.
Which was tantamount to losing priority during hunts.
As for why they didn't swarm in and keep those Rathalos here—creatures higher in the ecological hierarchy tend to be more intelligent. Though still driven by wild instincts, they also show a measure of calculation.
These Rathalos were provoking only outside the woods; they hadn't entered the woods.
It was like someone provoking you at your doorstep but not actually stepping into your home—still not enough to trigger a full-on war between groups.
If they swarmed in, it would turn into a fight to the death.
Just like in an ecological record from Logan's previous life: on the African savanna, a lion pride would usually only drive off hyena packs, but after a lioness was surrounded and killed by hyenas, the pride led by the male lions carried out indiscriminate slaughter against all nearby hyena packs.
If even those animals follow such "rules," then all the more so for the Fire Wyvern group and the Seregios flock, whose intelligence is higher.
A Tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku, scampering along with a Seregios egg in its arms, sauntered out of the woods as if strolling through its own home. Right on its heels, an angry chicken-like cry rang out, and a flock of Seregios took to the air, circling again and again in the sky.
The Tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku reacted quickly and bolted.
But could it possibly outrun the Seregios' high-altitude search?
Very soon, a Seregios spotted the Tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku's tracks. Amid piercing shrieks, one Seregios after another began to dive toward it.
For the Seregios flock as it stands today, expanding the group—bringing their numbers up to a level that can withstand disasters—is their top priority for the next 10 years, or even several decades.
Every single Seregios egg is exceedingly precious.
The Tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku's egg-stealing triggered the entire Seregios flock at once. They went mad, chasing after the Kulu-Ya-Ku.
"Stop chasing! This isn't your egg!"
The Tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku clutched the Seregios egg with all its might, refusing to let go. It cawed loudly while sprinting toward narrower terrain again and again.
Just a single egg—and yet so many monsters were giving chase. In the Tempered Kulu-Ya-Ku's life, this was a first!
But rather than scaring it, the Seregios flock's behavior only firmed its resolve to steal this egg, and even, invisibly, strengthened its budding idea of going up the Ancient Tree to steal eggs.
...
Atop the Ancient Tree, when Logan saw this small party of 6 Rathalos return—bodies injured yet spirits high—he knew they had definitely gone to stir up trouble with that Seregios flock again.
Since discovering the Seregios' existence, this was hardly the first time. But because this was a link in the ecosystem, Logan took a laissez-faire stance toward the Fire Wyvern parties going to provoke at someone else's doorstep.
It just so happened that since the Fire Wyvern group of the Ancient Tree began collective hunting, they had lost many opportunities to fight. Whether it was to keep their biological competitiveness sharp, or to give them a place to vent their desire to fight, the appearance of that Seregios flock was perfectly timed.
Even if a wyvern was occasionally lost, it didn't matter.
Besides, the Ancient Tree now had a complete logistics chain; the mortality rate had dropped to extremely, extremely low.
So long as the Seregios flock did not intend to launch an inter-pack war, their territory would remain the perfect "training grounds" for the Fire Wyvern group of the Ancient Tree.
While Logan pondered this, the 6 Rathalos landed at the Fire Wyvern-and-Cat Pavilion, excitedly eating the Grimalkynes' long-prepared cat meals and drinking the healing medicine traded over from the Research Commission.
Very soon, their wounds recovered rapidly; as for the lingering internal injuries, a single sleep would likely resolve them completely.
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