After flying for two full days, Logan and Aki finally returned to the Ancient Tree.
What eased Logan’s mind was that the Ancient Tree was tall enough that the spores and miasma had not drifted up to the upper levels, lingering only in the middle and lower tiers.
Thanks to the sea breeze, the spores had also failed to reach the forest’s seaward outskirts, and even the few that did arrive were so few in number they went unnoticed.
The moment Logan returned, the leader of the Fire Wyvern Grimalkyne spotted him. Just as it was about to say something, the long, echoing roars of Fire Wyverns rang out.
Well now—how long had it been since the last gathering? And here they were, calling another one already.
Logan couldn’t help but wonder—had the Fire Wyvern flocks of the Ancient Tree developed a stronger sense of community?
It was completely different from the days of the Chameleos incident, when they came and went as they pleased.
And whether it was his imagination or not, Logan had the distinct feeling the Fire Wyverns had been waiting for his return before starting the meeting.
Regardless, as the one currently benefiting the most from his symbiotic relationship with the Grimalkyne, Logan had to attend and see what exactly the Fire Wyverns had in mind.
As always, the canopy was the same. After climbing back up to his usual perch, Logan had barely settled when he noticed the tempered Rathalos below him suddenly descend, each of them dropping to a perch slightly lower than his own.
From afar, one could see clearly: Logan occupied the highest position, followed by the Flame Rathalos—its expression full of bewilderment, seemingly unable to fathom why Fire Wyverns would ever gather together for a meeting.
Below them came the tempered Rathalos and the Azure Rathalos.
“Roar~”
An aging tempered Rathalos let out a deep, resonant growl. The heavy sound rolled through the canopy, quieting the upper layer while describing the current situation in the language of Fire Wyverns.
This was not the first time a Vaal Hazak had come to the Ancient Forest. Decades ago, one had appeared before, and this Tempered Rathalos had lived through it in its youth. Through its account, all the Fire Wyverns present came to understand the circumstances.
Thus, the matter for discussion now was whether the Fire Wyvern flocks should temporarily abandon the upper reaches of the Ancient Tree and migrate to other regions to wait out the danger.
Creatures tainted by the miasma suffered severe nutrient loss, and the presence of such miasma-drenched prey greatly reduced the Fire Wyverns’ hunting efficiency. Eating such prey only increased the miasma within their own bodies, further harming their condition.
When the Tempered Rathalos finished its account, the calls of the Fire Wyverns rose one after another.
“Roar!”
Logan thought for a moment, then roared. In the next instant, the entire gathering fell silent, all eyes fixed on him, listening—just as they once had when the Black Flame King spoke.
Logan hadn’t expected such a reaction, but what mattered now was his own question—he needed an answer before making his decision.
His question was: back then, how had the incident been resolved? Had the Vaal Hazak left on its own, or had outside forces intervened?
The Tempered Rathalos pondered the past for a while before finally giving its reply.
“A mated pair of Teostra and Lunastra appeared, driving away the miasma that filled the skies, shattering the pure white shell of the Dragon of Death. The Dragon of Death returned to the place of the life-and-death cycle, while the Teostra and Lunastra ventured into the depths of the world, never to be seen again.”
The Vaal Hazak was weak against fire. Aside from the miasma it generated after being infused with its own life energy, other miasma and spores feared high temperatures and flames. Therefore, what the Tempered Rathalos had said—that the Vaal Hazak had been repelled by a Teostra and a Lunastra—was entirely reasonable.
As for why it had been repelled rather than killed—setting aside the sheer vitality and absurd difficulty of killing an Elder Dragon—
Vaal Hazak’s importance to the New World was such that if you dared kill it, the will of the world itself would dare send you a warning.
“No wonder the Admiral said he’d found traces of a Teostra in the forest. But with things as they are, who knows how long this situation will last? Feels like we can’t afford to wait it out.”
Logan gazed out over the Ancient Forest shrouded in miasma—and made his decision.
Migration!
The entire Fire Wyvern flock would relocate, taking the cats with them.
As for their destination, Logan ultimately chose the Wildspire Waste.
Truth be told, the first option that flashed through his mind had been the Coral Highlands. The resources there were no less abundant than the forest’s, with richer nutrients and denser life energy.
But then he remembered—it was also the territory of a high-ecological-rank Flying Wyvern species, the Legiana flocks. Migrating there would inevitably spark interspecies conflict.
The Fire Wyverns wouldn’t care, but the cats might not survive it.
And so, in the end, the destination was set: the Wildspire Waste.
...
Migration for the whole group was no simple matter—especially during this period, when the hatchlings still couldn’t fly. That meant each mated pair of Fire Wyverns had to carry their own young during the journey.
In the past, a Fire Wyvern couple could only take at most four hatchlings. Any extras would have to be left behind, abandoned to fend for themselves. For a wyvern family, that was an agonizing ordeal.
But now, during the Fire Wyvern group’s migration, they not only had to bring their hatchlings but also the cats—yet the process had become much easier.
After Logan made his decision and returned to inform the Ancient Tree Fire Wyverns’ Grimalkyne leader of the wyverns’ plan, all the Grimalkynes of the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern group, apart from those needed to care for the young, mobilized at once. They began stripping the Ancient Tree’s vines, weaving them into larger, sturdier baskets modeled after the original ones—big enough to carry heavier loads.
Meanwhile, the Fire Wyverns frequently went out hunting in areas where the effluvium was thin.
They brought back surplus prey for the cats to dismantle and process, storing it as rations for the hatchlings and cats during the journey.
At that moment, the entire Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern group—wyverns and cats alike—moved like a massive, well-oiled machine, each part performing its role with perfect coordination as they prepared for the migration.
The sight left the Flame Rathalos utterly stunned.
It had once served as leader of a Fire Wyvern group, yet it had never seen anything like this.
Back when they had migrated from the Old World to the New, each wyvern family simply hunted for themselves. Once they had eaten their fill, they’d exchange a few calls before taking off, following the route the Teostra had flown.
Along the way, battles or sheer exhaustion—and the absence of any place to rest over the open sea—claimed the lives of more than a few wyverns.
When they finally reached a small island, the wyverns would scatter, each hunting alone. Sometimes, when food was scarce, they would even fight one another over prey.
To the Flame Rathalos, Fire Wyvern groups had always been nothing more than loose gatherings of individuals—scattered sand, held together only by his nominal sense of responsibility as leader. No other wyvern cared about the fate of the rest.
So why were the Fire Wyverns of the New World so different?
Holding meetings based on strength and status was one thing.
But they even pooled their food. Different families went out hunting together—sometimes even with subspecies like the Azure Rathalos and Pink Rathian, who had always looked down on the original strain—ensuring they could secure prey more efficiently in the current, harsh environment.
This wasn’t the behavior of Fire Wyverns with a weak sense of community.
And it wasn’t just the Flame Rathalos—Logan himself found it hard to believe.
This joint hunting wasn’t something he had ordered; it had formed naturally over time as the wyverns hunted together. When Logan learned of it, he was so surprised he could barely close his jaws for a long while.
For a moment, he even felt as if he were falling behind. He was supposed to be the Fire Wyvern standing at the forefront, and yet the Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern group had, without his notice, developed a true sense of community.
After thinking it over carefully, Logan realized the signs had been there all along. Fire Wyverns were far from stupid—certainly not the kind of mindless beasts some might imagine.
The Fire Wyverns of the New World, under the unique rules of the Ancient Tree, had long shared many common interests. With such benefits at stake, it was only a matter of time before those interests gave rise to a stronger sense of community within the group.
It was just that, for as long as anyone could remember, the New World’s ecosystem had faced no real external interference. Civilizational development had long since stagnated, even though all the conditions for its advancement had been in place for ages. The only reason no great change had occurred was that there had been no event to pierce that final, thin barrier.
Now, after years of battles fought between units defined by their group ties—those battles acting as the needle, and their shared cats as the thread—the Fire Wyvern families had been strung together like beads on a single cord.
With both a clear sense of hierarchy and a unifying figure at the center, the Ancient Tree Fire Wyverns’ sense of community began to take shape.
For now, there was still no concept of group honor or a fully formed collective identity—but the shared interests were already there.
As long as the Fire Wyverns could not give up the services the cats provided, and as long as they could not abandon this symbiotic relationship, they would unite for the sake of those mutual benefits.
From Logan’s perspective, such unity would not upset the balance of the food chain.
Setting aside the fact that this was simply the natural course of biological development, the very rules governing the Ancient Tree’s upper levels strictly limited the number of Fire Wyverns living there.
And with such limited numbers, the most they could do was stir up trouble in a single section of the forest—they couldn’t even truly hold that territory, let alone claim the entire forest or, much less, the whole New World.
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