Since the Girros corpses were gone, Logan no longer entertained the idea of hunting another one. Given his current condition, food does not make up much of the energy in his body; more of it is to satisfy the needs of the digestive system.
Treading on the bones underfoot, Logan identified the traces left by Kushala Daora, then set out again.
Unlike the upper and middle layers of the Rotten Vale, as Logan entered the lower layer, the number of creature corpses began to decrease, and the light dimmed completely. Feeling somewhat unaccustomed, Logan activated part of Sunlight, turning himself into a light source as he walked through the miasma.
The lower layer of the Rotten Vale is home to truly powerful monsters, and unlike the middle and upper layers where there's a skirmish every 3 steps and a full melee every 5, the monsters living here rarely engage in actual battles.
Because among the vast majority of monsters living here, aside from the natives, the rest are basically trying to find an entrance to the Everstream here, and then enter the Elder's Recess!
Compared to wasting stamina in meaningless fighting, it's better to conserve it and find the true entrance in these intricate, interwoven passages.
Of course, this doesn't mean it's very safe here; after all, there are still some natives—or monsters that don't quite count as natives but are permanent residents!
Logan's act of turning himself into a light source is relatively dangerous in such a dark environment. The only light source in the darkness—how could it not attract the attention of certain monsters?
At a bend, a flash of blade-light sprang from the darkness, aimed squarely at Logan's neck.
Judging from the whistle as it tore the air, this strike was coming with the intent to behead Logan.
Only, with the Mind's Eye trait, Logan had long since eliminated the possibility of being hit by such a crude ambush.
He merely tilted his head slightly and thus easily dodged that fierce blade-light; with a casual spit of a fireball, he blasted the ambushing monster out.
With yellow-green carapace all over, a body length of about 25 meters, and a tail already ground to a cutting edge, the Glavenus, under the bombardment of the flames, dragged the somewhat charred base of its tail as it climbed up from the ground and let out a hoarse roar at Logan.
Acidic Glavenus!
In the New World's Rotten Vale, a subspecies of Glavenus, and in the lower layer of the Rotten Vale, a non-native permanent resident monster.
If there are subspecies of monsters that are not as good as the base species, then the Acidic Glavenus is definitely one of them.
This was clearly a case of environmental factors causing a weakened mutation.
The Acidic Glavenus was a product of mutation in a Glavenus that, after entering the Rotten Vale, failed to find the entrance to the Everstream and became completely lost within it over many long years.
It had lost the Flame Sac of its original species, along with the ability to breathe fire or wield its blazing tail-blade. Its overall size, due to insufficient nutrition, was slightly smaller than that of a normal Glavenus, and its tail was noticeably thinner.
Thus, compared to the original species, the Acidic Glavenus's attack methods leaned more toward using its thinner—and therefore more agile—tail-blade.
Moreover, having adapted to the sulfuric environment at the bottom of the Rotten Vale, its tail-blade had mutated, allowing it to release a highly corrosive acidic substance capable of weakening an opponent's defenses upon contact.
In comparison to the original species, it seemed even more deserving of the title "swordsman among monsters."
It was probably because it sensed that Logan was not someone to be trifled with, and because its mind had not yet been dulled by the thinner miasma of the lower layer, that with just one fireball, it already realized the difference between their strength.
So, after a single roar, the Acidic Glavenus hesitated not at all and immediately tried to turn and flee.
"You think you can run after provoking me?"
Logan's eyes widened slightly. Was this Acidic Glavenus really that naive?
To cause trouble and then just flee without paying a price—where in the world was such a good deal to be found?
Just as he was about to unleash a breath attack to let the Acidic Glavenus learn that every mistake carried a price, his sixth sense instantly detected something unusual above him. Under Logan's skillful energy control, the breath attack shifted into a fireball, which he raised his head and spat upward.
With a sound like a hyena's cry, the incoming shadow from above collided head-on with the fireball.
As the flames exploded, the cry turned into a wail of agony.
The Odogaron, its body over 10 meters long, lost control and was hurled aside, crashing heavily to the ground.
All right—Logan admitted he had somewhat overlooked the true hunters of the Rotten Vale.
He hadn't even noticed when the Odogaron had crept right above his head, only realizing it when the Mind's Eye trait triggered a warning.
Still, this creature truly lived up to its reputation as a honey badger type—despite witnessing him blow the Acidic Glavenus away with a single fireball, it still dared to attack.
Of course, it was also possible that this nearsighted fool simply hadn't seen the situation clearly.
Logan felt that Odogaron might have a bit of both, after all this fellow was the sort who would even dare to rush up and take a bite at the master of the Rotten Vale, Vaal Hazak.
Add to that, Logan hadn't noticed it just now; with such a good position and attack opportunity, as long as it could launch a sneak attack and seriously wound Logan in one blow, in its view there might still be a fight to be had.
In the food-scarce Rotten Vale, as a native here and an absolute high–trophic-level monster, Odogaron could not possibly give up any chance of harvesting prey lightly.
It just hadn't expected Logan's reaction to be so fast, forcibly changing his original attack direction and method, blasting it straight down from midair.
In the dim and damp passage, Odogaron's highly degenerated eyes stared fixedly at the light source not far away, while the waist that had been hit by the fireball still throbbed with pain.
Don't be fooled by Odogaron having hardly any scales on its whole body, only that layer of red skin; in fact its defense is no worse than those monsters covered head to toe in scales. Indeed, precisely because it lacks the constraint of scales, it can rely on those powerful muscles to achieve agility surpassing ordinary monsters.
Agility and speed—these are also a major hallmark of the Fanged Wyverns.
And don't be fooled by how lean and wiry Odogaron looks; its strength is actually not small at all. It can easily carry the corpse of a large monster fallen from the Coral Highlands—such as the corpse of a Legiana—and race along the Rotten Vale's intricate roads.
It can be said that aside from not being able to fly and having low health, Odogaron truly deserves its status as a top hunter of the Rotten Vale.
What's more, it is of the fearless sort.
Even after taking one of Logan's fireballs, it was still letting out gurgling calls; the ten claws on its four limbs sprang out, plainly still intending to launch an attack at Logan.
[Bang!]
With a faint, almost imperceptible sound, Odogaron bounded onto the wall, gripping the wall firmly with its claws, and began moving at extremely high speed along the rugged, uneven surface, constricting Logan's field of view while searching for a suitable moment to attack.
If it were an ordinary monster, facing Odogaron's full-burst speed, it would inevitably feel dazzled and begin to tighten its defense—either use ranged attacks to try to knock Odogaron down, or else only enter a defensive posture.
No matter what choice was made, Odogaron had without a doubt seized the initiative in the fight.
What's more, in Odogaron's eyes, Logan was a flying wyvern; in this rather narrow passage, a flying wyvern couldn't bring its flight advantage to bear at all!
After all, Odogaron had ample experience fighting flying wyverns. That Bazelgeuse which fell into the Rotten Vale years ago and then could never fly back up was a frequent spoiler Odogaron often ran into during hunts.
It was just that, for some reason, in Odogaron's eyes this never-before-seen flying wyvern seemed to have no intention of defending at all—was he really not afraid that Odogaron would find a chance to attack and kill with a single blow?
Odogaron would hardly have imagined that the speed it prided itself on was, in Logan's eyes, nothing special.
It couldn't be called tortoise-slow, but it wasn't exactly fast either.
After all, Logan himself was a speed-type fighter, and the monsters he had fought recently basically all had decent speed, or had abilities that suddenly boosted their speed. Compared with those monsters, under Logan's exaggerated dynamic-capture ability, Odogaron's speed truly wasn't much to look at.
He understood Odogaron's combat intent, since sometimes he too would use a roughly similar fighting method within his fire whirl.
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