The Admiral was somewhat confused by Logan's approach of fighting, yet seeming like he had not finished fighting—especially on the way back to the Ancient Tree. Logan and the others returned ahead of them through the air with little Loren, and without the Elder Dragon aura to clear the way, the Admiral finally saw an even more chaotic Ancient Forest.
It could be said that, aside from a few extremely remote and rugged locations, the entire Ancient Forest was, at all times, suffused with a faint smell of blood.
Especially in the lower layers of the Ancient Forest—those regions that never saw sunlight year-round, yet connected to underground river channels—a large number of Leviathan-type monsters had emerged. No matter which tier of the ecological niche they occupied, monsters were almost constantly killing each other, practically every day.
Even the omnivorous fish in the river had, in this environment, been forcibly fattened by a fair margin.
This steadily spreading stench of blood continuously stimulated the ferocious factors within the monsters, and many times their battles were no longer for survival, but purely for the sake of slaughtering—slaughter for slaughter's sake!
And it was at this moment that a pitch-black gas, capable of amplifying the monsters' inner brutality by squeezing their stamina and life force, began to appear among the monsters.
At the Dragon Graveyard, Nakarkos silently digested the large monster it had preyed upon this time, while also using its mimetic tentacles to absorb the black gas drifting over from afar, wrapped around refined life energy.
The Ferocity Factor: a mutated form of dragon-attribute energy, continuously refined by Nakarkos from countless corpses—an energy under its control, and a special byproduct used to remotely siphon refined life energy.
However, the only pity was that this thing was not contagious, and it was very picky about hosts; it could only serve as one of Nakarkos's special means of plunder.
Of course, for Nakarkos it was something optional—neither here nor there—but for monsters below Elder Dragon level, this was a good thing that could let their combat power leap across ecological tiers. As long as a single monster in a pack could become a ferocity-enhanced monster, it could lead the pack to secure better territory in the slaughter, along with superior survival resources.
In an atmosphere like this, even the Admiral, upon returning to the Ancient Tree base, wore the same exhausted look on his face. The various logistical supplies on him were almost depleted, but the haul was still quite rich: he carried back a huge sack of materials that, under normal circumstances, had become unobtainable due to standardized hunting, letting some hunters who had fallen to the point of using only ore weapons barely manage to update their equipment a little.
[Gulp, gulp!]
After downing several big bowls of water, the Admiral took off his heavy armor. Instead of resting, he went at once to the uppermost level of the Ancient Tree to look for Logan.
"Now even the Ancient Tree region is starting to fall into chaos. The source of this unrest is that thing in the Dragon Graveyard, isn't it!"
Looking at Logan, the Admiral was asking, but his tone was extremely certain.
On the way back, the Admiral had not merely been hurrying along. He had also taken a few detours based on his experience, and in the end inferred that the source of the unrest was Nakarkos.
He was just very puzzled. Based on the Research Commission's understanding of Logan over all these years, Logan was clearly an Elder Dragon on the "order" side. Even something the Admiral could infer, he did not believe Logan would be unaware of it!
Since Logan knew about it—and had even fought Nakarkos together with Aki—why had he come back like this, ending things halfway?
You had to understand: right now, the Ancient Tree region was also in complete turmoil. While climbing the Ancient Tree, the Admiral had discovered that quite a few Fire Wyvern living at the bottom of the Ancient Tree were in their nests, licking their wounds.
As the king of the Ancient Tree, how could Logan remain indifferent?
"Roar!!" (This is all nature's choice! It's a link the ecosystem must go through! If the world wants to grow, this is the necessary price!!)
Logan did not give a clear answer directly, but the reasoning he offered left the Admiral with nothing to say.
As maintainers of the ecosystem, hunters sometimes made judgment errors—picking the wrong target, causing some monsters to take the blame for no reason!
But at the very least, when it came to ecological stability, they valued it above all else. This was also one of the required courses for anyone who wanted to become a hunter.
If Logan had not given this reasoning, then according to the Admiral's thinking, the most likely outcome would be this: if Logan would not act, then he would notify Astera, gather the hunters' strength, and find a way to mount a campaign against Nakarkos, thereby stabilizing the situation at the root.
But now, even the "Dragon of Order" had said this was nature's choice, a link the ecosystem must go through. Even when its "people" suffered losses, it had held itself back.
So then—should hunters really go and mount a campaign against Nakarkos?
Would such an action be maintaining the ecosystem, or destroying it?
The Admiral came with doubts, and left with confusion.
He did not know. He truly did not know!!
Many years of a hunter's career had taught him that, when facing a situation like this, all that was needed was to find a way to take down the culprit. After that, the ecosystem's powerful self-regulating cycle would pull everything back onto the right track.
Yet his trust in Logan was also telling him that things were not that simple.
This concerned the situation of the entire Ancient Forest, and his own perspective and experience were far inferior to those of Logan, an Elder Dragon.
Especially considering the incident involving Qurio a few years back—at a time like this, Logan's thinking truly could influence the entire Research Commission of the New World. In recent years, whenever ecological matters were involved, the Commission would even try to seek Logan's opinion.
Watching the Admiral leave his nest, Logan was also deep in thought.
During the few days he had been away, as the situation grew even more chaotic, it was not only the Fire Wyverns at the bottom of the Ancient Tree that suffered injuries— even the Radiant Fire Wyverns, which had only been renamed as a Fire Wyvern subspecies by the Research Commission in recent years, had also sustained a certain degree of damage.
Although Logan had long anticipated something like this, when it actually happened, he still felt somewhat uncomfortable.
Originally, according to Logan's thinking, the Fire Wyverns across the Ancient Tree, in this wave, could only go with the flow while maintaining their own stability. But after his earlier probing of nature's will, Logan had developed some new ideas.
Wasn't it simply a matter of using the lives of monsters to fill the Ancient Forest's cycle, while also creating new vacancies in an already saturated Ancient Forest?
The Research Commission had already been in the New World for so many years— even second-generation "natives" had long since been born. No matter what, they could be considered part of the New World as well, right?
"Roar!"
A long roar summoned Tonkotsu, who had been standing guard at the entrance to the dragon nest at all times. An order—one that would be enough to drive the Research Commission into a frenzy—was issued.
Very soon, as Tonkotsu entered the Ancient Tree research base, not long after, a hunter carrying both excitement and shock on his face rode a wingdrake at high speed toward Astera.
"An unrestricted hunting permit?!!"
The Commander held the parchment that had come out of the Ancient Tree's Blazefire Village, stamped with the seal of the Fire Wyvern Grimalkyne leader, and once again asked the messenger hunter.
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