The Admiral's words fell upon little Loren's ears like heavenly music, instantly shattering the tense atmosphere.
Little Loren glanced sideways, carefully looking toward his old father who was lying atop a massive dragon-shaped crystal figurine that had been changed into a different style. After confirming that the other party showed no reaction and seemed not to have noticed what was happening here, he decisively opened his mouth and took a big bite, biting down on half of a thoroughly roasted wingdrake.
While tearing into it, he couldn't help but complain inwardly: his old father was already a dragon several decades old, yet he still couldn't be separated from his own mate—clearly not a qualified King of the Ancient Tree at all!
Watching little Loren swallow the half wingdrake without the slightest hesitation, the smile on the Admiral's face deepened further, showing no trace of reluctance over losing the next few days' worth of food.
Sitting cross-legged on the warm crystal ground, he cast a glance at Logan and asked curiously, "Little Highness, how did you end up coming over here?"
"Roar! Roar, roar!"
While rapidly swallowing the roasted meat and feeling the contents enter his stomach—his powerful digestive ability quickly converting the meat into stamina—he let out low roars as he answered the Admiral's question.
In his memory, he knew that the Admiral could understand their language, so he did not make any additional gestures.
As little Loren finished his concise description, the smile on the Admiral's face quickly faded, his brows knitting tightly together.
He had not expected that the Research Commission's interception operation against Zorah Magdaros had succeeded, yet they had ended up trapped within the Everstream by an overwhelming amount of effluvium.
Over a thousand people—and over a thousand big-eater hunters at that—the daily consumption of food, especially water resources, was an astonishing figure.
Moreover, based on years of investigation at the bottom of the Rotten Vale, together with the unknown Elder Dragon once observed by the Third Fleet within the Rotten Vale, he was absolutely certain that this effluvium must originate from certain Elder Dragons, rather than from any natural phenomenon.
However, according to little Loren's account, the coverage of this effluvium was simply far too vast—so vast that hunters were unable to locate the other party's traces within a short time, and were even completely incapable of fighting them within the effluvium.
Just based on his understanding of the mobile research base, in the short term he was probably also unable to produce the corresponding tools. After all, effluvium was not only capable of invading organisms through the respiratory tract—when the concentration was high enough, the body surface was likewise a target of these microorganisms' attack.
With that, little Loren's purpose for coming here was also obvious at a glance.
The Admiral turned his head to look at Logan, who at some point had raised his head. Propping himself up with one hand on the ground, he stood up and said, "Boss Fire Wyvern, this time I'm afraid I'll have to trouble you again! Don't worry, it's the same old rule—afterward, Astera will send people over to Blazefire Village."
Friendship was friendship, but if they wanted that friendship to last even longer, there were some things that had to be clearly distinguished.
All these years, no matter how deep the friendship between the Admiral and Logan and his wife was, and no matter how close the relationship between Astera and Blazefire Village was, as long as they requested the topmost Fire Wyverns on the Ancient Tree to take action, it would always involve a transaction.
As soon as Logan finished listening to little Loren's words, he knew what the situation was now.
He had originally thought that Zorah Magdaros would be the same as in the original work: be repelled by the Research Commission at the coastal area near the Elder's Recess on the side of the Everstream, thereby forcing it into the deep sea, and finally using the ocean's seawater to cool the life energy released when Zorah Magdaros died.
Unexpectedly, after his intervention, together with sufficient manpower and the piling up of massive resources, the Research Commission actually directly blocked Zorah Magdaros at the Everstream entrance of the Rotten Vale.
He had to say, this performance was genuinely not bad.
Although the world had lost the embryonic form of a new continent that would have been born in the nearby seas of the New World ten thousand years later.
But the New World's absorption of Zorah Magdaros's life energy would become more complete. Between these two outcomes, it was hard to say which was good and which was bad, but in the end, it was still handled properly.
And if they wanted to deal with Zorah Magdaros's corpse properly without affecting the New World's existing ecology, relying on just one or two Vaal Hazak was not enough. Even hunters wearing Miasma Jewels were unable to go deep into such an effluvium environment—could it be that more than half of the Vaal Hazak in the Rotten Vale had come?
With that number of Vaal Hazak, and with that concentration of effluvium, even if a Disaster-level Elder Dragon charged in recklessly, it probably would not come out unscathed.
After learning that his foolish son had not deliberately acted like a reckless blockhead and charged into the Elder's Recess, but rather had wanted to find him faster through this method, although he was still speechless at little Loren's actions, since there was a reason behind it, at least it finally did not make him lose face to the extreme.
As for the Admiral's request, Logan naturally had no reason to refuse.
After all, the distance was not far, and from Zorah Magdaros's death to Vaal Hazak completely filtering out the life energy, there was probably still quite a bit of time. Going there and back, there presumably would not be any problems.
Thinking of this, Logan activated the Radiant Crystal Butterfly on his body, summoning the Radiant Crystal Butterflies that were breeding nearby. After rapidly replenishing the life energy little Loren had expended, Logan let out a dragon roar and shot into the sky with little Loren. Driven by visible spiraling air currents, he directly let little Loren experience ultra-high-speed flight.
Along the way, little Loren worked hard to adjust the angle of his wings, trying to learn Logan's method of airflow control. As he watched Logan's flight style—which was completely different from that of normal flying wyverns—he deeply began to doubt whether he was truly Logan's biological offspring.
Was he really not an egg that Logan and Aki had picked up from somewhere outside?
When he grew up, could he really become like Logan was now?
Little Loren was not sure—very much not sure!
Carrying such doubts, a journey that originally took little Loren half a day to fly was now completed in just two hours, and that was even with Logan deliberately controlling the speed out of consideration for little Loren's tolerance.
High in the sky, Logan looked down at the dense effluvium below, sensing the vast life energy within it. It was obvious that this effluvium was the kind that had been stored within Vaal Hazak for many years, rather than something naturally generated.
Opening up a passage through such effluvium that would allow the hunters to successfully evacuate was still somewhat difficult.
The main issue was that Logan was not certain whether the route of the passage he opened would pass through Zorah Magdaros's resting place.
If he were to disturb those diligent Vaal Hazak, in an environment like this, he feared he would not be able to handle the fight!
Calling over the panting little Loren, Logan had him carefully recall the route he had taken when he came out. After repeatedly confirming that he had not encountered any Vaal Hazak along the way, and that the last sighting of Zorah Magdaros had also not been in that area, Logan decisively charged straight into the effluvium below.
In the next second, countless Radiant Crystal Butterflies danced through the air amid powerful air currents. The effluvium that little Loren could only isolate by relying on Calamity Flame was directly pushed apart by the airflow, and then further blocked by the scale powder released from the Radiant Crystal Butterflies.
This effluvium was indeed all controlled by Vaal Hazak, infused with life energy by them, which was why it had become extremely active.
Therefore, in order to successfully isolate this effluvium, Logan also had to inject sufficient Terastal energy into the Radiant Crystal Butterflies dispersing their scale powder, forming a long-term energy confrontation. The amount of energy required for this was something only the current, transformed Logan could withstand.
In the past, he simply could not have done this!
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