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MHD Chapter 136: Threads of Fire, Threads of Life
🕑 Added 2025-08-22 20:00:48 +0000 UTCLogan spread his wings and soared among the clouds. With winter gone, the sky no longer carried that biting chill.
Spotting a flock of Noios in the midst of their daily migration, he dove straight in, seized one, and with a firm twist of his talons snapped its neck before beginning the flight home.
At the border between the wasteland and the forest lay the dwelling place of the Ancient Tree Fire Wyverns.
Even from afar, high above the nesting grounds, the temperature here was noticeably higher than elsewhere. Though it was only early spring, it felt like the height of summer.
Logan landed within his nest and tossed the Noios corpse aside. He did not see Aki’s figure within.
She must be out patrolling the territory.
By now, there was not a single patch of dead grass around Logan’s nest. The trees were even showing signs of vigorous growth.
The temperature within the nest stayed steady around 35 °C, and even during nights with large temperature shifts, it held at no less than 30 °C.
In the air, a mixture of life energy and fire-element energy began to rise imperceptibly with Logan’s return.
[Symbiosis: Slot Two – Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern Flock]
Remarkably, the second slot had successfully integrated the Fire Wyvern flock. Logan had thought symbiosis could only occur between different species, but it seemed that even those of the same species could form such bonds.
Indeed, he had underestimated the concept of symbiosis. Relationships between different creatures were called biological symbiosis, but even within a single species there existed forms such as social symbiosis.
Perhaps because of the closeness in ecological niche, the moment the Fire Wyvern flock was placed into the symbiosis slot, Logan felt the connection almost instantly.
The entire flock formed a pyramid-like structure of status. Life energy and fire-element energy wove together into a vast net, and the higher one stood on this pyramid, the greater the benefits one could draw from that net.
Just like now—within Logan’s nest, both life energy and fire energy had risen in a wondrous way. As for himself, he had forged an indescribable connection with the flock. Through this bond, his very constitution was evolving at an even faster pace.
With the dual reinforcement of the leylines and symbiosis, in the span of just a single winter his transformation rate had reached 37%.
At 6% per season, that meant 24% in a year. In only a few years, he would complete his transformation into a Silver Rathalos.
That was a rare subspecies that surpassed even ordinary Elder Dragons. To call it a meteoric rise would not be an exaggeration.
Logan’s heart surged with excitement, and even now he had yet to calm down.
As for why he was suddenly able to form symbiosis with the Fire Wyvern flock, in Logan’s view the key must have been that bay where conflict with the Sea Wyverns erupted.
For long periods, the flock had been led by powerful Fire Wyvern pairs, constantly clashing with the Sea Wyverns in group battles.
Under such circumstances, the flock’s social structure advanced rapidly until it finally solidified into its current form.
And Logan, being the strongest among them, as well as the youngest and most promising Rathalos, together with all his past achievements, had won over the entire Ancient Tree Fire Wyvern flock. From that moment on, their sociality was complete—and he, beyond all doubt, became their leader!
Sometimes opportunities arise in the most unexpected ways. In Logan’s eyes, the battle with the Sea Wyverns had seemed nothing more than gathering some forces and clashing head-on.
If they won, life for the weaker Fire Wyverns would improve a little. If they lost, it wouldn’t be too great a problem either.
But he had underestimated the pride within the Fire Wyverns.
That bay hunting ground—was it really just a place to fill their stomachs?
No!
What it represented was far more than just feeding themselves. With it, the Fire Wyverns could once again bring back surplus prey, and, by granting such “gifts,” provide for their offspring and the cats caring for their families.
For the Ancient Tree Fire Wyverns, sheer strength was no longer the only measure of a male’s worth. Whether he could hunt food, sustain himself and his family, and also feed the cats who tended to the nest—this had become another standard for judging whether a Fire Wyvern was truly powerful.
During those hard times, they themselves often went hungry. Their young had even been forced to rely on the very cats long regarded as vassals, kept like livestock, to feed them.
To their proud hearts, that had been nothing short of torment.
Now, however, they once again had a hunting ground that allowed them to bring back prey from time to time, to accept the cats’ service with peace of mind.
The lower-ranking Fire Wyverns valued this greatly. And because it was gained through collective battle, concepts such as hierarchy, status, and clan identity grew stronger with each passing step.
In seeing the benefits of moving as a group, they began to acknowledge it deep down. At last, the once-loose sense of community among the Fire Wyverns truly took root.
In the past, becoming the leader of a Fire Wyvern clan was a thankless role.
Fire Wyverns—especially males—already occupied a high ecological niche. As long as they weren’t heading into places like the Elder’s Recess, where great strength was essential and danger abounded, they could thrive anywhere on their own.
Even without a clan, a small family unit could live well enough.
So without external pressure or strong internal ties, Fire Wyverns in a clan, regardless of their strength, would only keep up appearances rather than genuinely obey orders.
And since, in the New World, Fire Wyverns valued strength above all, with mates chosen for power rather than status, even the privilege of choosing a mate didn’t belong to the leader.
For that reason, the position of leader once held no real meaning.
But now, under the influence of the Symbiosis trait, the role of Fire Wyvern leader had finally become useful—immensely useful!
With this abundant energy, with the sensation of his body’s energy circulating more efficiently, it was an experience Logan had never known before.
What’s more, within this pyramid-like web of energy, Logan could even sense the standing of each Fire Wyvern in the Ancient Tree clan. Though rank did not perfectly reflect strength, it was still a reliable reference.
At present, only Logan himself stood at the peak. And on the next tier down were eight Fire Wyverns—among them, astonishingly, Aki herself!
You have to understand—Aki was a female Fire Wyvern! On this tier, all the others were Tempered male Fire Wyverns, a Flame Rathalos, and an Azure Rathalos that had already fully assimilated into the clan and had no intention of leaving.
Of course, Logan’s surprise wasn’t because he doubted Aki’s combat strength.
Don’t be ridiculous. As a Tempered female Fire Wyvern with the potential to evolve into a Gold Rathian, even before Logan and Aki left the Wildspire Waste to settle in the Ancient Forest, she had already entered her transformation. At that time, Logan himself had only just begun to show the first signs of such change.
This fact had already been revealed when the Research Commission discovered the shed scales in their nest back then.
So Aki’s strength was absolutely in the top tier among the Fire Wyverns.
But the key point was—she was a female Fire Wyvern!
Though both were Fire Wyverns, the ecological niche of females was similar to that of the Anjanath. While ranked on the same level as males, in reality, they occupied half a step lower. In the eyes of the males, females were supposed to be the weaker ones, the kind that needed protection.
Under such a mindset, even as the mate of the leader, her status should never have been so high.
It could only be said that during the battle against the Zinogre clan, and through her subsequent daily displays, Aki’s strength had conquered the hearts of many Fire Wyverns, convincing them that she fully deserved such standing in the clan.
As for the Flame Rathalos on the same tier—he was simply subjected to a kind of silent, collective ostracism.
Even now, those three wing bones were still seen as aberrant by some Fire Wyverns.
Otherwise, in terms of sheer strength—as a Rathalos subspecies, his true power was such that aside from Logan, who had a natural advantage against fire attributes, no other Fire Wyvern could stand against him.
Further down were the Pink Rathians, the Tempered female Fire Wyverns, and those especially robust ordinary males with the potential to become Tempered male Fire Wyverns.
Overall, this pyramid-shaped energy web was terribly distorted: too many crowding the bottom, while the middle and upper tiers remained sparse.
Fortunately, this trait was Symbiosis, not exploitation.
The benefits were mutual. Just like with the cats back then, the tangible changes brought about by Symbiosis required time to unfold. In time, this energy pyramid would fill out, growing until it became a perfect structure, one with flawless circulation and no obstructions.
