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MHD Chapter 139: Echoes from the Depths
🕑 Added 2025-08-24 16:57:53 +0000 UTC[Wong… wong… wong…]
That vexing noise carried along the ley line tributary, stirring its energies and setting ripples dancing across the once-still magma.
Two years ago, this noise had been faint. Logan had once thought it came from the Serpent King Dragon he had glimpsed, burrowing through the earth.
But as time went on, the sound only grew stronger. When it began to resonate with the ley line’s energy, Logan finally recalled a certain notorious noisemaker of the New World—
the Shara Ishvalda.
Ten years ago, it was that very creature’s noise and the ensuing ley line upheavals that had driven the young Chameleos from its habitat, indirectly triggering the mass extinction of life in the Ancient Tree region.
Who would have thought—after so many years, it had begun making noise again.
Logan strongly suspected that the ley line corridor of the New World, beginning at the Rotten Vale and connecting all the ecological regions across the continent, had been forcibly carved out by this very creature. By wielding its authority great enough to stir the movements of the earth’s crust, it could freely manipulate the entire New World, reshaping it according to its own will.
And don’t think that was impossible. As an Elder Dragon beyond Elder Dragons, one of the “Black Dragons,” its existence was akin to that of a god. Both its wisdom and its strength fully supported the birth of such an idea.
The reverberating noise set Logan on edge. For some reason, today not only had the current of the ley line tributary slowed, but even the underground chamber itself had begun to tremble.
That gave Logan a real fright. Strengthened though he was, this was still the deep underground. If it collapsed, there would be no chance of survival.
He had already finished absorbing energy for the day, and there was no need to linger. He was about to call Aki so they could leave at once.
Just then, the rocky wall not far away suddenly turned blazing red. Even with Logan’s current resistance to heat, he could feel the surge of scorching air rushing toward him.
In the next instant, that wall—scoured by the heat of the ley line tributary for countless years—melted into a molten flow, cascading straight into the current.
And then, as though playing on a slide, a mountain of glittering gold glided out of the molten stream. Smooth, fluid, it plunged into the tributary, sending up a massive spray of crimson “waves.”
Its golden tail swept through the magma, splattering molten spray that Logan quickly dodged.
Only then did the colossal being—its body a full 45 meters long—notice there were other creatures here.
Its spiraling golden horns gleamed so brilliantly they nearly blinded Logan. The cloak-like “golden battle skirt” shimmered in the reflected magma light, every inch of its form exuding an aura of extravagant opulence.
But that was only the outward impression. In truth, as a massive, wingless, four-legged Elder Dragon, the Kulve Taroth’s power was staggering. Merely standing there, its absolute dominance in the ecological hierarchy pressed Logan to leave immediately.
Even if it was far weaker than the Serpent King Dragon he had once encountered, it was still an Elder Dragon. At such close range, its overwhelming aura felt even more immense than the energy of the ley line tributary itself.
Fortunately, aside from the initial shock, Logan quickly calmed down. He restrained Aki, who had wanted to charge forward, and instead observed the golden chunks scattered about the Kulve Taroth’s surroundings from its high-speed entry.
He wondered if he should pick one up to decorate the nest.
This wasn’t arrogance or recklessness—it was simply because this dragon was Kulve Taroth!
Among Elder Dragons, it was renowned for its gentle and mild temperament. So long as one did not deliberately attack it—or even if one did, so long as it did not feel its life was truly endangered—it would not retaliate.
Only when its life was threatened would it become enraged and strike back.
And in that moment, its enemies would learn just how terrifying the fury of a gentle being could be.
With a single breath of “superheated vapor” capable of melting earth and stone with ease, even Elder Dragons would think twice before taking such a hit.
In its “Fury Mode” state, its body temperature could soar to 1400 °C, enough to sap any Elder Dragon’s will to fight in close combat.
This was the ruler of the “Mother Goddess of Gold,” the “wealthy lady” who had formed symbiotic bonds with many small creatures, including the Strange Mask Tribe—Kulve Taroth, revered as the Brilliant Dragon.
In the end, Logan still did not bring out the scattered gold chunks. It wasn’t that he didn’t dare, but rather that the circumstances at the time simply didn’t allow for it.
Just as the Kulve Taroth ignored both Logan and Aki at the entrance, intending to keep digging along the ley line tributary, a clearer and stronger rumbling noise traveled through the ground.
As an Elder Dragon that had lived underground for countless years, endlessly searching for metal to forge its own “golden battle skirt” while tunneling through the earth, Kulve Taroth could be said to be among the most sensitive beings in the world when it came to detecting ley lines. The deepest ley lines of the Monster Hunter world were, in large part, carved out by their tunnels, which allowed the flow of life energy to circulate and distribute to every corner of the world.
So when this kind of noise came directly from within the ley line, it instantly agitated this usually good-tempered “wealthy lady.”
Ignoring the two Fire Wyverns nearby, it erupted in rage, spewing out a superheated wave that melted through the thick rock wall in the direction of the ley line tributary. Stepping onto the still-molten scarlet magma, it charged straight inside.
Perhaps the structure of this region had already been weakened by Kulve Taroth’s tunneling, and with Shara Ishvalda continuously stirring tremors through the ley lines, this space—once fairly stable—began to quake violently.
Uncertain whether the underground structure could withstand such tremors, Logan and Aki wasted no time in fleeing upward. With the aid of Logan’s newly gained trait, he created spiraling whirlwinds in the windless depths, each one acting like a booster, allowing the two of them to break free of the worsening tremors and return to the surface.
That’s right—his new trait. Over the past year, he had completed two assigned hunts. Though the missions had been simple, that was only in comparison to his current strength.
By now, Logan had completed the final rapid growth phase of a Rathalos’s life cycle. He was just one or two months away from adulthood. Even without considering the energy increase brought by his evolution, his physical strength alone was far beyond what it once had been.
Thus, after completing those two hunts, not only had he extracted a new trait, but the progress bar for his next trait was already close to full.
[Gale Wings: Significantly strengthens both wings, making them broader and more proportionate to the body. Enhances the wing membranes’ sensitivity to airflow, improving fine control over currents.]
A simple description. On paper, the effect seemed modest—barely more than a minor boost.
But when his wings had been fully transformed, and he soared into the skies again, Logan realized that this trait far surpassed all expectations.
His broader wings made his flight stronger and more powerful. While speed had only increased slightly, his agility had grown considerably.
More importantly, the ability to sense and manipulate air currents allowed him to perform aerial maneuvers that would have seemed utterly impossible before. Beyond that, he could even disturb airflow within a wide range, disrupting his opponents’ flight capabilities.
Of course, this alone was not what made it truly remarkable. The most crucial factor was that, when combined with fire, the trait vastly expanded his arsenal in combat.
By finely manipulating the air currents through the Gale Wings, he could exert minimal effort to create wind pressure and whirlwinds—then infuse them with his flames, turning them into wide-ranging, directional blasts of fire.
Or, while activating his Charred Body, he could beat his wings to stir up pressure waves, using the wind to fuel the fire—amplifying both its power and its destructive range. Much like a Teostra endlessly releasing waves of superheated flame, he could achieve wide-area clearing with no blind spots.
Alternatively, after spitting out an explosive fireball, he could harness the wind force from the blast, shaping it into a spiral pressure wave. This would draw the flames of the detonation back into a sustained vortex, forming a flaming tornado that inflicted continuous, lingering fire damage.
This was the part Logan was most satisfied with. The backstep–charged fireball takeoff was the Rathalos’s most common move to launch into the air. But with the Wings of Gale enhancing his control over airflow, not only could he shape that fire into a dragon-sized whirlwind to block enemy assaults to the fullest extent, he could also ride the vortex itself, using its force to soar skyward more swiftly and with less effort.
The combination of wind and fire offered endless possibilities. For now, he had only developed these basic applications. He already had several other ideas forming in his mind, but they would still require extensive practice—finding balance, refining the execution—before they could be considered truly mastered techniques.
