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MHD Chapter 120: When Predators Collide
🕑 Added 2025-08-14 03:10:58 +0000 UTCStaring at the Diablos that had spotted them and was now roaring without the slightest hint of retreat, Logan finally understood why even Ak
Staring at the Diablos that had spotted them and was now roaring without the slightest hint of retreat, Logan finally understood why even Aki, with all her strength, couldn’t carry off that Kestodon carcass alone.
The Diablos, this monster—though it shared the same ecological niche as the Rathalos—did so without the ability to fly.
In this world, the gap between being able to fly and being earthbound was immense. For a flightless Flying Wyvern to rival a Rathalos’ niche spoke volumes about the Diablos’ power.
And the truth bore that out. The simplest example was the Black Diablos—completely black, yet not even considered a true subspecies. It was simply a female Diablos in heat, her body color turned black, her temper more explosive, and her fighting style far more frenzied.
Even a Deviljho—a destructive glutton that will eat nearly anything—would hesitate before a Diablos, choosing to avoid conflict and withdraw.
That fact alone was enough to show the true level of a Diablos’ strength.
But right now, Logan, his temper far shorter than usual, didn’t hesitate in the slightest.
Without the slightest warning, he dropped a fireball straight down. It blinded the Diablos’ vision as he closed the distance, following up with a short, rapid burst of flame that swept across its body.
As the Diablos instinctively dodged, Logan’s talons lashed out, seizing one of its wings and giving it a hard lift—it felt like trying to flip a loaded heavy truck. Its weight was far greater than Logan had expected.
The Diablos was nearly toppled, staggering sideways for several steps before it could steady itself—only for Aki’s wyvern charge to slam in.
The spines on her wings clashed against the Diablos’ rock-like, sand-grit-covered scales with an ear-piercing screech.
Twisting her head to avoid the sweep of its massive horns, she clamped her jaws around the disk-like frill on its neck and gave a hard yank. The Diablos crashed to the ground with a thud.
Logan’s fire-wreathed talons seized its body, his massive wings beating as he actually managed to haul the behemoth into the air. Combustible liquid streamed down from his claws—
—and with a thunderous blast, the Diablos slammed back into the dunes.
Before Aki could rush in for the finishing blow, the Diablos—its body marked with the aftermath of the explosion—proved it hadn’t lost the ability to fight. It recovered almost instantly, and before Aki could reach it, its great claws raked furiously at the sand, throwing up a blinding curtain. Shielded from view and enduring Logan’s explosive fireball head-on, it forced its way straight into the ground.
Logan didn’t need to warn her—Aki, experienced as she was, immediately took to the air, keeping well clear of the surface and denying the Diablos any chance to launch a surprise attack from below.
The desert fell silent, but Logan knew the Diablos was still lurking in the sands beneath them. It had taken the full brunt of their combined assault, yet still had enough stamina to burrow for a counterattack—and no intention of retreating.
That was the vitality of a Diablos.
Aki flew to Logan’s side, the two of them gazing down at the still sands. She let out a low call, offering to act as bait—dropping down to draw the Diablos out so Logan could strike.
But after a moment’s thought, Logan stopped her.
“Likes burrowing, does it?”
Over time, Diablos had honed their hearing to better launch attacks from underground. Hunters often carried a tool called a sonic bomb specifically to flush them out after they burrowed.
Logan didn’t have sonic bombs—but he had his own way of achieving the same effect.
He began spitting a rapid stream of small fireballs, each one falling onto the sands below. In an instant, the area erupted in a barrage of sharp, continuous explosions, like an endless string of firecrackers, blasting open pit after pit in the ground.
Sand billowed high into the air, exposing the rocky wasteland beneath.
The fireballs themselves carried little destructive force, but the noise they made on impact was deafening. To a Diablos, the racket was like being trapped in a sealed black room while someone tossed in a lit string of firecrackers.
Under the barrage of noise, the sharp-eared Diablos could endure no longer. With a thunderous crash, it burst out from beneath the sand, roaring furiously at Logan.
Logan couldn’t care less about the roar—if he’d forced it to surface, then naturally he would attack again.
But to his surprise, the Diablos’ pupils contracted right after that roar, and it promptly ducked its head and burrowed back into the ground, showing no intention of fighting.
When Logan moved to repeat his earlier trick, he caught sight—amid the swirling yellow sand—of a faint, rapidly moving swell in the ground, heading quickly into the distance.
The Diablos was retreating.
Something felt off to Logan. Normally, Diablos wouldn’t leave unless they’d been worn down to exhaustion or injured far worse than expected. But this time, the fight had barely begun, and it was already gone.
Still, he didn’t overthink it. Gone was gone.
He called out to Aki, telling her to check if their prey was still edible, while he circled overhead, scanning the ground to guard against any approaching danger.
Aki landed, dug the Kestodon carcass out of the sand, gripped it in her claws, and took off at low altitude. With a firm shake, she dislodged most of the grit clinging to it, then began eating without the slightest hesitation.
For a Rathalos’s digestion, even certain minerals could be broken down—let alone mere sand.
Just then, three Seregios with bronze-colored scales burst out from a distant bank of clouds.
The moment they cleared the clouds, they spotted Logan and Aki below. Without a moment’s hesitation, the leading Seregios dove, flinging a volley of blade-scales at Logan.
At once, Logan’s sixth sense flared with frantic warning, and his Acceleration trait triggered right after.
He instinctively beat his wings, spinning his body hard to narrowly evade several blade-scales—yet their density was so high that some still struck him. They exploded without warning, and the scattered, razor-sharp fragments tore through his defenses, leaving blood streaks in their wake.
“Something’s wrong!”
The battle with the Diablos had ended only moments ago—his Charred Body–hardened scales hadn’t yet softened back to their usual state.
His defenses shouldn’t have been pierced so easily, not even by the secondary shrapnel from an exploding blade-scale.
Without a second’s hesitation, Logan dropped altitude, dodging the incoming Seregios as they closed in. Nearing the ground, he cut a sharp arc, the wind he whipped up carrying sand into the air, before climbing back into the sky—his cold gaze locking onto the three Seregios.
At the sight before him, even Logan—steadfast as his nerves had become—couldn’t help but be startled.
These three Seregios weren’t just larger than normal—their bodies stretched close to 25 m in length—but more importantly, the bronze hue that should have covered their scales now carried a metallic silver sheen. Though the depth of color varied between them, and only the one on the left had fully completed the change, the other two were clearly in the midst of freshly shedding into their new state.
Which meant that in just two short years, these three Seregios, having migrated from the Old World, had not only fully adapted to the New World’s environment, but had also absorbed enough life energy to become Tempered Seregios.
That kind of absurd growth rate… was it simply proof that any monster capable of migrating to the New World was extraordinary by nature? Able to break through in such a short span once it had adapted?
Still, if they were merely Tempered Seregios, Logan wouldn’t have been overly concerned. Together with Aki, they had more than enough strength for a two-against-three battle.
The problem lay with the one in the middle.
It wasn’t just a Tempered monster. Though it had only just entered the Tempered state, its body was even larger than the other two. And most crucially, its chest, the joints of its wings, and the massive broom-like tail lined with blades were all wreathed in a sinister black mist.
Right now, the feeling this particular Seregios gave Logan could be summed up in two words: “Frenzied power.”
But this wasn’t the same kind of madness as a Frenzied Seregios infected by the Frenzy Virus from a Shagaru Magala—one that overcame the virus to become an Apex Seregios. The one before him carried its fury with a chilling level of control, even pausing to study Logan’s flame-wreathed state.
Savage variant.
Logan thought back carefully, finally recognizing exactly what state this Seregios was in.
Apex status came from the Frenzy Virus of the Shagaru Magala, but the Savage variant had no clear origin. It appeared suddenly and could be found across monsters in every ecological niche.
Unlike the Frenzy Virus, which consumed life force and often destroyed reason, the Savage variant made monsters more violent and excitable, quick to explode in rage, yet still capable of a measure of rational thought.
And compared to that minor drawback, the boost it granted was staggering.
Seemingly limitless stamina. Sharper muscle responsiveness. Greater vitality. More abundant energy. It was as if the creature’s entire being had been enhanced from top to bottom.
And now, this Savage Seregios—already capable of crossing ecological niches in battle—had received an additional surge of life energy, Tempered status layered atop its Savage form. The fact that it could withstand the strain was nothing short of astonishing.
