novelraw Chapter 461: The White Knight of the Hoarfrost Reach
Chapter 461: The White Knight of the Hoarfrost Reach
Melancholy was melancholy, but life still had to go on.
What’s more, for now it was only at the "there are signs" stage. Logan still wasn’t some defiance-of-heaven existence like Xeno’jiiva; even if an energy core had appeared inside his heart, his rate of transformation wasn’t going to be that fast.
Besides, the transformation process not only required time—it also required an enormous amount of Terastal energy. At present, the only things that could help him more efficiently complete the conversion between bioenergy and Terastal energy were the Radiant Crystal Butterfly, and the Ancient Tree.
On this day, as Logan was leisurely hanging in the sky like the sun itself, a blue figure suddenly appeared in his field of view, carefully circling around the Ancient Tree and flying toward the sea.
When he focused his gaze—wasn’t this Velkhana, that rustic country girl?
Because of the Hoarfrost Reach’s special nature, along with her exaggerated territorial awareness, Velkhana could be said to be the Elder Dragon who communicated the least with other Elder Dragons. Basically, aside from exchanges among her own kind, she was a loner at all other times.
And the Hoarfrost Reach was sparsely inhabited. Even the local Boaboa there were unable to form a relatively advanced civilizational system, so even if she had lived for a long time, when it came to worldly experience, she really was just a rustic country girl.
However, judging from how fully prepared she looked right now—even the obsidian armor on her body was gleaming, and the energy within her was abundant—she was clearly not planning to go back and keep living as a shut-in, but had made preparations before battle.
In the original work, if the Research Commission had not misunderstood her, and if Darren had not fought with her, causing Velkhana to believe that the Research Commission’s presence was a threat to her—and also to show obvious hostility that would interfere with the upcoming battle with Shara Ishvalda—
Then, due to Velkhana’s instinct in battle to take time to first deal with any possible sources of interference around her, in the end she decided to deal with Seliana first.
After that, an utterly ridiculous famous scene appeared!
She ignored the hunters attacking her and didn’t even use her own flight, and instead got into a deadlock with Seliana’s big iron gate!
Even though she could have flown straight in, she insisted on attacking the iron gate.
In the end, she took a direct hit head-on from a dragon-elder-specialized cannon; her chest was pierced through, and she was heavily injured and fled back to her own nest. After that, she was caught up by the pursuing Darren, who blocked the entrance and fought her to the death, and she ultimately died in her own nest.
This was also why the Velkhana of the Hoarfrost Reach lost the title of Ice Witch and was called a rustic country girl.
She had no experience, and she had no brains!!
This time, with no interference from the Research Commission, presumably neither side would provoke the other, and the Elder Dragon group to hunt Shara Ishvalda could take shape—it was just unknown who would be the main force.
The moment he thought of that, and then thought of the previous time—when, for a grand Xeno’jiiva hunt, there were only him and Kulve Taroth among the Disaster-level Elder Dragons—Logan felt a little uneasy.
No matter how long or short a Disaster-level battle was, it had one common characteristic: it was especially exhausting!
Whether it was energy consumption or physical depletion, it was not something battles from the "ordinary Elder Dragon" period could compare to.
If your energy wasn’t enough, you truly couldn’t break through the defense!
That exaggerated resistance to energy attributes really made people’s heads hurt.
Just like Logan—judging by his current level of energy resistance, at most he could be considered weak to the Dragon attribute, and even that was only because the energy tier of Dragon-attribute energy was almost equivalent to Terastal energy.
"Over at Shara Ishvalda’s side... it shouldn’t come to that, right? Even livestock aren’t used like this!"
He shook his head, casting off that uneasy feeling.
With Velkhana gone, he no longer needed to keep hanging in the sky playing the role of the sun. The alternation of the seasons didn’t require his intervention, and next, presumably, it would once again be a wonderful laid-back life of doing nothing!
Days without survival pressure were just that plain and unadorned~
...
The Hoarfrost Reach, coastal area.
At this moment, Darren was in the midst of a "fierce battle."
Not far ahead, that White Knight—familiar with the terrain and constantly darting and leaping through the ice and snow—seemed to have inexhaustible stamina. With two massive fangs, it tried to launch attacks from every possible angle.
The Barioth, a top-tier predator that lived deep within the ice and snow, bore such elegant titles as the Flurry of Frosted Fangs and the Subzero White Knight of the Hoarfrost Reach.
Although it had an appearance resembling a saber-toothed tiger, this creature was in fact a bona fide Flying Wyvern. It was just that, like Tigrex, its wings had evolved incompletely, resulting in rather mediocre flight capability.
Compared to flying, they were more inclined to rely on powerful hind limbs to perform extremely long-distance leaps, using wing claws and hind limbs to land on all fours, thereby ensuring stable landings even with such exaggerated jumping ability.
And the spines on the wing claws and hind limbs—clearly more numerous than those of other Flying Wyverns—were not used for offense, but rather to anchor its body in the freezing icy regions, preventing it from slipping.
From an ecological niche perspective, the Barioth was roughly equivalent to the Hoarfrost Reach’s Rathalos.
But in terms of how troublesome it was, this creature’s level of danger was even greater than that of Rathalos!
Its attack patterns were highly variable and constantly in motion. It was neither like a Rathalos, advancing head-on and crushing opponents with sheer momentum, nor like Nargacuga, which sacrificed part of its power in exchange for greater agility.
It hunted by relying on frequent repositioning, combining long-range and close-quarters attacks, with equal emphasis on strength and speed.
As a result, for small-bodied creatures, this kind of Barioth was undoubtedly even more troublesome—indeed, it could be called a nightmare!
When facing a monster that advanced and retreated with such measured control, hunters—who are themselves small-bodied creatures that rely heavily on technique—truly detested this kind of hunting target.
You would finally manage to evade its attack and be just about to counterattack.
Sigh!
It jumped back again!
When you thought it would jump back, it would instead blast a mouthful of icy wind into your face.
After blocking your vision, without any warning, it would follow up with another lunging pounce.
Compared to Flying Wyverns, this was entirely the hunting style of a giant cat. Many novice hunters who encountered it would almost always meet a bitter end, unable even to escape.
Even with Darren’s steady temperament, when facing this Barioth—clearly even more energetic than those from the Old World—he could not help but feel somewhat frustrated.
Holding Blazing Wing in his hand, his eyes were fixed firmly on the opponent.
Beneath the Barioth’s nest lay an adventure ship from several decades ago—said to be the very ship on which the Field Master’s missing teacher had once been.
Just like Mia, the Field Master’s purpose in coming to the New World was not merely to uncover the secret of the Elder Crossing.
Searching for traces of her missing teacher was also one of her goals!
What’s more, based on the information currently obtained from that ice-sealed wreck, it seemed that the adventure ship had also heard a "mysterious song" back then and had carried out some investigation because of it.
This could very well provide some assistance to their currently stalled progress.
With that in mind, the Barioth’s existence became something of an obstacle. After careful consideration, Seliana issued a mission to either drive it away or hunt it down.
Facing an opponent they had already crossed paths with once before, and whose troublesome nature was well understood, it was ultimately Darren—the strongest combatant—who was dispatched.
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