Anyone who has played any Monster Hunter game will have probably noticed at some point that the ways these so called "monsters" act are strangely familiar, with their behavior being more animalistic than monstrous. This is without a doubt the thing...
Daylight breaks over the landscape, turning the sky into a bright pink and revealing a surreal ecosystem that reaches high into the clouds. The sun's rays illuminate a colorful tapestry of coral species, the foundation of the area's geography and ecology, with every inhabitant of the region depending on these organisms in one way or another.
Over millions of years, the mega-corals that once inhabited the underwater caverns far below grew on top of each other and out of the water, bioenergy from the everstream and the necronutrients of the rotten vale allowed them to pull this off, until the stacked skeletons of these titanic organisms reached the heavens, creating a brand new ecosystem. As these previously aquatic lifeforms grew higher, some brought their smaller counterparts with them, while others were launched up there after the explosive death of a Zorah Magdaros. Yet, these other species didn't stay at such diminutive sizes for long.
Using the bodies of both living and dead mega-coral as points to anchor themselves, these smaller species diversified in a variety of ways, many filling in the ecological niches of vegetation, while both lineages still managing to coexist peacefully. The domination of coral throughout the environment has given rise to a massive and diverse cast of organisms, providing nutrients via the billions of eggs they produce, the water they collect and store, and the sand they become once their skeletons break down.
The smaller species don't just provide nutrition to other lifeforms; they also give the landscape its unique geography. While mega-coral is the bedrock of this terrain, many of their more diminutive relatives make up the microbiomes found throughout the land. Tree Corals turn the lower layers known as the coral depths into a lively, yet dark, pseudo forest, their branching arms and leaf-like polyps blocking out the light. Meanwhile, in the highlands, Plate Corals make up the windswept plateaus that litter the higher elevations, creating platforms for many plants and animals in places that would be an otherwise vertical terrain.
Although coral is an integral part of life here, there's another force at play that shapes the species that call this landscape home: wind. Due to this environment's high elevation, thousands of air currents flow across the region, and a large majority of the organisms here have evolved to take advantage of this phenomenon. Corals use them to spread their eggs while many creatures use the gusts to travel, and one animal is particularly adept at harnessing these gusts.
As the sun continues rising higher into the sky, its ray gleams down upon one of the tallest peaks in the region, the massive, petrified Mega-coral skeleton just managing to reach past the clouds. Cavities in the colossal structure release air currents, creating an updraft that can be exploited by the many winged denizens of the highlands; however, very few creatures travel this far up, and for good reason.
Whilst the light illuminates the terrain, a few shafts slip past a cluster of small, branch-like corals, revealing the sleeping form of Whirlwind, an old female Legiana. With the scattered rays hitting her face repeatedly, it doesn't take long before the flying wyvern stirs before fully awakening. Yawning, she slowly gets up before stretching out her massive, uniquely shaped wings.
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