The rainy season was waning.
The Samei Rainforest was still damp, and heavy clouds still covered the sky, but the torrential rains that had once swallowed the land were long gone.
The rivers began to recede.
Tributaries gradually narrowed, shoals emerged from beneath the water, and the network of waterways that had once connected the entire floodplain slowly broke apart.
For many creatures, this was merely the cycle of the seasons, but for Famu, the dry season meant another war.
A war against hunger.
He began hunting more frequently.
The creatures around Blackwater Swamp soon noticed that the black shadow was busier than before.
The dry season was no easy time to survive. It was purgatory for all cold-blooded rulers, a season of hunger and slumber.
Although the dry season in the Samei Rainforest did not last long, the decrease in rainfall would shrink the waterways, leaving Famu fewer routes along which he could move quickly. Before the dry season arrived, Famu needed to obtain enough food, preferably enough to mature his special organ or light up the roots of the Spiral Tree. He had to accomplish at least one of the two.
As Famu pondered this, the monkeys sounded a warning: five syllables.
That green female Typhon had come again.
The immense dark-green creature stopped on the outskirts of the swamp, where yellow and green met. She did not rashly enter Famu's territory, instead resting half her body on the mudflat with a long-haired deer clamped in her jaws.
Serrated teeth pierced flesh, and blood seeped down the deer's fur into the muddy water, giving off a tempting scent.
A deep resonance came from beneath the water.
She gave her name.
Xing Rui.
The ruler of the middle Mara River basin, the master of dozens of kilometers of waterways upstream from that floodplain.
Xing Rui seemed to have forgotten her fight with Famu not long ago. They should have been enemies.
But the law of the rainforest was that simple: strength earned respect, and respect warranted a formal visit.
Famu slowly rose from the deep water, his black scales gleaming like dark gold in the pale daylight.
He reined in the fighting spirit in his muscles and accepted the prey Xing Rui had brought as a diplomatic offering. He needed information; he knew very little about this vast, unknown Typhon population.
Soon, he realized how unusual he was.
"Grandmother Zonna, you're only ten? I thought you were already an adult!"
Xing Rui stared at the male Typhon, who was hardly much smaller than she was, utterly astonished.
Famu moved a little to the side because Xing Rui smelled foul and fishy.
Famu had lied to her. In fact, he was only a year and a half old as a Typhon. But according to Xing Rui, she had initially thought Famu was an adult female Typhon. A male Typhon of Famu's size was practically unheard of at ten years old; he was already bigger than an adult male Typhon.
Xing Rui told him a great deal about the Typhon race.
At the top of the Samei Rainforest's ecological pyramid, the Typhons were a race ruled by matriarchal clans.
It was a species with an extreme disparity in size between the sexes.
Adult male Typhons averaged only twelve meters in length, with long, slender bodies and a pair of hemipenes concealed in their tails. They were shadow stalkers of the rainforest, most active at dusk and during cool nights. Female Typhons, on the other hand, were true heavily armored warriors, averaging over sixteen meters long, with thick bones, astonishing muscle density, and glands on their bodies that released powerful odors. These scents marked ownership of their territory.
Strong female lords ruled over fertile tributaries, bringing more than a dozen males under their control.
Males matured at fourteen, while females only reached adulthood at sixteen. Before then, underage females were driven from the fertile main tributaries and could only eke out an existence in the barren swamps on the fringes until they matured. Males, meanwhile, were kept and raised within the territory. According to Xing Rui, a lord's territory even had elders who specifically taught history and writing.
Male Typhons were not responsible for waging war; they were responsible for passing down knowledge. That was why Xing Rui had been so surprised to meet Famu—not only because of his exceptional size, but also because his habits were no different from a warrior's.
Xing Rui stared at the member of her species before her, black from head to tail.
Even after receiving confirmation, she still found it hard to believe. It was too outrageous.
Was he really only ten?
At that age, most male Typhons should theoretically still have been hiding from large birds of prey and giant crocodiles, sheltered under the protection of a Typhon lord. Yet this fellow possessed a frame and muscles that outmatched hers.
Those scales, hard as black iron, were more tightly packed than those of some long-established lords Xing Rui had seen.
She could not know that within the Black Typhon's body, a scepter from an ancient civilization governed his growth. The Scepter System had shortened Famu's juvenile period, giving him great strength and an exceptional ability to withstand danger.
That was why Famu had long since left his juvenile stage behind.
At a year and a half old, Famu was the equal of a subadult female Typhon, far exceeding the average for an adult male.
He really was a monster.
Xing Rui, too, looked at Famu as though he were a monster. She stammered, "I'm fifteen, almost an adult. I thought you were nearly grown, just like me."
Oh. Famu understood at once. This nearly grown female Typhon had come looking for a mate.
Xing Rui's affection was all too obvious to Famu, but he had no intention of mating at all.
"Next year's rainy season will be my coming-of-age ceremony," Xing Rui continued.
There was a coming-of-age ceremony too?
Was society in the rainforest that advanced?
Xing Rui blew bubbles in the pool, and the vibrations conveyed her melancholy.
As Xing Rui spoke in fits and starts, the rainforest, which had felt alien and savage to Famu, unexpectedly acquired a hint of civilization.
The main channel in the middle reaches of the Samei River, along with the boundless swamp rainforest to the west, was divided among thirty to forty powerful Typhon lords, each occupying a plentiful tributary.
When the rains were at their heaviest, newly matured Typhons would swim upstream along the floodwaters to the Samei River's upper reaches, the queen's King's Territory.
"We have to swim along the surging floodwaters, to the deepest part of the Samei River, to the Sea of Doern. That's the queen's King's Territory."
"There, the great queen will personally preside over the coming-of-age ceremony for the new warriors. Many powerful lords will also come from their own fiefs to choose the strongest warriors, or drive away the losers..."
Xing Rui spoke of this with great longing.
Xing Rui's language system was not fully developed, and Famu often had to prompt her on how to tell her story.
This was normal. Female Typhons grew up carefree until the age of three, learning about the rainforest under the care of priests. Knowledge came from language, and Typhons had their own Mud Language, which they drew on mud tablets with their tails or heads.
"You're really good at Mud Language, even better than the priests," Xing Rui said, eyeing Famu suspiciously. "You're not a priest who sneaked away from some lord, are you? Where are your mother and father? Don't they look after you?"
It wasn't that Famu learned quickly. He had only recently begun to grasp Mud Language, and all he knew were a few words and phrases he had picked up from Xing Rui.
But Famu was human, and his language system was fully developed. Just as he had deciphered the monkeys' way of communicating, learning the Typhons' language was much like learning a rudimentary foreign language. He quickly arranged the vibrational syllables and answered Xing Rui's question.
"Of course not. In fact, I've never met my parents." This time, Famu told the truth.