A third of the dry season had passed.
Blackwater Swamp remained peaceful, its ruler fast asleep.
Black Typhon lay coiled in Stalagmite Hall, his body temperature high enough to dry up the moisture in the cave. Every now and then, wisps of white smoke rose from between his scales.
Big fish grew fat in the deep water, and capybaras dared to sleep on the shallows. All of Blackwater Swamp was cautiously enjoying this time without its lord.
Except Headscar.
Headscar knew what the lord was doing.
Black Typhon slept within the rock walls, waiting to awaken.
Headscar saw the pools gradually shrinking and caught glimpses of other predators that often roamed the swamp's borders. In this season, any pond that had not dried up was a hot spot, with hunters of every kind rubbing their paws, ready to make a big move.
Headscar's prey had also begun to dwindle. He ventured deep into the highland forest, following the tracks of a tusked boar for most of the day, until the trail led him into a woodland he had never entered before.
The shadows of the trees were sparse, the ground was dry, and there was no scent of his own kind in the air.
It was here that Headscar ran into trouble.
He had somehow blundered into a Horned Giant Rhino's territory.
And this place just had to belong to Horned Giant Rhinos.
Horned Giant Rhinos could be considered the largest herbivores in the Samei Rainforest, tanks that ran roughshod over water and land alike. To them, Nightmare Leopards were merely kittens, and Titan Feather-Crested Herons merely little birds. They weighed five tons, stood as tall at the shoulder as three Nightmare Leopards stacked atop one another, and had skin so thick that the rainforest's sharp claws and teeth shrank from it in fear.
Worst of all, these creatures had terrible tempers.
They would gore any animal that provoked them through the belly.
But Horned Giant Rhinos usually kept to a certain range, marking their territory with urine. Headscar was a cautious hunter; he would not make such a basic mistake.
There had definitely been no scent of Horned Giant Rhinos here.
Headscar backed away slowly, but the situation was dire. Horned Giant Rhinos were not solitary animals; they lived in family units. Besides the enormous one facing Headscar, three others had surrounded the area.
This was a behemoth even a family of Nightmare Leopards would not provoke lightly, yet Headscar had to face four of them alone.
Why had he blundered in here? Had he really been careless?
So careless that he had failed to recognize Horned Giant Rhino territory?
"Boom—"
Directly in front of Headscar, the largest male Horned Giant Rhino growled.
His skin was gray-black, threaded with fine golden lines. Those were actually the color of the skin beneath a Horned Giant Rhino's folds. Two enormous horns, one large and one small, grew from his snout. The larger horn was almost bigger than Headscar's body, and it was also the source of the Horned Giant Rhino's name.
Was this Horned Giant Rhino a golden specimen?
Headscar had never seen a golden Horned Giant Rhino before, and he sensed that there was something unusual about this one.
The other Horned Giant Rhinos charged Headscar, while the golden one stood motionless, watching him the entire time.
Headscar could not handle even one of the Horned Giant Rhinos. He had been struck in the flank and was running out of strength, able only to growl again and again.
Headscar raised his head and saw the mockery in the golden Horned Giant Rhino's eyes.
He let out several low growls.
The other Horned Giant Rhinos preparing to attack moved aside, leaving the spot to their leader.
"Don't you have any elders, kitten?" the golden Horned Giant Rhino said.
Headscar could not understand the language. To his ears, the golden Horned Giant Rhino was merely roaring in a particular rhythm.
He retreated step by step.
"Can't understand me? So you really don't have any elders. A lone Nightmare Leopard who left his family. I thought you were that fellow's descendant," the Horned Giant Rhino continued.
"Kill him. Leave the corpse intact."
The golden Horned Giant Rhino gave the order.
The other Horned Giant Rhinos aimed their horns at Headscar, but the pain of being pierced never came. The Horned Giant Rhino that had turned toward him was pinned to the ground.
It was a second Nightmare Leopard.
But this Nightmare Leopard was a full two times larger than Headscar, with a mouth full of fangs, bulging arm muscles, and fur covered in red spots. He stepped down from the fallen Horned Giant Rhino and held his head high, coldly meeting the golden Horned Giant Rhino's gaze like two kings staring at each other across a river.
Headscar did not understand what had happened.
Could a Nightmare Leopard grow that big? Even the strongest leader his old family had ever had would have looked like a cub before that thing. He was scarcely smaller than the other Horned Giant Rhinos.
"Red-Spot Colin," the Horned Giant Rhino said.
"Golden-Horn Dute," the Nightmare Leopard said.
The Nightmare Leopard and the Horned Giant Rhino spoke each other's names. It seemed they had borne a grudge against each other for a long time.
After speaking, Red-Spot Colin lowered his head to look at Headscar. "Kid, get the hell away. What an idiot."
Headscar understood what the giant Nightmare Leopard had said. He immediately realized that the giant Nightmare Leopard was an intelligent creature like Typhon, and instinctively ignored even the curse Red-Spot Colin had hurled at him.
A creature with intelligence, no longer a savage beast.
So Typhon was not the only intelligent species in the rainforest?
Famu awoke from hunger.
The energy stored in his Furnace Core had been exhausted, and his plan to transform into a dragon could only come to a halt.
But the changes brought about by the plan had already begun to take shape.
An unusually thick neck and a broad, heavy skull: to make full use of the power of his biting apparatus, Famu's lower jaw was almost as large as his upper jaw. But Famu's upper jaw included his skull, which meant his lower jaw was all muscle. The backward-curving serrated teeth in his mouth had not completely shed, however; that would require enough calcium.
Famu flexed his body in Stalagmite Hall, his shed skin carpeting the ground. His bones cracked, his rough iron scales rasped against one another, and his even larger body pressed against the rock walls and stalagmites, filling the entire cavern with a metallic rumble.
After moving around for a while, Famu went to a corner of Stalagmite Hall and strained his muscles.
Unfortunately, nothing came out. Now he did not even have any shit left. To obtain energy, the Furnace Core had absorbed every last bit of his shit and urine. Famu stayed coiled there for a long time, unable to squeeze out even a fart.
Damn it, sure, everything's been digested, but how is this any different from constipation?
After stubbornly squatting for a while and confirming that he could not get anything out at all, Famu sighed, flicked his tail, and slithered out of his nest.
The cave entrance was much brighter than before. The water level had dropped, leaving most of the opening exposed to the air.
His belly was empty, his Furnace Core was empty, and that Spiral Tree had shown no activity for a long time.
Nothing had happened since the Staff of Life's roots had all lit up. During this sleep, while the Furnace Core was busy modifying his body, Famu had spent some more time studying the Life Scepter System, but still had made no progress.
Famu had originally thought the key was a Furnace-Core Creature he had never preyed upon before, but that giant bird should have been a Furnace-Core Creature. The Furnace Core had reacted, and the power of the Child of the Earth had matured, but the Life Scepter System still had not.
He could only say that the Scepter System was simply more exalted than a biological Furnace Core.
A creation of exalted human civilization would not open its doors to mere flesh and blood.
He slithered out of the swamp. The sun blazed outside, and a troop of White-Faced Monkeys was feeding in the Samei trees. It seemed those fellows had returned while Famu slept.
The corpse of an otter, gnawed beyond recognition, lay in a tree.
An otter?
The monkeys could not have killed an otter.
Famu slithered onto the beach and picked up Headscar's scent. He had not stayed long, and the scent had probably been left three days ago.
Headscar ought to be nearly an adult by now. Famu wondered out of the blue whether he had found a mate. It would be best if he sired a litter of Nightmare Leopards, raised a family, and then all of them served Famu. One hound was a hound; a litter of hounds was a pack.
That sounded pretty good.
Famu could even name every one of them, Headscar Two, Headscar Three...
But for now, he had to do his own cooking.
Famu left along the eastern side of the swamp, his heavy body slithering toward the Mara River.
The dry season in the rainforest drove prey toward the dwindling pools, and brought predators into one another's sight as well. Sooner or later, he would encounter something at the Mara River, but he was ready.
If one of his own kind bared its teeth at him, he would make that one his food.