In the sky above the Samei Rainforest, vast banks of leaden clouds sank slowly downward.
The Blackwater Swamp was damp and stifling, a sign that a torrential downpour was coming.
Even in the Samei Rainforest's dry season, rainfall was plentiful, though it amounted to less than a tenth of the wet season's. This was a downpour rarely seen in the dry season, as the clouds resembling wet cotton made clear.
After returning from the Green Marsh, Famu began planning his hunt for Dead Sun Armor.
He would hunt Dead Sun Armor, waiting only for the right moment to arrive.
Ra, the young Sunbird, had yet to develop a Furnace Core, while Golden-Horn Dute of the mountains was merely a crude lesser species.
In other words, Famu had yet to hunt down the most valuable prey in this rainforest.
The purest Earth Vein Energy flowed through the bone marrow of those rainforest overlords who had stood above all others for countless years.
Only creatures of that caliber could serve as a key to the Scepter System.
Muerjia's authority, territory, boundaries—these concepts meant nothing to Famu. He had already obtained information about Dead Sun Armor from Xing Rui. That information was important, ensuring that the giant crocodile would not reveal any more strange abilities.
Deep in the rainforest, the air was thick.
Headscar slipped nimbly through the low ferns, his fur soaked with moisture and plastered against his muscular body.
He was already a formidable specimen among Nightmare Leopards. Even the alpha male of the Nightmare Leopard family had to avoid his hunting grounds.
Headscar had once been a loner, his hunting skills born of instinct and talent. But then he met Colin. Even though the king of the Nightmare Leopards had taught Headscar nothing himself, imitation alone had benefited Headscar enormously.
Several hundred meters ahead of him, the shallows of the Mara River lay across the edge of White Forest Bay like a massive wound.
The dry season's receding waters had left most of the riverbed near the shallows exposed to the sun, bleaching it pale and cracking it. Dead shellfish lay scattered among the cracks in the mud. In a few isolated puddles that remained, small fish that had failed to follow the ebbing water back to the depths crowded together in stagnant water, opening their gills in vain and blowing white foam.
Those little creatures were not the point.
Headscar slowly shifted his gaze.
Several pieces of scorched black volcanic rock rose from the deep water below the shallows.
Headscar lowered himself more cautiously, hiding himself as best he could. This was one of the rudiments he had learned from Colin: when Colin stood beneath a tree, his fur blended with the shade, making it impossible to tell what stood beneath it.
Headscar stared at the scorched volcanic rocks, then quickly looked away. He couldn't keep staring, or the other side would notice.
He knew all too well what they were.
There was no naturally formed volcanic rock on the beach.
Those were the bony protrusions on Dead Sun Armor's back, exposed above the water.
His immense, ten-meter-long body lay half submerged, hidden deep in the water. Row upon row of specialized, gigantic bony protrusions on his back gleamed like obsidian.
Occasionally, white-hot steam spewed from a gap between two of the overlapping, massive protrusions, scalding the stagnant water around them and raising layers of tiny bubbles.
A strong smell of sulfur hung in the air.
Just as Famu had expected, the giant crocodile had not abandoned this fertile bay.
He was still roaming freely through this sensitive area where the waters met.
The underwater tyrant lay silently in the water, with a Giant-Toothed Beast torn to pieces floating beside him. It was his lunch. After eating it, Dead Sun Armor stopped moving and appeared to be asleep.
Headscar took note of that detail.
He had never seen a giant crocodile like this one, powerful as an unshakable fortress of black iron.
This was Black Typhon's enemy, and only a creature like this was worthy of being Black Typhon's enemy.
Headscar returned to the Blackwater Swamp and brought the news to Famu.
Headscar was an exceptionally capable scout.
He traveled between the Blackwater Swamp and White Forest Bay day and night, reporting details about Dead Sun Armor to Famu.
Headscar had mapped out the fellow's range. It almost entirely overlapped with the area where Famu had previously roamed the Mara River. Both had, with a tacit understanding, carefully avoided the waters under Muerjia's control.
Famu was adjusting his condition.
The Child of the Earth brought the tension in every muscle group to its peak while slowing his metabolism, ensuring that the remaining Earth Vein Energy in his body could be absorbed by the Furnace Core.
The segments of his dragonized spine locked together, muscles bulging along his thick body.
He briefly left the Blackwater Swamp and went hunting.
This was the most suitable prey Famu had selected.
A Black Kai Crocodile nearly seven meters long. These giant crocodiles ran rampant in the swamp's ecological niche. Their scale structure was very similar to Dead Sun Armor's, and their massive backs could withstand a Nightmare Leopard's claws and the constricting coils of an ordinary giant python. Their bite was also astonishingly powerful, capable of easily tearing a prey animal's limbs apart.
This was Famu's mock test. He trapped the giant crocodile and grappled with it in deep water, allowing the beast to attack.
The neck, the head, and the lower part of the body that a snake had difficulty guarding were all targets of the Black Kai Crocodile's attacks.
Black Kai Crocodiles had plenty of dealings with the rainforest's giant pythons, and the crocodiles generally won. Most giant pythons or anacondas could only bully young Black Kai Crocodiles.
The real threat to them was Nightmare Leopards. These unreasonable leopards could enter the water to hunt them, piercing their skulls with their canines and crushing their brains outright.
Surrounded by Famu, the Black Kai Crocodile grew agitated. It attacked again and again, but could not break through the black snake's scales.
It had no idea what its opponent was doing.
Famu coiled around it.
With a Typhon's constricting power, the Black Kai Crocodile's crocodile life would naturally have ended.
But Famu bit it.
His powerful jaws clamped onto the gap of soft skin beneath the Black Kai Crocodile's snout, at the junction between its skull and body.
It was very soft, and Famu's differentiated teeth sank in with ease.
His serpentine body coiled around the Black Kai Crocodile, pinning it in place. Then Famu gripped the soft skin in his jaws and twisted gently.
"Crack—!"
The torque burst forth, and the Black Kai Crocodile's hard skull, its pride and joy, separated from its cervical vertebrae as it turned. Famu kept twisting until he tore the crocodile's head from its body, then swallowed it in a few bites. He feasted on the Black Kai Crocodile and returned to the Blackwater Swamp.
That was the weak point of crocodilians.
But the battle had to take place in deep water. In the shallows, Famu would have difficulty striking that spot from below.
All that remained was to wait.
Famu lay coiled on the small island in the swamp, his scarlet tongue picking up the rising humidity in the air.
This downpour would wipe away Famu's sounds and scent.
"Rumble—!!"
Thunder.
That day, the clouds hung extremely low and black.
Bean-sized raindrops hammered down in dense sheets.
They struck the cracked mud bed and the withered ferns.
Dry channels filled with turbid mudflows within minutes, and a pungent smell of dry earth and fishiness rose between heaven and earth.
Rainwater washed over Black Typhon's facial bones, pouring down the grooves between his steel-gray scales.
The Furnace Core began to stir, and the rain striking Famu's scales turned into white steam.
In the mire, the giant beast, black as iron, began crawling toward the river bend.