"Roar!"
This time, it was Headscar's turn to struggle.
Iron claws sank into his shoulder blades, leaving Headscar unable to exert any strength. Then a tremendous force swept over him. His legs kicked wildly as he was lifted clean off the ground.
"Whoosh—!" A gale swept through the woods. As Headscar struggled, glaring sunlight suddenly struck his face.
He stared blankly at the sky. The blazing sun hung at the far end of the heavens, and a sea of forest green stretched along the horizon where earth met sky.
The giant white-feathered bird holding him glanced at Headscar, beat its wings, and flew toward the tallest crown in that sea of trees.
It was a nest, an enormous one, with a vast layer of dead branches for a floor and the canopy providing shelter. Headscar was thrown down into the nest. He raised his head to find a giant beast standing before him.
White feathers covered its body, a crest rose from its head, and its enormous hooked beak curved slightly downward. A raised ridge of bone above its eyes made its face look especially fierce.
A Furnace-Core Creature, an Intelligent Species of Titan Feather-Crested Heron.
The Titan Feather-Crested Heron that had captured Headscar slowly landed and folded his wings. He glared fiercely at Headscar, then stood beside the giant beast.
Headscar realized it.
They were father and son.
"Why not kill him?" the son asked his father.
"As far as I know, no Nightmare Leopard family is active in this area. He came from another stretch of forest," the giant beast replied, his voice hoarse and exceedingly old. "Why do you suppose a Nightmare Leopard without a group would come all the way here? Does he look like he's been living poorly?"
The young Crowned Heron shook his head. He had to admit Headscar was a formidable fellow, a large specimen among the Nightmare Leopards he had seen.
"If he was living so well in his old territory, why would he come here to ours?" the old Crowned Heron said.
"Have you heard the rumors from the Mara River?" the old Crowned Heron asked.
"Do you mean the ghost favored by the Death God?" The young Crowned Heron was somewhat shocked. He took another few looks at Headscar, his enormous hooked beak almost touching Headscar's face.
Headscar let out a disgruntled roar.
"I can't see anything special about him at all. He's the ghost favored by the Death God?"
According to the rumors from the Mara River, a rainforest ghost had gained the Death God's favor. No creature could stand against him, and all who did became the dead. His claws could do anything, his form darted through the forest, and the prey he fixed his gaze on received an invitation from the Death God.
"Nightmare Leopards are ghosts of Samei to begin with. Apart from a few super species, they're the oldest species in the Samei Rainforest." The old Crowned Heron sighed. "Golden-Horn Dute offended this fellow, and his entire family was wiped out. The black vultures saw a scene of corpses strewn everywhere. The Horned Giant Rhinos' bodies lay rotting in the mud, yet no scavenger dared show its head and trespass on that territory. They were killed by the Death God, and no creature would gamble on whether it would follow in the Horned Giant Rhinos' footsteps."
"Of course we can't kill him. Ask him why he's come, and whether the Death God is coming to take my life."
"Father!" The young Crowned Heron was frantic.
"Rumble—!"
The nest shook violently.
The layer of dead branches serving as the floor split apart. The Crowned Herons roosting in the canopy took flight in alarm. They flew into the sky and looked down to see the old tree where their entire family had roosted for a century slowly falling.
The flock screeched and wailed.
The earth was shaking.
The enormous crown swept through neighboring giant trees, overturning their crowns like waves and sending branches and leaves flying through the air. The Crowned Herons screamed as they fled, the white flock darting between the falling crowns like scraps of paper caught in a storm.
Headscar crouched in the nest, gripping a branch.
He felt the whole tree collapsing. Wood chips and shredded leaves pounded against him, and he saw the sky spinning.
The young Crowned Heron seized his father and struggled to lift the giant beast. Only then did Headscar discover that the aged Furnace-Core Creature had lost the ability to fly. He had only one complete wing; the other was maimed. There were also several enormous wounds on his back, hidden from Headscar's view. Though those wounds had healed, not even feathers could grow to cover the flesh between them.
He was an aged giant beast, and also a pitiful fellow who had suffered grievous injuries and was close to death.
Above the pitch-black ground, the tree crown tilted. Several gaps opened in the green sea of trees covering the sky, and shafts of sunlight fell through, illuminating the monster coiled around the tree.
Black Typhon was wrapped around the giant tree in coils. The Child of the Earth's Furnace Core was operating at full power. He still couldn't apply vibrations to the tree, but his own strength was more than enough. He released waves of vibration, one after another, slowly twisting the trunk apart. Cracks climbed upward from where he was coiled, racing along the bark like lightning.
"Hum—!"
It was the fiercest vibration yet.
Famu toppled the giant tree.
Centuries of growth were returned to the earth at that moment.
The crown fell against the bodies of the other giant trees. The trunk came away from the stump and crashed into the ground, sending dead branches and rotting leaves flying for hundreds of meters around. The shock wave swept broken branches and dust outward. The howling wind spread all the way to the river where Famu had lain in wait earlier, blowing a leaf into the water.
Ripples spread.
Dust billowed.
As he fell, Headscar leaped and caught a branch on a neighboring giant tree. A Nightmare Leopard was no less agile in the trees than a primate. He raised his head and saw Black Typhon twist the trunk apart with his own eyes. The sight filled Headscar with greater terror than the killing of any other creature. It was as though Black Typhon were challenging nature with a body of flesh and blood, killing a giant tree that had grown for centuries so easily.
The dust began to settle.
The young Crowned Heron could no longer carry his father. Although his father was a giant beast whose physique far surpassed his own, for a Furnace Core Titan Crowned Heron, lifting prey twice his own weight should have been easy.
Yet he couldn't carry him.
His father's weight felt somewhat wrong, but he could only fold his wings and set his father down in a safe clearing.
Then both father and son saw a shadow.
The dust had yet to settle, but the shadow had already passed through it.
Sunlight illuminated black iron scales, and an ashen-blue facial bone loomed in and out of sight through the dust.
The young Crowned Heron beat his wings and raised himself upright, letting out a piercing cry as he displayed his physique.
What kind of monster was that?
He was afraid.
He couldn't even make out what the other creature looked like, yet he was afraid. His body trembled, his Furnace Core trembled, and a terrifying, awe-inspiring presence swept over him from within the dust.
The old Crowned Heron lay in the clearing. He was already inferior to his child in every respect, but his sharp eyes were far better.
He recognized what had come and sighed weakly.
"It's the Death God. The Death God has come. The ghost really did bring the Death God's invitation."