The snake was dancing.
The old Crowned Heron was certain he had seen this Typhon dance.
His winding, massive body lifted his iron-gray head as he slowly rose to the vibrations within him.
The Crowned Herons circling overhead had yet to realize how serious the situation was. They could not sense the immense earth vein energy blanketing the area. The vibrations grew louder and louder, and Black Typhon rose higher and higher. He opened his mouth and roared at the white feathers, as though he meant to plunder the sky itself.
Then something incredible happened.
The Crowned Herons close to Typhon caught fire.
Not one or two, but every single one close to Black Typhon!
With himself at the center, Black Typhon had released an invisible domain. The air warped within it, and feathers ignited. The Crowned Herons wailed as they fell from the sky, their feathers blazing. They crashed to the ground and soon fell silent.
The graceful white feathers were swallowed by flames one after another. They did not know what was happening. A boundary had suddenly appeared between life and death: their companions who crossed it died in an instant and became balls of fire, while the white feathers who had yet to cross it did not know where to go.
The rainforest's ancient law held that fire was the enemy of all living things. It would devour every living creature in sight.
And in the Samei Rainforest, only one power symbolized fire.
Those tyrants that swallowed lava, the Dead Sun Armor. The Day of Death could set all things ablaze and boil great rivers.
The old Crowned Heron's gaze froze.
The High-Temperature Domain. Why could this Typhon release the High-Temperature Domain?
The sun was sinking into the western forest, leaving a crimson afterglow on the horizon. It dyed Black Typhon's scales red, like iron being tempered. Wings fell around him, falling back to the earth, where his body crushed them into scraps.
No, he had to do something.
He remembered every one of these children's faces clearly. He had watched the little ones grow up; he had even watched their ancestors grow up. Their ancestors had followed him, and he had led those brave warriors to conquer a vast territory. Back then, even Ra would not have slighted him. The ancient Sunbird had once invited him to cross the sea of clouds and go to the place where the sun rose and set.
He had declined, because he had sworn before the bodies of those old warriors that he would keep the family alive.
The old Crowned Heron's memories gradually blurred. His memories of the family, those faces, and the things he had experienced were all growing indistinct. He feared he was about to die, together with these children.
But the scene before him filled the old Crowned Heron with an unnamed fury.
Flames, black scales, a domain of scorching heat, a savage behemoth, companions falling one by one, corpses swallowed by a black shadow one by one.
Some shackle inside him snapped with a click.
A memory buried deep in his heart, left unopened for so long, rushed into his mind at that instant.
It was from when the old Crowned Heron was young. He had looked down upon the skies of Samei and built the White Empire above the sea of trees. The white feathers had followed him, and every warrior had been full of hope for the Crowned Herons' future.
He was not an inferior Furnace-Core Creature like Golden-Horn Dute. He could rival Ra, the overlord of the skies, and whip up gales that flattened ancient trees.
Proud and complacent, he had believed he had no need to fear the other creatures in Samei.
After all, he had wings and could take to the sky in an instant. What threat could anything on the ground pose to him?
He had longed for strength and needed more earth veins, not only for himself but also for his family, his brothers. But earth veins were scarce in the Samei Rainforest, and he could find no more.
Then he had seen the Dead Sun Armor.
That scaly behemoth swimming through the water.
This Dead Sun Armor was young, yet it occupied a place rich in earth vein resources, where the earth vein energy had even condensed into a solid.
He had led his family in an attack on the Dead Sun Armor.
The Crowned Herons were accustomed to attacking prey on the ground like this. The sky would spare them the cost; the troubles on the ground could not burn their wings.
He had succeeded, taking the earth vein ore from the Dead Sun Armor's territory.
But it was also then that he, young as he was, had learned something.
For certain beings, even if the sky absolved you of your sins, they would pass judgment themselves.
The Lord of the Gulf Stream had grown furious.
The High-Temperature Domain covered the sky where the Crowned Herons lived. Under the sun's gaze, the Day of Death set every Crowned Heron ablaze!
What a terrifying sight it had been. He could only watch as his companions caught fire and lost their strength, falling from the sky to be killed by the impact or bitten to death by the Dead Sun Armor. The Dead Sun Armor put the Crowned Herons' charred corpses into its mouth and slowly ground them to pieces, mocking his ignorance with its bloodstained face.
He had fled.
His wings were mangled, and much of his back was burned. Those terrible wounds would not heal, and he could only drag out a feeble existence in his ruined body. He had swallowed the earth vein ore taken from the flame tyrant, gulping down great chunks of stone to shield himself from its earth vein energy. But that was clearly not enough. Earth vein energy was no blessing from Mother Earth at all; it was the bones and blood of a demon, bound to bring calamity.
After he returned to the nest, his wounds began to fester, and his body grew bloated. He knew these were all effects of the earth vein ore.
The old Crowned Heron had intended to give the ore to Ronan before he died and forget their past enmity, because he had brought it upon himself.
But that face seemed to overlap with Black Typhon's now.
The old Crowned Heron's vision was blurring. He could not tell which way he was facing, nor could he hear the vibrations.
But the beating of the Furnace Core inside him grew ever clearer.
His stomach churned.
A Crowned Heron's stomach consisted of the proventriculus at the front and the gizzard at the back.
The proventriculus contained digestive glands that secreted digestive juices and served to digest food. The gizzard, also known as the "grit sac," was the equivalent of a bird's teeth. It stored swallowed grit and stones, which were used primarily to grind up food. It was the best place to hide the earth vein ore.
Now the gizzard contracted, driving the thing that had burdened him beyond endurance into the proventriculus.
He had lied to Ronan. There was no earth vein to speak of; it had dried up long ago.
The real earth vein was hidden in his gizzard.
Of course Ronan could not catch him, because earth vein ore was far denser than ordinary living creatures.
The earth vein ore fell into his body, and earth vein energy surged through him. The old Crowned Heron's eyes lost focus.
Long tormented by illness, he simply could not withstand the impact of such highly concentrated earth vein energy. And so he died.
But the earth vein energy forcibly transformed the dead Crowned Heron. Vast wounds healed, and new muscle squeezed out pus and blood. Neat, beautiful feathers covered his body, and the fluid accumulated in his abdomen was absorbed by the Furnace Core, becoming energy for his new body.
He had died, but he was being reborn.
He still needed a vast supply of energy to fuel his body's rebirth.
The behemoth lay on the ground and slowly moved forward. Bones bulged from within his body, piercing his skin, then were swiftly covered by skin and feathers that had weathered countless battles.