On the platform, the strongest Nightmare Leopard, the leader, opened his eyes a fraction.
He turned his head slightly, his ear twitching as he heard a faint sound from the mud pool nearby.
The mud pool. He remembered two of them had gone past him on their way there, affectionately licking each other's fur as they walked. The leader glanced at the platform again and spotted their saliva.
Somewhat disgusted, he shifted position and lay with his head facing inward.
The scent on the wind was pure, carrying neither the urine stench of unfamiliar members of his kind entering the territory nor the sound of large hoofed animals' hooves.
Apart from the rich, savory smell of the Sa Mei Longhorned Tough Boar they had just shared, the whole plateau was as tranquil as a deserted grave.
"Sniff, sniff." The leader's nose twitched several times.
The next moment, a furious growl rang out. The leader's fur bristled, his fangs bared, and he sprang to his feet, going from relaxed repose to attack in an instant.
His black fur stood on end, his shoulder blades rose high, and moonlight fell across the contours of his muscles. The strength hidden beneath his coat surged anew like a river roused from sleep.
All the Nightmare Leopards resting nearby woke with a start.
They raised their heads and quickly gathered around the leader, alert to their surroundings.
"Roar—" The leader stared coldly at the jungle below the platform.
It was pitch-black there.
There was nothing.
But his body told him otherwise.
There was a hunter there, one larger than he was.
His claws slowly sank into the rock. Instinct honed by years of hunting made him feel a pressure he had not felt in a long time.
The next moment.
Two points of pale light appeared in the darkness.
The leader's pupils contracted.
He was certain he had seen the enemy.
"Roar—!"
The roar exploded.
He was the first to leap down from the platform.
The males behind him followed close on his heels, spreading out to either side in an attempt to surround the enemy.
Nightmare Leopards were the rainforest's apex predators. They had never had reason to give way.
On this brutal land, any solitary predator feared injury and illness, for wounds meant hunger and death.
But a group of Nightmare Leopards was different. Injured warriors were given priority when prey was shared, until their bones and muscles rebuilt themselves and they recovered their fighting strength. This superior social structure allowed them to hunt monsters several times their own size without restraint.
Their opponents feared wounds and the loss of mobility. Any injury would affect their hunting efficiency.
But Nightmare Leopards did not. They were willing to trade wounds for victory.
This time, however, they faced a completely different kind of creature.
"Whoosh—"
A fierce wind howled.
The wind in the forest reversed direction in moments, and the leader caught a sickening stench on it.
That thing is moving!
How big would a creature have to be to stir up a foul wind like this?
The leader had no time to think. He lunged to bite, determined to see what the creature really looked like and tell it with his fangs that this territory was not a place just anyone could enter.
But he missed.
There was nothing in the darkness.
Only a huge mark in the mud, winding and broad, as though a watercourse had just passed through.
The leader looked down.
Then he heard a sound behind him.
Behind me!
"Boom—!"
A tremendous vibration erupted. It was a roar, one that enveloped the entire plateau and left the agile, powerful males' vision swimming.
Then the slaughter began.
A huge black shadow swept across the ground, striking a male from the side. It looked like a direct collision, but the enormous creature had actually opened its backward-curving jaws, caught the entire male in its mouth, and lifted him into the air.
With a bend of its neck, it coiled around him using only the upper half of its body. Bones broke and organs burst in an instant. There was no need to wait for prey to suffocate, because it would be crushed to death in its embrace.
Famu released the male, letting the now limp Nightmare Leopard fall to the ground like a deflated doll.
The leader stood there.
At last, he saw what his enemy looked like.
A Black Typhon.
By the Leopard God's ghost, how did a Typhon appear here?
And judging by his size, he was certainly no cub catching fish in the shallows. He was a pure-blooded overlord in his prime.
The leader was experienced and knowledgeable. He had seen Typhons before. This Super Species ruled the depths of the rainforest, all muscle and brute strength, and was considered Mother Earth's firstborn. Legend said these Children of the Earth possessed the power to tear the land apart.
The leader did not know whether this Black Typhon could tear the land apart. He did know that the Typhon could easily tear his kin to pieces.
Worse still, the Typhon had positioned himself squarely across the exit from the cubs' den, cutting it off from the group of males.
With their explosive speed, the males had only to turn and plunge into the dense forest, and the giant would never be able to catch all these ghosts.
But behind their line of retreat were their wives and the offspring who carried their blood.
The leader glanced at Famu.
He suddenly realized.
The monster had made a mistake.
He had come onto land, entering the battlefield where Nightmare Leopards excelled, to fight the family's elite.
A Typhon's enormous body gave him devastating power. But it constrained him too. On the uneven rocky ground, in such an open space, the nimble Nightmare Leopards could wear him down.
They still had a chance.
At least, that was what the leader believed.
During the brief standoff, Famu gave them little time to think.
Black scales scraped a trail of dazzling sparks across the granite as he launched his second attack.
His target was the second male, the one closest to him.
The male shot away like a bolt of black lightning, opening a safe distance of more than ten meters.
An exceptionally powerful leap and ability to move.
Famu had already exposed himself to the leopards, and his attack had failed.
Oh, quick reaction.
Famu felt no frustration.
His enormous black body swung around. Without getting entangled, he headed without hesitation toward the den deep in the plateau, thick with the scent of cubs.
This was why he had wanted to know where the den was.
If the adult Nightmare Leopards scattered and fled, hunting them down would of course be troublesome. So there was no need to concern himself with feline guerrilla tactics. He only had to go straight for their weak point.
"Roar—!"
Seeing through the Black Typhon's vicious intent, the leader roared in fury.
At the leader's command, the remaining four males closed in.
They kept their distance, constantly darting along the edge of Famu's constricting range, using their Nightmare Leopard agility and sharp claws to counterattack.
In the natural world, this was a classic swarming tactic.
Using their advantage in numbers and speed, they would inflict hundreds or thousands of tiny wounds on a large predator, draining its stamina and blood until the giant collapsed from exhaustion.
Faced with the ghostly black afterimages flickering around him, Famu contracted his body, his muscles bulging. His scales were the toughest armor.
Escape was these males' only option.
Claws and fangs scraped against scales, but the males could not even draw Famu's blood.
Except for the largest one, the leader.
An adult Nightmare Leopard's canine teeth were ten centimeters long, and its bite was powerful enough to easily crush a prey animal's spine. This leader was even more formidable, a third larger than his kin. His claws and teeth were the only weapons sharp enough to pierce Famu's scales.
The leader realized this.
He backed away, paused his attack, lowered his body, and issued an order from his throat.
It was an order to retreat.
He told the other males to retreat and take the females and cubs away.
Famu could not understand the leopards' communication, but the Nightmare Leopard leader's order to retreat distracted one of the males.
His tail tip cleaved the air like a battle-axe, the wind whipping past as it swept across without warning.
"Bang!"
A male trying to attack from the side and rear had no time to twist in midair. He was hit.
The whiplike tail, covered in horny black scales, struck the side of his neck. Half the male's face was smashed, his windpipe ruptured, and the tremendous force twisted his limbs out of shape. He slammed heavily into the ground, whimpering as he struggled to breathe.
Immediately afterward, Famu turned. A second male, retreating after hearing the leader's order, looked up as the blood-reeking jaws closed over his head.
"Crack."
His skull shattered, spraying blood.
Of the five males, three had fallen.
In the blink of an eye, only the leader and one family member remained.
The leader had made a mistake after all. He had believed the Nightmare Leopards held the initiative, that he still had room to bargain with the monster.
The order to retreat had been meant to save the family, but before the Black Typhon, the slightest distraction would cost a male his life.
Is this a true super individual of the rainforest?
Absolute strength and landborne agility beyond imagination. Even the leader felt despair.
The other male beside the leader broke down. After a mournful cry, he sprang off the rocks and, without looking back, turned into a wisp of black smoke, fleeing like mad into the depths of the dense forest behind him.
Now only the leopard leader remained on the plateau.
Famu sized him up.
He was more interested in a powerful individual like the Nightmare Leopard leader.
And in the adult female who leaped down from the plateau behind him.
Her sleek fur was dark purple.
She was the leader's mate, the family's queen.
The leader met his wife's eyes and understood that the remaining females and cubs had left the den. At least, faced with this monster, they still had a chance to carry on their bloodline.
She had not left with her sisters and offspring. Instead, she came lightly onto the battlefield and stood at her husband's side.
As in the many crises they had faced before this family grew, years of fighting together led them both to dig their claws deep into the earth.
An ending whose outcome was certain, yet still heart-stirring.
The leader and his wife stepped to an interwoven dance, one on the left and the other on the right, just like the Nightmare Leopard couple Famu had encountered that night.
Famu studied the two Nightmare Leopards carefully.
They were strong. This group possessed a vigorous vitality.
They had each other and their family, so they could stand before death without fear.
In the end, Famu killed the pair.
The sound of breaking bones lasted only a moment in the night.
The leader and his queen fell together on the plateau they had protected all their lives. Their pupils slowly dilated as they gazed at the darkness before them that they could never overcome: the great serpent, slightly curved as he lay on the plateau.
Famu devoured all the corpses and entered the den that had once belonged to the Nightmare Leopards.
It was warm and dry inside, and the scent the cubs had left behind still lingered on the ground.
The Black Typhon coiled up, his enormous body filling the cave, and sank into deep hibernation where he lay.
The calories from this hunt would make the Staff of Life light up again.
In the dense forest several kilometers away.
The females who had fled the den with the cubs, running blindly in panic, had all fallen. They lay in great pools of blood.
Their bellies had been torn open by claws, their throats bitten through with precision.
In the midst of the corpses, the young Wanderer stood silently, covered in wounds.
The females were still dangerous hunters, and the Wanderer had paid a price to kill them.
But the Wanderer had won.
Standing on the females' corpses, the Wanderer tilted its head and looked at the cubs hiding against the females' bodies.
It opened its mouth and bit through the cubs' throats one by one.