East of Blackwater Swamp, a tributary of the Mara River.
The water parted before Famu's eyes.
He swam along the tributary without a care, making no attempt to conceal himself. His black iron-colored trunk cleaved the surface, raising two white ridges of waves that collided with the water in a thunderous crash.
Fish scattered beneath the water, while the small animals on the surface fled to the safety of land and looked back at the river in terror. A terrifying creature had entered the water. They had never seen a predator so enormous, with a gigantic, ferocious head and a body clad in scales. Its swaying form threw up waves, and its winding serpent body stretched away beneath the water beyond the reach of their eyes.
On the bank, a dark figure flashed past, almost blending into the shade of the trees.
It was a Nightmare Leopard.
It didn't spare the delicious protein on the riverbank so much as a glance as it raced ahead.
Headscar was leading Famu.
From Blackwater Swamp to the Mara River tributary, the land had already become unfamiliar to Famu, but they had yet to reach the end. Famu's destination was the Giant Forest Beast's habitat.
Headscar occasionally glanced toward the nearby river, watching the dark shape force its way violently through the water. The family leader's judgment had been correct. For an enormous creature like a Typhon, land truly was restrictive. In the water, with its strength and weight completely unleashed, the sight of such a creature left no room for the slightest thought of resistance. Any aquatic species would likely be crushed by it.
Famu moved so quickly through the water that he kept right up with Headscar running on land.
The broad river channel soon narrowed before the dense forest, and the roots of Giant-Scale Fruit Palms twisted and intertwined like coiled dragons on either side of the waterway.
This was a floodplain during the rainy season. The ground was damp, and pools and swamps filled the low-lying areas.
Giant Forest Beasts needed vast bodies of water to maintain their body temperature and digestion, and the Giant-Scale Fruit Palms produced abundant fruit. Both the food and the humidity were perfectly suited to their habits.
Famu turned from the broad tributary into an extremely narrow, weed-choked waterway.
The water quickly grew shallow, and its murky depths could no longer support his sweeping movements. His black belly scales scraped the black mud, and his enormous body sank among the aquatic plants.
Headscar stopped on the bank and let out a deep, rumbling sound.
It was a signal.
It meant the Giant Forest Beast's den was just ahead.
Famu had located it.
What a big fellow.
At the edge of a broad mud pool ahead, a gigantic monster was soaking half its body in the black mud.
Nearly two meters tall at the shoulder and weighing two tons, its body resembled a mass of granite rising from the ground.
Its sturdy forelimbs bore enormous sickle-shaped claws nearly twenty centimeters long. The creature leisurely tore at the giant ferns by the water, then used its claws to scratch its back.
"Crack."
The sound of a snapping twig came from behind.
The Giant Forest Beast's tiny eyes shifted, and it quickly spotted Headscar behind the bushes.
A Nightmare Leopard?
Its fur was gray-black, with faint markings. It was a youngster, too.
The Giant Forest Beast stopped chewing. The food hanging from its muzzle fell into the mud, and a warning rumbled in its throat, telling the intruder to leave.
In this woodland, aside from a few Super Species, nothing dared enter its warning zone. It took Headscar for a little brat who had wandered in by mistake and had no intention of getting serious.
Headscar stood still, facing it.
It slowly lowered its body and opened its mouth, baring sharp canines, then let out a furious roar.
The Giant Forest Beast froze for a moment.
Over the next few seconds, the monster's ferocity erupted. It raised its heavy head, climbed out of the mud pit, and shook its fur, scattering black mud across the ground. Then it faced Headscar and took an attacking stance, intending to tear the presumptuous little cat to pieces.
The Giant Forest Beast struck first.
Its forelimbs lifted off the ground and its weight pitched forward, its sharp claws polished to a gleam. It couldn't wait to skewer the young Nightmare Leopard on them.
But the Giant Forest Beast's steps halted.
It felt a stabbing pain in its eardrums.
A strange vibration spread through the water.
Was it imagining things?
No!
This vibration—
The Giant Forest Beast recognized it. Whenever the rains were at their heaviest, the rumbling would come from deep in the rainforest. At those times, enormous serpentine shadows could be seen swimming through the floodwaters. The snakes would follow the swamps and waterways into the Samei River, then travel upstream. The vibrations were their language, the snakes speaking to their own kind.
Those great snakes were Typhons.
In the mud pit where it had been lying moments before, muddy water exploded with a roar!
The Typhon's ambush was over in an instant.
Famu killed the Giant Forest Beast.
The ground was covered in traces of the behemoth's struggle.
He coiled around the rainforest monster, lowered his neck, and bit into its arm.
A snake's backward-hooked, serrated teeth could only serve to hold prey in place. Using them to tear through flesh and bone was still a considerable stretch.
But Famu exerted more force, repeatedly twisting the Giant Forest Beast's arm joint while pressing down with his body. At last, he tore the arm off and tossed it in front of Headscar.
Headscar had contributed to the hunt.
It had been a guide, and a good helper as well.
While Famu was constricting the Giant Forest Beast, it had tried to tear at his skin with its claws. Those claws were like spears, capable of piercing his muscles. Headscar had pounced then. A Nightmare Leopard's bite force was among the best of the big cats, and its canines were remarkably good at crushing bone. It had cleanly shattered the Giant Forest Beast's arm bone, leaving the behemoth without even a chance to struggle.
Seeing the arm thrown in front of it, Headscar seemed somewhat surprised and honored.
It whined a few times, lowered its head, and took a deep sniff of the warm blood at its feet. Then it buried its head and began eating.
Famu lay atop the Giant Forest Beast's corpse and watched Headscar gobble down the food. The little fellow was clearly starving after the long run and the fight.
Call it a project commission. Keep up the good work, kid.
You took the boss to take down a competitor with two tons in assets. It's a simple thing for the boss to toss you an arm packed with protein while he's at it.
Suddenly, Famu had a feeling. It was as if he had raised a sharp-fanged hunting dog in the rainforest. This dog didn't even need him to buy dog food. It would bare its teeth and lead Famu to rob the rich all on its own.
This is pretty good.
Famu thought it was more useful than a monkey.
He looked away and opened his enormous jaws. After watching for so long, it was time for him to eat too.
Starting at the Giant Forest Beast's head, he swallowed the enormous mountain of meat into his esophagus bit by bit.
A vast amount of protein and dense bone filled his stomach, and the Typhon's great stomach furnace began its work for the day.
"Thump—thump—"
It was that special organ beating.
Famu heard it beat. The food entering his body was helping it mature.
The sky darkened at that moment.
The rainstorms in the Samei Rainforest had never given much warning. They came whenever they pleased.
With a thunderous boom, dense raindrops pelted Famu's scales, only to be transformed into wisps of rising white steam by the astonishing heat he produced as he digested his food.
The distant channels rose rapidly in the downpour. Rolling, murky currents soon flooded the mud pool, turning the once-narrow waterways into a network of water.
This was what a floodplain in the rainforest was like.
Some open areas would become swamps or even lakes after a rainstorm.
Famu enjoyed the coolness the rain brought. His enormous body sank into the channel as the water rose. He had no intention of staying here long, so he plunged deep into the muddy current and departed along the vast water system.
In the curtain of rain on the bank, Headscar carried a gnawed bone in its mouth and raised its head as it moved through the high ground beyond the flood's reach. It could no longer see Famu, but it knew the way back.
And so the lord of Blackwater Swamp and his close attendant departed as the rain poured down.
Half a day later, the rainstorm abruptly stopped.
The territory where the Giant Forest Beast had once held sway had become an open depression submerged by floodwaters, with ancient trees lying across the muddy water.
"Splash—"
A long, narrow ripple cut through the calm surface.
A huge dark shape swam along the swollen channel toward the area.
A strange, rumbling vibration spread outward from the dark shape. It continued for a long time, but the place was empty, and there was no response.