King and Subjects

Bai Chuan had always been the sort who either didn't do something at all or, once he'd made up his mind, never hesitated.

Now that he'd settled on what to do, a murderous glint entered his eyes as he looked at the crocodile.

He immediately slowed down, doing his utmost to blend in with his surroundings.

He knew that crocodiles weren't particularly sensitive to disturbances in the water. If he minimized the ripples and used Invisibility, he could launch the first strike against this crocodile.

But he had to act quickly. The crocodile was almost ashore, and it would be hard to ambush it on land...

He'd just been thinking that when Bai Chuan's eyes suddenly lit up.

The crocodile had actually turned its back to the bank and started eating. Perhaps the confidence of a river's Overlord had gone to its head, but it was daring to feed with its back to the shore. Wasn't that a perfect opportunity?

Taking advantage of its blind spot, Bai Chuan quietly crept up onto the bank behind the crocodile.

Then he held still, holding his breath as he silently watched the crocodile's movements.

He watched as it tore off piece after piece of flesh from the Gray Leaf Monkey: first an arm, then a thigh...

Until...

"Now!"

Bai Chuan had been watching intently. The moment the crocodile swallowed another bloody chunk of meat, tipped its head back, and closed its mouth—

His body, already bent into an arch underwater, suddenly tensed like a bow drawn to its limit. In the blink of an eye—

He sprang!

In an instant, Bai Chuan shot forward with that tremendous burst of power, jaws wide, aiming for the crocodile's closed mouth.

In the briefest flash, he slammed into the crocodile's jaws with tremendous force. Only then did the great splash of water ring out.

Before the crocodile could react, the two creatures were sent tumbling by the impact. Bai Chuan's supple, flexible body followed close behind, coiling around the crocodile's neck, forelegs, and belly. It met a little resistance when it reached the hind legs, but it was too late!

Before long, the two enormous beasts were locked together on the riverbank.

A monster, part serpent and part dragon, had wrapped its long body tightly around a nearly two-meter-long Crocodile, an Overlord of the water.

Realizing his ambush had succeeded, Bai Chuan was delighted. He began slowly but steadily tightening his coils, inch by inch.

He meant to squeeze away every inch of his prey's room to live.

At last, the Caiman came to its senses. Its long, dangerous jaws opened, ready to snap down viciously, but—

They wouldn't budge!

The crocodile was bewildered. What was going on? Why couldn't it open its mouth? Its greatest weapon had been restrained. Some instinct deep within it warned that danger was upon it!

It began thrashing wildly, trying to swing its body from side to side, but all it did was give the snake's body room to tighten faster.

Unable to swing itself free, it tried to perform a death roll.

Still, it couldn't move an inch.

Bai Chuan had already bound it so tightly. How could it possibly struggle free?

That was the enormous advantage of thinking things through and knowing a crocodile's weaknesses.

As long as the gap between them wasn't too great, finding the right fatal weakness left you powerless to fight back!

No matter how strong or invincible you were, if you had an obvious weakness, you couldn't escape a clever creature seizing its chance to kill you.

The crocodile couldn't even use its three signature moves. Its death had already been decided.

Bai Chuan, after all, had more than just a python's abilities. The next moment, two wet, tearing sounds rang out.

The crocodile's eyes bulged, and its four little legs thrashed wildly. Before long, strands of bright-red, pungent blood began to seep out, staining the ground.

Only then did Bai Chuan calmly withdraw his Sharp Claws, before plunging them in again with another vicious thrust.

Sounds like a blade punching through cloth rang out again and again along the bank, each one accompanied by a splash.

That was blood! Blood dragged out by his Sharp Claws!

The blood flowed faster and faster, gradually staining the ground before running downhill into the water.

The river turned red, too, and fish and shrimp of all sizes came out to feed.

As wave after wave of agony coursed through the crocodile, its struggles grew weaker and weaker. That only made it easier for Bai Chuan to tighten his coils and crush the life out of it.

"Crack—"

A sharp snapping sound rang out. The crocodile's foreleg bones had been crushed.

As one consequence led to another, the crocodile gradually lost the strength to struggle. Finally, with a tremendous ripping sound—

Bai Chuan ripped open the 1.7-meter-long crocodile's belly. A long string of steaming entrails spilled out with a wet plop.

Only then did Bai Chuan slowly loosen his coils and quietly look at the crocodile, now thoroughly dead.

He felt a little dazed. It seemed this was the first time he'd taken down an ecological Overlord head-on without relying on his greatest weapon, Venom.

He'd already imagined how it might turn out, but now that it had really happened, Bai Chuan still found it hard to believe.

After a moment, he came back to himself. Raising his head high, he gazed at the sky and silently laughed.

Perhaps he was laughing at how little faith he'd had in himself. Perhaps he was laughing because he'd finally grown to this point. Or perhaps he was laughing at the terrifying power he now possessed.

Of course, maybe he simply wanted to laugh.

Who knew? When life went well, you ought to enjoy it to the fullest.

After a long while, he lowered his head and glanced at the various predators that had crept closer without him noticing. A trace of disdain flashed in his eyes, but he paid them no mind.

Maybe they thought they'd hidden themselves well. They didn't realize that, to him, they shone as brightly and glaringly as torches in the dead of night.

Let them watch. He'd like to see which one dared to come over and steal his food.

Even if they all attacked at once, Bai Chuan wouldn't be fazed. The broad, unfathomably deep river lay right behind him. What did he have to fear?

At worst, he could dive underwater, come ashore farther away, then ambush and kill them one by one.

With that thought, Bai Chuan reached for the crocodile's flesh with one Sharp Claw after another, tearing off one bloody morsel after the next. He gracefully raised his long neck and swallowed each tender, succulent prize.

Blood dripped and trickled everywhere, spilling from Bai Chuan's claws and splattering the ground around him. The pungent stench of blood began to spread through the area.

It drove the hungry beasts nearby wild with hunger, their eyes bloodshot, yet not one dared to show itself.

At that moment, he was like an arrogant king dining with grace and leisure before his throne, while the starving beasts around him crouched low, their eyes red with hunger, all his subjects.

"Yowl—"

A slender, agile Jungle Cat with yellow-brown fur and black rings around its legs and tail couldn't resist leaping out.

It sprang forward lightly, body arched. The keen reflexes innate to felines made the starving creature bold enough to snatch food right in front of a snake.

Bai Chuan merely glanced at it. His right claw, holding the meat, never faltered as he continued raising it to his mouth.

His left claw lifted instead. A surge of invisible, high-energy Electric Current instantly coiled around it, and he swung it at the oncoming Jungle Cat.

"Yow!"

A shrill scream rang out, followed by the stench of singed fur. The Jungle Cat staggered back, limping, its golden eyes and black pupils full of pain.

In the end, it retreated with an unwilling look on its face.

If anyone had looked closely, they would have seen that a chunk of flesh was missing from the Jungle Cat's front leg on one side. And where was that chunk of flesh now?

It lay quietly in Bai Chuan's claw, fur and all.

The next moment, Bai Chuan swallowed it in one bite.