Chapter 75: Hurricane

Sobek spent the whole day relaxing. He felt that after reaching that milestone he could allow himself some rest, so he found an area with shallow water and lay there, basking in the sun and enjoying the movement of the waves as if it were a massage. For the first time he was able to get a real sleep. Even if he slept in fact he always did so with his senses alert to take the slightest sign of danger. However, now that no one (apart from humans) could threaten him anymore, he could finally get a sleep worthy of the name! He slept all day and all night. The next morning he felt refreshed as ever in his life. When it was nice to be able to relax without being afraid of everything! He remembered that when he was human he had often complained about the few hours of sleep he could afford, but now he realized how precious it was to be able to sleep in a safe bed and not have to worry about anything or anyone. It was really true that humans didn't realize the gifts they had until they lost them! He quietly set out in search of a new prey. He hoped to find more deinosuchus or some other carnivore. Unfortunately for that day he found nothing. There were thousands of herbivores, but they weren't what he was interested in. He didn't care much about leveling up now: getting too big could be a handicap at times, especially if you were a predator and therefore had to be able to hide. He also needed 390,000 experience points to level up again, so unless he encountered another large herd of herbivores, he would hardly reach that figure quickly. It therefore made no sense to focus on it. After all, he was already the largest terrestrial predator ever existed: 28 meters long, no carnivore could reach such size. Furthermore, its speed was now 29 km/h, more than the one of a tyrannosaurus. His body was perfect as it was: there was no point in pursuing a hunt that would not have brought him any profit. His target was carnivores that could provide him with skill points. But the predators were much harder to spot. Sobek then spent the day swimming lightly along the shore, watching groups of prehistoric dinosaurs and mammals drinking. All of them became wary when they saw his immense sail, but few escaped: he was not showing aggressive intent, so they had no reason to worry. Towards evening he had also been able to admire a group of gigantic sauropods. [Prey identified: brachiosaurus, brachiosauridae. Experience: 200,000 points] Even though only two of them would have been enough to level him up, Sobek didn't want to attack such large animals. Even with [Reinforced skin], if they stood up on their hind legs and dropped onto him, they would crush him. Carnivores were reluctant to attack a sauropod even when it was alone and they had the entire pack on their side. It could be said that those giants were devoid of natural enemies, at least once they reached adulthood. Besides, another reason Sobek kept away from them was the smell. Sauropods were ruminants, as a result like cattle they were emitting constant flatulence due to the bacteria in their body. Even a human, who couldn't boast of having the best sense of smell, would not have come close to them, let alone Sobek who had developed one of the best sense of smell in nature! So he had limited himself to watching them from a distance. Even though he was used to dinosaurs by now and they no longer seemed so big, the majestic creatures still aroused deep admiration. They were always a sight worth seeing. Sobek hoped to one day be able to find argentinosaurs or supersaurs, some of the largest sauropods (and therefore animals) ever. As he watched the large animals he noticed clouds gathering in the south, and in fact the next day it started to rain. Again. Sobek initially didn't bother about it: the more the autumn continued, the more numerous the storms became. However, he quickly understand that something was extremely wrong. This time the rain arrive with the wind. Initially it was slight, then he became stronger and stronger in minutes. In the end it was so powerful that the branches of the trees started to crack one after another. "The fuck!?" In an istant the sky turned dark like it was night. Enormous clouds covered the sun while they moved in circle. The wind was so insanely strong that some small animals that hadn't managed to escape into the burrows in time were dragged into the air. Animals panicked and started to run. Even the sauropods, despite their size, where clearly scared. Crocodiles, hippos, fishes and acquatic dinosaurs rapidly swam in the depth of the lake. "This isn't normal!" Sobek started to be really afraid, and he thought that maybe he would had to find a cave where he could take refuge, but suddenly the wind became even more strong, so much that entire trees crack and started to fly. The rain fell with unnatural speed and an infinite amount of lightning began to light up the sky like a lamp. The clouds in the sky moved in perfect circles, coming directly towards him. "It is a hurricane!" Sobek screamed in his mind. "How is this possible? This place is far away from the sea! And this isn't a tropical forest! There shouldn't be a hurricane here!" A hurricane was born following the evaporation of considerable quantities of sea water, the condensation of which caused the release of energy; a process of self-amplification was thus generated whereby the air, descending below, gave rise to the mighty winds that characterized it. But such an amount of evaporating water could only be found in the oceans! Sobek didn't understand, but he couldn't remain expose like that. On Earth the winds of an hurricane surpassed 120 km/h; the strongest gust of wind in the history of meteorology was the one that hit the Barrow island, where was reached an impressive 408 km/h speed! But on Eden, the oxygen level and the pressure of the atmosphere were different, so the winds could reached even more impressive speeds! Sobek was entered in the lake while the lightning started to hit the earth. The intense power of the wind were charging the clouds as if they were a giant battery creating a vast electrical storm. In the istant that a lightning hit the earth, or a tree, or even just a dead bush, fire exploded in an istant. The dry vegetation burned as if it were soaked in kerosene. The rain extinguished the fire in a matter of seconds, but the intense wind and the enormous amount of oxygen permitted to the flames to spread and consume entire part of the forest in those few seconds. Sobek's instinct was scream in terror. With [Reinforced skin] Sobek was protected by the heat, but only if it was below 100 degrees celsius; but the temperature of the flames were far higher! He was protected by the electricity too, but the lightning were much more powerful than the amount of energy that his skin could support! He rapidly dived in the water and submerged himself, running in the depth of the lake, hoping that no lightning hit the water. Many other animals were take refuge in the bottom of the lake, but they didn't considered him. For some minutes a momentary truce was accepted by averyone, preys and predators: the bottom of the lake was a refuge that had to be shared and they couldn't afford to waste energy to fight. Then, they could see the solar rays returning from the surface. The animals ramained in their refuge for some more, than they returned on the surface. When Sobek riemerged, the sky had returned clear. The hurricane was passed. He looked to the forest. It was devastated. In just few minutes entire hectares were burned to ashes or torn to pieces by the winds's fury. Some animals' corpses were scattered everywhere. It was the first time that Sobek confronted to a real force of the nature. He didn't remember to be more terrified. But more of all, it was confused. The place where he lived wasn't a tropical forest and wasn't near to the sea. How the hurricane could arrive there? The answer arrived little later. Exhausted he was drinking, while he noticed that the water had a different taste. The rain that had fallen had altered the flavor. Many creatures didn't notice that, but Sobek had a incredible sense of taste. And that means that that rain wasn't normal rain... it was acid rain. Suddenly everything was clear to him. The appearence of the hurricane had only one culprit: humans. With the climate change, entire ecosystem changed in turn. With the increase of the temperature due of the human pollution the seawater evaporation accelerated, and that caused devastating phenomena such as hurricanes in areas where they shouldn't have appeared. Not only that, but the suddenly changed of the atmosphere probably had an effect also on the winds, that had dragged the hurricane straight into the interior of the continent. That combined with the pollution in the atsmophere had also caused the acid rain. Sobek was worried. The situation was becoming more and more unstable. He had started to suspect this months ago, while he noticed that in the summer there were too little rain, and now he had the confirmation: the climate of Eden was probably going crazy due of the humanity activity, passing by dry summers to extreme winters interspersed by autumns and springs were tropical phenomenos struck with unprecedented violence. That remembered to him that he hadn't much time. Probably he had just some years before the planet's climate changed irreversibly and started a mass extinction. He had rest on his laurels after reaching the maximum level of [Reinforced skin], but now he realized that he had no time to waste. He had to hurry or he would never be able to complete his mission. Despite that knowledge, he was unable to make any further progress in the following days. He managed to catch a couple of deinosuchus and also preyed on some freshwater sharks, managing to upgrade [Powerful bite] to level 2/5, but it was still too little. He needed larger preys to improve quickly. Unfortunately all he could do was go on and hunt. Something good would have come sooner or later.