The pond shimmered under the moon.
Ourobouros's tongue flickered, tasting the humid air. Prey was everywhere. Another scent slid into his awareness edged with danger.
He turned his gaze to the far bank.
A wild cat crouched there. It had not seen him yet, its eyes fixed on a large frog floating near the reeds.
Perfect.
The cat was larger than him by far, but size meant nothing if the prey never saw the strike coming. His body lowered.
He circled in a wide arc until he was behind the creature, then slipped into the shadow of a bush. His breathing slowed.
Ourobouros moved.
Whoosh!
He shot like an arrow loosed from a bow. His fangs sank deep into the side of the cat's neck.
The cat shrieked, thrashing violently, its skin was turning purple around the bite. The poison worked quickly.
Ourobouros released his grip and withdrew into the bush, ready to strike again if needed.
The cat staggered, its legs trembling. It swiped at the air, let out one final hiss, and collapsed to the ground.
Two minutes later, it died.
The white serpent emerged from the shadows. He began to devour it, his body stretching to take in the meal. Warm flesh slid down.
Twenty-five centimeters… thirty… forty.
His body thickened. A deep satisfaction filled him.
Crawling away from the pond, he returned to the tree. Coiled within he slept.
Morning came with the calls of distant birds and the soft rustle of leaves. Ourobouros woke up with hunger already. Without hesitation, he slid down the tree and began to hunt again.
Two days passed in this rhythm. By the second evening, his body measured a full meter in length and it was the peak of that ordinary snakes could achieve.
Yet Ourobouros was no ordinary snake.
He could feel the limit of the mundane pressing against him like an invisible barrier. Beyond this point lay true cultivation, the path to transcendence.
His mind searched through the inherited memories until it found what he sought: a method in his bloodline.
The Heaven-Swallowing Sutra.
A supreme scripture, crafted by an ancestor who had once devoured the Heavenly Dao of an entire small world. It was a technique that could consume anything like flesh, bones, energy, even laws themselves and refine them into efficiently.
The sutra was divided into five realms. Ourobouros possessed only the Qi Refining Chapter, the first step.
His gaze shifted to the left where a rabbit's lifeless body lay in the grass, freshly killed.
Without hesitation, he struck, sinking his fangs into the soft flesh and swallowing deeply. As he fed, he started running the Heaven-Swallowing Sutra.
At once, he felt it as though something inside him had opened. Flesh dissolved into pure essence.
Plop.
It was not a sound in the air, something that seemed to not exist, it was the breaking of shackles.
For most beasts, this first step into cultivation would take a year and rare treasures. But for the Ourobouros, it was normal.
Power flowed into him like a river, and for the first time since his birth he felt safe.
The path ahead was endless.
And he was ready to devour it all!