Daguo Village sat in a small basin surrounded by the same white limestone hills, but the basin geography had done something the open terrain elsewhere hadn’t managed — it had limited the storm’s effective reach. The ground here was relatively flat and open, and the 208 ran through it without obstruction.

Shen Cong was appreciating his two-and-a-half-bull body for the first time that morning, standing through the roof hatch in the early light, when he saw what was parked a hundred meters ahead.

A lake.

Catching sunlight in small scattered flashes, sitting right alongside the road surface where the 208 emerged from the rock debris, was a body of water. The color of it — genuine green, not the gray-brown of post-flood standing water — stopped him where he stood.

That’s Daguo Reservoir.

He’d seen the marker on his map and mentally crossed it off weeks ago. Small reservoirs filled in. Sand, rock, debris. That was the expected outcome. He’d stopped looking for surface water in any significant quantity.

The reservoir had apparently not consulted his expectations.

And around its edges, three trees. One that looked like a willow, two that were clearly white poplars, their leaves moving in the light wind. Actual leaves. Actually green.

Closer to the road, a cluster of half-collapsed flat-roofed buildings — a small restaurant, the kind that served local dishes to travelers on the provincial road, its sign shattered but partially legible.

He drove to the water’s edge and stopped.

The paranoia got its turn first.

An opaque body of water was a specific category of threat. Whatever the prehistoric crocodile-type creature had been doing in the floodwater during the storm had taught him that lakes and reservoirs deserved the same wariness as dense undergrowth or enclosed spaces. He couldn’t see what was in there. He couldn’t see what was in there.

He spent ten minutes on the perimeter check. The trees moved in the wind. Nothing else did.

He suited up, armed up, and climbed down.

Standing at the road’s edge looking at the reservoir, he could see the lake bottom through the shallows near the bank — broken rock and sediment, cleaner than he’d expected. The water was genuinely clear. Farther out, the depth obscured the bottom, but the near section looked good.

He picked up a large stone from the road edge and threw it into the middle section.

SPLASH.

The stone hit. Concentric rings spread outward. He counted three seconds.

Nothing.

He picked up a second stone. Two and a half bulls of arm behind it, he threw it further out toward the center of the reservoir.

The stone was still in the air when the water erupted.

A shape that had no business being that size lunged upward through the surface, moving with the casual explosive force of something that had been waiting without particular urgency — because it didn’t need to hurry about things. It caught the stone in its jaws.

CRACK.

A stone the diameter of a wash basin, gone. Not swallowed — pulverized. The spray from the landing covered Shen Cong head to toe.

He was already moving.

Inside Vajra before the water finished falling, engine running before the armor was sealed, oil burned to maximum before rational thought fully engaged. The 208’s scattered rock debris hammered under the wheels as the dozer blade cleared the path, the impacts reverberating through the frame.

In the mirrors: the shape emerging from the reservoir onto the road.

Ten meters long at minimum. Four limbs built thicker than the typical stub-legged crocodile profile — longer, weight-bearing, designed for terrestrial movement. It ran with a gait that was less the belly-sliding of an ordinary crocodile and more the bounding motion of a large dog, the body held clear of the ground, the limbs cycling in a pattern that covered distance efficiently.

At the end of its tail, a bone structure shaped like a standing triangle, roughly half a meter tall, dark silver.

Activity core.

It caught up to Vajra within three strides. The jaws came down.

CRUNCH.

Not a full bite — the angle was wrong, the tooth contact slid across the rear panel instead of catching cleanly. But the force of even a glancing contact from something that could bite through reservoir stones wrenched Vajra sideways. Shen Cong held the wheel with both hands and kept the tires on the road by the margin of technical driving.

BANG. BANG. BANG.

The dozer blade hit three more rocks in rapid sequence. The frame absorbed it. The Activity took the edge off the structural stress.

A kilometer down the road, Shen Cong checked the mirror and found the creature standing in the middle of the 208, watching the retreating truck, its posture suggesting it had considered whether continued pursuit was worth the energy and decided against it. It vocalized — a deep, resonant guh-ruh-ruh — and turned back toward the reservoir.

He drove another hundred meters and stopped.

He was shaking slightly. He wiped his face with his sleeve, climbed to the roof with the telescope, and watched the creature return to the water and submerge.

The identification was immediate.

The same creature from the flood. Had to be. The scale, the tail spine, the general body plan. After the storm had ended and the floodwaters receded, it had apparently made its way through the drainage systems and channels of the hill country until it found a permanent body of water to inhabit. The Daguo Reservoir — protected by its basin geography, partially intact, still holding water — was exactly what something that size would claim as territory.

The animals that had been coming to the reservoir to drink had presumably been providing it with a regular food supply. That explained why it hadn’t moved on.

He thought about what he’d just seen in clearer terms than he’d been able to during the storm.

During the flooding, it had been underwater, the hull dark, the X-ray image blurry. He’d known it was large. He hadn’t known it was this large. Ten meters plus. Running like a dog. A tail spine that had probably been what caused most of the damage during the rolling — that triangular bone structure, swung at velocity, would hit like a siege weapon.

If it had gotten a solid bite on Vajra just now, the rear panel would have needed reconstruction.

It’s bitten my truck twice. I’m keeping score.

He sat on the roof with the telescope long after the creature had disappeared below the waterline, thinking about the Honey Peaches in storage and doing arithmetic. The peaches induced the mutation-sleep. A creature that large would require a proportionally higher dose before the sedation effect overwhelmed its system. Two peaches might not be enough. Three might be. The calculation was uncertain, and the peaches were too valuable to guess with.

When the time comes — when I have better weapons, when Vajra is further developed, when I understand the peach doses better — I’m coming back.

He climbed down, recorded the new field guide entry, and noted the creature’s new designation.

Dog-Croc: mutated crocodilian. Body length 10+ meters. Capable of terrestrial locomotion in a dog-like running gait. Triangular tail spine — probable Activity core, characteristics unconfirmed. Territorial water habitat confirmed. Threat level: severe. Approach only with full Active armor and prepared contingency.

He sealed the entry and started looking at the map for the next water source.

(End of Chapter 34)