Sobek bit his tongue. "Let's go to a more secluded place" he whispered. The carnotaur didn't object.

The two walked for a while in the forest, away from the rest of the pack. Neither of them said a word all the way. Without Carnopo being able to know, Sobek opened his [Contract] and always kept it under control: at the first hint of betrayal, he would have been able to react in advance.

Eventually they came to an area not far from the lake, completely surrounded by trees that obscured the view from the outside. Sobek stopped and turned to look at Carnopo.

To a human eye the carnotaur would have seemed calm, but Sobek's senses were much sharper. He could feel the fear in the air and the tension on the body of his interlocutor. "Do you want to kill me?" Carnopo asked seriously.

Indeed, the area had all the appearence of a crime scene: secluded, inconspicuous, where no one could see or hear them. If Sobek had wanted to 'silence' Carnopo he could have easily carried out the assassination there. "Do you want to stop me?" the spinosaurus asked, answering the question with another question.

Carnopo shook his head: "I just want to understand" he replied. "Why? I'd like to tear humans apart too, but I don't think you're blinded by revenge. You're not the type. I think I have framed you quite well on our journey to here. You are pragmatic, calculating, you evaluate multiple scenarios before acting and you do nothing that you shouldn't do. So why? Why would you jeopardize the safety of the pack by having us fight against humans?"

Sobek gritted his teeth. The moment of truth had come. "It is precisely because I want the pack to be safe that we have to fight them. I don't like facing humans, but we have to do it for our very survival. You see..."

"Why?" Carnopo interrupted him. "We're safe now. We escaped from their clutches. And now we are numerous, we have food in abundance and you have given us these strange powers. If they get to catch us again, we can repel them. What's the point of fighting them?"

Carnopo hated humans and probably he would hate them until the end of his days, but that didn't stop him from thinking clearly. He knew the risks of confronting them. And since he didn't know what was happening in the world he was thinking with a simple mindset: if the dinosaurs would stay hidden in the forest, they would be safe.

But Sobek knew that this wasn't the case at all. Humans advanced every day, cutting down trees for timber, building mines and pits to extract fossil fuels, capturing animals for zoos and circuses, and poisoning the air and sea. The more time passed, the smaller and smaller the places where the dinosaurs could hide became. "I think it would be easier if I just showed it to you" he said simply, and activated the image sharing function of the [Contract].

Carnopo's eyes widened as the forest before him vanished and new scenarios formed in his pupils.

A land completely transformed into a desert, where nothing could grow anymore.

A chain of factories that poisoned the air by preventing animals from breathing.

A sea completely covered with waste, where the remains of fishes, birds and marine reptiles floated lifeless, suffocated by those deadly traps.

Thousands of hectares of forest being cleared to make room for buildings and roads. The concrete and asphalt that devoured everything.

The beached corpse of a whale, the inside of which was filled with plastic that had slowly killed it over the years.

A river completly dried up.

A fertile land that has become arid and dry.

Animals so thin as to be skeletal, who died of starvation because they could no longer find something to eat.

And much, much more. Every horrible mark that the black hand of humanity left on the world every day...

Sobek with the current powers of the [Contract] could only convey images, smells and sensations, but that wasn't a handicap. Some things couldn't be explained in words: if a person didn't experience the horrors that were happening firsthand, then he wouldn't take the danger seriously, preferring to minimize and believe that everything would be fine. But being confronted with the harsh reality, well, that was a whole different music.

Sobek thanked the Internet for its existence. Very suggestive images could be found on the web about the problems caused by humanity.

When the visions ended, Carnopo staggered and vomited on the ground. Sobek held him up, waiting for him to recover. The carnotaur barely managed to remain motionless on his unsteady legs. "What... what was it?" he asked in a trembling voice.

"What is happening now all over the world. And what will happen here too, if we don't do something" Sobek replied.

"No... no, it's not possible". Like many people, Carnopo was denying reality. It was natural after being confronted with such horrors.

Sobek shook his head. "I wish it were so. Follow me; I'll show you in person". Carnopo obeyed without protest.

The two reached the lake and dived into the water. Sobek gave [Swim speed] to Carnopo, after which they started up the river to the west. The lake was more than eight hundred kilometers from human land, but Sobek could swim at 330 km/h and Carnopo at 560 km/h. In less than three hours they could see the Odaria colony from afar.

And this time Carnopo could not take refuge in denial. Seeing the barren, sandy land, propped up by oil wells and coal mines, and looking at the bulldozers and trucks that continually felled trees and smashed rock, he could only accept that everything he had seen in the vision was true.

"Still convinced that we are safe?" Sobek asked rhetorically.

Carnopo's body began to tremble violently. Loud snorts emerged from its jaws. "Why..." he murmured in a thin voice. "Why do they do it? Why... I can understand using us as toys for entertainment... but this? Why do they want the world to be a desert? What do they gain from killing anything else?"

Carnopo was looking at him in a clear search for answers. Sobek sighed. "The problem with humans is that they consider themselves superior to us. They are convinced that they can do whatever they want with the world. They believe it belongs to them. We are just... their entertainment, in their perspective. Something beautiful to admire and study, but nothing else. They do not see us as they see their fellow men, and for this reason they feel authorized to take what they want without asking". The spinosaurus let out a snort. "And since they consider themselves so superior they don't realize that what they inflict on us, on the forest and on the whole world, they inevitably inflict on themselves. They are convinced that they will never be affected by the consequences of their madness, when instead like all living creatures they too have to breathe, drink, eat... and when all life in the world has disappeared, only then they will realize that they cannot breathe, drink or eat the money. Unless we stop them first"

Sobek clenched his claws until his knuckles bled. "As long as they think they are the only ruling species on this planet, humans will never stop. They will come here like a swarm of locusts and devour everything until there is nothing left. We have to fight. We must show them that they cannot take what they want, and that we too, like them, are children of this world. This land belongs to us as to them, but until we tell them to their face, they won't understand"

Carnopo seemed to have calmed down, but his body still quivered. "But how? How can we fight them? One thing is to escape from them, another one is to face them. They are infinitely more powerful than us. How could we even hope to win?"

And then Sobek stared at him with a look that seemed to incinerate the earth. "Wrong. They aren't infinitely more powerful than us. They WERE infinitely more powerful than us. Now no more"

Sobek opened the [Weapon system] and bought a machine gun. Under Carnopo's astonished gaze, the dust seemed to gather around him as the atoms united to form the weapon. When they were done, a machine gun no less than the most powerful ever created by man, perfectly adapted to the body structure of a carnotaur, had appeared over his shoulder. "This... this is..."

"It's a weapon" Sobek explained. "Humans are no longer the only ones who know how to create them. And without that... they are no longer invincible!"

Contrary to what people might think, humans were far, far away from the pinnacle of the food chain. In the wild any creature would have made meatballs of them.

Let's imagine dividing the food pyramid into five levels, and at level 5 there are the apex predators of each ecosystem, like sharks, lions, tigers or wolves. On Earth, humans barely ranked at level 2.2. On Eden, where there were much more dangerous predators, they barely reached level 1.

There were only two things that allowed humans to be dominant predators: their population, far more numerous than any other living species, and their technology. If just one of these two characteristics had been achieved by another species, humans would have easily been knocked out by the top of the food chain.

And now Sobek was gathering all the dinosaurs at his disposal, thereby increasing the number of individuals in his pack. And since he too could craft weapons, armor, and food supplies, even technology was no longer a purely human advantage. In a world that had not yet discovered lethal weapons such as the atomic bomb, the dinosaurs thanks to Sobek could now replace humans as the dominant species of the planet.

Carnopo knew this. That's why he felt a strange sensation, a mixture of euphoria and victory, running through his body as he looked at the machine gun he was carrying over his shoulder. "You can make weapons..." he whispered. "Not just claws, bites and roars. Real weapons. Lethal weapons"

At that moment, it was clear in Carnopo that the era of human supremacy had come to an end.

"I studied their technology while we were fleeing the zoo" Sobek explained. It wasn't a lie: he really needed to look at the human weapons in order to unlock the [Weapons system], even if only for a few seconds each. "Now, thanks to my powers, I can create an arsenal"

"How many weapons can you create?" Carnopo asked.

"Several. All different and all lethal" Sobek answered. The bonus money he had had now exceeded two million, which meant he could equip a lot of dinosaurs with dangerous weapons.

"That's why you let them capture you. This was the reason. You wanted to learn how to build their weapons" Carnopo wasn't stupid: he could put two and two together. "How long have you been planning this?"

"More or less since I was born". Sobek said it almost without thinking, realizing too late how strange that sentence was. He hastened to invent something: "After just a few weeks from my birth I saw some humans kidnapping oxalaia puppies. I had to confront their weapons and I experienced firsthand how fragile I was. I followed them and saw what humanity was doing to the forest"

If there was one thing Sobek remembered about his life as a human, it was that if you wanted to lie, the best thing was to mix truth and lie: that way you were more convincing. "It was then that I realized that humans were a threat. I have been around for some time to study them. I've seen their bad side... and their good side too. Some of them saved my life once"

"Really?" Carnopo was listening raptly to the story. He looked like a child to whom the saga of a brave knight was being told.

"Yes. I had just helped one of them, a little girl... and they repaid me by helping me against two torvosaurs" Sobek explained. "Anyway, the point is that I realized the danger of humans. Initially I also thought they would stop, but I saw horrible things... I showed them to you". Of course, he could ignore the fact that he had seen them on the Internet. "In the end I realized that if I hadn't done something, no one would have done it. I have these powers for a reason; I don't know which one... but I like to believe that a superior being wanted to give me the opportunity to make the difference. That this is a mission requested by God"

"What is a 'God'?"

"God... in human religions, he is the creator of the world, who loves and protects all his creatures"

"If he exists, then why doesn't he stop humans?"

"I guess it is because he is a joker... and in any case it is not necessarily a 'he'. It could very well be a 'she'. I'm a fan of the second option"

For an instant Sobek thought he heard the crystalline laughter of the deity in his ears. He didn't know if it was real or a figment of his imagination, but he had a strong suspicion that God was actually laughing out loud at the moment.

Carnopo didn't seem to having understood much, but he didn't elaborate on the matter. After all, the animals didn't care much for the existence of the gods: their minds were focused on survival. "But why haven't you told the others yet? If you can craft weapons, what are you waiting for?" he asked.

"Don't be impatient. I still have some things to fix" Sobek retorted. "My powers need to be cultivated to improve. Very soon we will also get the support of all the reptiles that fly in the sky. That will be when I will reveal my plans. With them as propagandists, my call will reach the farthest sides of the continent and the ranks of my army will swell quite a lot. Also, there are other things I need to take care of: finding a place to create a real headquarters, protect the weakest, study humans and determine where and when we will strike..."

"It seems like a lot of work" Carnopo said.

"A war can't be win in a day" Sobek replied, and then he took a grim look. "Carnopo, it is essential that you understand something, so I expect that in the next few minutes you will listen to me with the utmost attention"

Carnopo felt awed by the eyes of his pack leader. He nodded sadly. "Very good. The point is this: the fact that we now have weapons doesn't make us superior to humans" Sobek explained. "Humans are many, much more numerous than us, and they can make use of a greater intelligence. So the war we are going to fight will not be easy at all. We will not win it with recklessness or ferocity. Power is conquered with time and pragmatism"

Sobek watched the human city in the distance. "I'm not crazy enough to think that we can defeat them all at the first try, and I don't want you to be either. In the coming months and years we will be forced several times to go down to negotiations, use hostages, study new tactics and act with extreme caution. So I want you to put aside any grudges you have towards humans and focus on the safety of the pack. You have to put that first, not weird thoughts of revenge"

Perhaps it was because in his previous life he had loved the movie 'Planet of the Apes', but Sobek seriously feared that Carnopo would become an angry and cruel spirit who would not hesitate to betray him in order to perpetuate his revenge, as had happened to the chimpanzee Koba in the film, who for his revenge against humans had betrayed his leader Caesar and ended up unleashing a conflict in which many, both humans and apes, had died. That is why he wanted to immediately crush any kind of rebellious thinking on Carnopo's part.

Luckily for him, the carnotaur didn't seem willing to walk Koba's way. His gaze betrayed no anger and the [Contract] confirmed the absence of intentions of evil thoughts. "I'll follow you" he replied. "Everything that you order, I will do it. If you want me to back off and not hurt humans, then I'll bite the bullet and not twist a hair of them. I trust your judgment. You are the wisest and most intelligent creature I have ever known, the only one among us who has understood the impending danger and who has decided to do something. If you ever want me to do something that goes against my will, I will know that you have your reasons and I will adapt to it"

"I'm glad to hear that from you" Sobek said. "You know, I don't want to exterminate humans. It would be a foolish move. If you corner an enemy, he will respond with ever more powerful weapons, until he creates something that burns the sky and turns the earth into steam. If we were to fight to eliminate the other side we would only end up destroying each other, and even if there were one survivor he would reign over the ashes. The war only sees a winner in theory: in reality both sides cry bitter tears, because everyone loses something. What I want is coexistence. When humans understand that the world does not belong only to them and they want to reconcile with nature, I will welcome them with open arms"

"Will there ever be such humans?" Carnopo asked, who having seen only the evil side of humans could not understand how they could reconcile with nature.

"Much more than you think. Humans are not all bad. Indeed, most of them are good. The problem is that they are easily manipulated and believe in the words of the wicked" Sobek explained in a sad voice, then he had an idea. "If you want I can show you humans who live in peace with the rest of the forest"

"For real?"

"Have I ever lied to you? Follow me"