The eighth terrace opened into something closer to a jungle than a crater floor, canopy so dense that daylight came down in broken shafts, and the ambient energy here was thick enough that John could taste it on the back of his tongue.
"Slower pace from here," John said, dropping down from Pymon's back. "We're not hunting anymore. We're asking."
"Asking things the size of houses to be our friends," Yuna said. "Sure. Normal Tuesday."
"It's worked before," John said, grinning.
'Brother John,' Chuthulos said, his voice threading quietly into John's mind as they walked. 'A word of caution, since you're about to start negotiating instead of fighting. Everything past Calamity-rank isn't just strong. It's sapient. Fully. They think, they reason, they remember, and every single one of them has watched their own kind get chained by people who called it taming.'
'So they hate us.'
