Birth and Death of a Yellow Lizard

Now I just had to wait for the yellow lizards to come back to the strange-looking tree since it didn't look like they had eaten their fill.

As I was waiting on the branch of the tree, I started taking a closer look at the strange tree with glowing yellow rocks sticking out of it.

The tree was very tall. If I had to make a rough guess, I would say it's around 60m tall, with strange fruits growing on its crown. They were a reddish-pink color, looking very strange, almost giving a meaty feeling. This gave a strong contrast to the dark red color of the tree itself, giving an eerie feeling of sorts.

While I was observing the tree, I noticed a fruit on its canopy starting to twitch slowly, which creeped me out!

Concentrating on that fruit, I could see how it started to slowly lower down; a vein was attached to the end of the fruit, pure green in color. It slowly lowered the fruit towards the ground.

As the fruit got closer and closer to the ground, it started twitching more and more until when the fruit finally reached the ground.

With a strong burst, the fruit exploded, and the green vine attached at the end of the fruit immediately went back up to the tree's crown.

Looking where the fruit had exploded, I could see a small lizard lying there. The small lizard was a faint yellow in color.

And after a few seconds, it stood up, shook the liquid mucus around it, and opened its eyes. Then, it started looking left and right. After a few seconds of looking around, it started going towards the roots of the tree.

There, a small hole was hidden, and the lizard immediately went inside as though it knew about it beforehand.

After the small lizard disappeared, I was left momentarily shocked by what had just happened.

Yet again, this world shocks me with its strangeness!

But soon, I got over it. I had started to grow an immunity to the strangeness of this world already, so I started to think.

I am sure that this is how the other four lizards were born too since they looked exactly like the small lizard, only bigger and more yellow in color.

And after pondering for a few minutes, I started making some theories on what just happened.

It seems that the lizards aren't normal creatures but rather fruits from this strange tree.

This would make sense of why these weak lizards are able to survive this deep into the forest since they don't need to reproduce and are born naturally from this strange tree; there is no worry of the species going extinct.

But my question now remains: what does the tree gain by creating such weak creatures that only serve as food for the other animals of this part of the forest?

I really can't be sure, but if I had to guess, maybe it uses these weak lizards to attract stronger animals and infect them with its seeds that should be hidden in the bodies of the lizards since they are the fruits of the tree. Then those animals would move deeper into the forest and spread its seeds, or maybe it would use the bodies of the animals as an incubator for the seeds.

I am really not sure which one of these is, or if it's even any one of them, but I am more inclined to believe my first guess since the purple snake had acted like it had hunted these lizards more than once before.

So probably the animals that eat the lizards won't die.

Well, even if it was the second, it wouldn't stop me from eating those lizards since my heavenly devouring ability seems to transform everything I eat into energy, and most likely even the seed would turn into nutrients for my body to grow.

And even more importantly, I am absolutely starving since I wasn't able to eat anything since the red ants this morning, and also it's about to get dark soon, so I'll have to look for a place to hide and rest. I can't afford to waste more time looking for another kind of animal to hunt since I would need to first observe them and make sure they won't pose a danger to me, which would take a lot of time that I didn't have.

As I was thinking about this, three yellow lizards appeared into the corner of my vision. They looked around for a bit, and immediately went back to their spot to eat like nothing had happened.

Seeing my prey finally reappear, I started moving. As I was descending down the tree, I kept my eyes on the three lizards and also on the surroundings to make sure I wouldn't be ambushed by some creature while I was hunting the lizards.

After I got close enough for the lizards to see me approach, a similar scene started appearing: the lizards started running in different directions like before. I knew this would happen already from the snake's hunt. So, I chose one lizard and started chasing with my full speed.

The lizard ran madly on the grass, making turns left and right at high speed trying to lose me.

But it was of no use; ever since I started growing, my speed had increased more and more, which was very unnatural for a Hercules beetle since they are like tanks in the insect world, strong and tough but having lower mobility than normal insects.

And  with my increase in size, my mobility and speed also grew with it. Even though I wasn't faster than the purple snake, I wasn't much slower.

So after one minute of chasing, the running lizard was right in front of my opened horns. Then, with a push from my six legs, I jumped, catching the lizard between my horns, and with a strong crunch, the lizard's bones were broken, blood seeping from the lizard's mouth and eyes.

It made me feel a bit of pity for it, but soon it was drowned out by my grumbling stomach.

With a prey in hand or horns, to be more accurate, I started making my way towards the tree. I would enjoy my meal on that branch since it gave me some good cover, and I could also observe my surroundings.