This chapter's epigraph is from the famous poem "In the Tower of Heaven," in which King Kamehameha compares himself to a dragon who ate his power and then released a type of attack on him. In this case, the attack is on the king himself, not the other way around. The king says, "I'm still getting warmed up" . He's not sure if the fight is still on, but he's confident that he can defeat the other dragons. He also says that he'll take down the other dragon, the "salmar" , when everyone's watching. He says that seven years of practice have made them into true dragons, and that they're ready to take on the "old generation" of dragons.