Great Jagras.
Logan crouched on a thick branch, observing the scene below. Five of the lizard-wolf pack hunters had encircled their prey—a wild boar the size of a small Asian elephant.
In his old world, a three-meter-long predator armored in scales would have been an apex hunter, dwarfing even a tiger. But here, in the realm of monsters, they were small-time. Scavengers and opportunists, forced to hunt in packs to bring down larger game.
Their target, the boar, was a formidable opponent. Though similar in length, its barrel-like torso gave it three times the mass. Thick hide turned aside casual bites, and its curved tusks—each over a meter long—were brutal, bone-shattering weapons.
The Jagras pack couldn't afford a direct confrontation. They harried it like wolves, one or two darting in front to draw its furious charges while others slashed at its flanks and rear. Their claws and teeth inflicted only shallow wounds, but the strategy was clear: death by a thousand cuts. Bleed it dry. Exhaust it.
Logan watched with a detached, analytical eye, idly grooming a forepaw. Not the smartest boar. Why keep turning to face them? Just pick a direction and bulldoze through.
The stalemate shattered in an instant. One Jagras, a fraction too slow, failed to dodge a sudden, enraged lunge. A tusk, thicker than a man's arm, punched through its scales with horrific ease, skewering muscle and viscera before erupting from the other side in a shower of gore.
It was a mortal wound, but life was tenacious. The impaled Jagras thrashed wildly in agony, its struggles hampering the boar's movements. Seizing the opening, the rest of the pack surged in, swarming the boar's vulnerable underbelly and hindquarters.
Entrails were torn loose. The boar, finally shaking free of its dying assailant, made a desperate, staggering run for safety. It didn't get far. The pack swarmed again, and the fight was over.
As the surviving Jagras began tearing into their hard-won prize, Logan saw his opportunity. He flowed down the tree, a silent shadow, and approached the mortally wounded pack hunter.
From up close, you're even bigger.
The creature lay by its killer's tusks, not yet dead. Pink, frothy bubbles frothed at its nostrils with each ragged, wet breath—a punctured lung slowly drowning it in its own blood.
A miserable way to go. Let me end it.
He raised a claw, then paused. The irony wasn't lost on him. His formidable new weapons were useless against something of this scale. He couldn't deliver a coup de grâce.
Fine. Your misfortune is my windfall.
He circled to the massive, ragged wound in the Jagras's side. The boar's tusk had left a ruin of torn muscle and exposed, glistening organs. Heart. Lungs. Liver.
His target was clear. The liver—nature's multivitamin, packed with fats, glycogen, and nutrients. He'd heard stories of Arctic explorers dying from vitamin A poisoning after eating polar bear liver. His enhanced system would handle it.
He clambered right into the wound, a macabre feast. His jaws found the tough connective tissue anchoring the liver and he worried at it, twisting his head until a substantial chunk tore free.
A blue notification flickered:
Contributed to Great Jagras Slay. Evolution Points +2.
Consumed Great Jagras Flesh. Evolution Points +1.
A pleasant surprise. The system had awarded him partial credit for the kill. Three points for minimal risk. He'd take it.
Prize in mouth, he scrambled up the nearest tree, climbing to a safe height before settling down to eat.
By the time he finished, the pack below had gorged themselves. Their distensible stomachs bulged grotesquely; they wouldn't need to hunt for days. Only the boar's sheer size had saved their fallen packmate from being consumed as well. In this world, kinship meant little on an empty stomach.
Soon, they lumbered away. The clearing was left with two monuments to the struggle: a picked-clean boar skeleton and the cooling corpse of the Jagras. Nothing would be wasted. Carrion insects and nutrient-hungry fungi would ensure that in three days, only bones would remain.
Logan found a hollow in a nearby tree and curled up inside, the fatigue of his early start catching up to him.
Before sleep took him, he allocated his new points—all three of them. The hunt had exposed a critical weakness: he lacked a decisive weapon. He focused on his Tail.
As he slept, the transformative warmth gathered at the base of his spine. The muscles within his tail grew longer, more supple, and densely packed with elastic fibers. It elongated further, nearly doubling his body length. The supporting caudal vertebrae increased in number, their joints reshaping into ball-and-socket structures akin to an owl's neck, granting it incredible, whip-like flexibility.
Finally, the scales at the very tip underwent a radical change. They fused, lengthened, and hardened under a flood of secreted keratin, forming a sleek, black, semi-transparent spike over thirty centimeters long. Its surface was smooth as polished obsidian. Like a cat's claw, the outermost layer would shed periodically through his accelerated metabolism, ensuring the weapon's point remained lethally sharp.
He slept, and his body forged its first true blade.
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