A single bison leg was more than enough to pack the cheetah's narrow stomach to the bursting point.
Once it had eaten its fill, the cheetah lingered over its greasy paws, licking them clean with total satisfaction. It had been an incredibly long time since it had known the comfort of a full stomach.
However, the reality of the situation quickly cut through its satisfaction. The cheetah realized this massive feast was a direct handout from the heavy Sabertooth towering over it. It still couldn't begin to comprehend the golden cat's true intent.
"System, exchange for Healing Points. Treat that arrow wound."
---
[DING! Deducting 30 Healing Points. Beginning cellular treatment.]
---
While the cheetah had been bolted down the meat, James had accessed his interface, burning a small fraction of his reserves to address the leg injury.
The System's medical acceleration had previously reconstructed James's compound skeletal fractures; a clean puncture wound that had missed the bone entirely was child's play.
As for the cost… James looked at the cheetah with a smirk.
'Of course this cheetah has to repay it. At least 300 before I let him go. And if he can't do that… simple. I'll just kill him and take his gene points.'
As the points took effect, the steady stream of blood from the hind leg stopped completely. The System delivered a comprehensive, top-to-bottom sterilization before setting the tissue layers into rapid recovery. Within a few days, the leg would be entirely mended, leaving its explosive acceleration untouched.
"REOW~"
The cheetah was far more attuned to its own physiology than James was.
The sudden, miraculous cessation of pain and the rapid tightening of the wound left it utterly stunned. The way it looked at James shifted instantly. First, the golden monster had provided a high-fat food; now, it had single-handedly removed the death sentence from its limb.
In that moment, to the simple mind of the tool cheetah, James was essentially a savior.
Once the bone was stripped clean, James gave a sharp nod, signaling the cat to follow him back to the main den. The cheetah didn't hesitate for a second, falling into line and limping submissively behind his heavy stride.
Aurora watched the entire circus unfold without a word. By now, she had grown completely desensitized to James's bizarre habits. First came the hyper-intelligent water rat, then the invisible traps, and now he was recruiting a disabled cheetah as a subordinate.
She truly had no idea what kind of odd projects he would dream up next, or what other strange creatures he would press into service.
Meanwhile, across the dark face of Mount Elbert.
A small party of Clovis hunters moved through the timber, their eyes locked onto the sporadic crimson drops staining the leaves. The blood was fresh, left behind by the fleeing American Cheetah as it dragged its injured leg through the rocks.
These hunters were the exact "tall apes" the cheetah had run from earlier that evening.
They belonged to a permanent clan established on the lower ridges of the mountain. By the Late Pleistocene, human civilization had transitioned deep into the upper Paleolithic era, with advanced tool production allowing these early humans to organize into complex tribal societies.
As populations expanded, these early clans began to recognize the genetic dangers of inbreeding, giving rise to structured exogamous marriage customs—exchanging partners between neighboring clans. These interconnected family lines formed the foundation of the Clovis tribes.
Within the tribe, labor was strictly divided by gender and age:
*The Prime Males* Handled the high-risk tracking, long-distance hunting, and heavy fishing.
*The Women* Managed the collection of wild grains and fruit, maintained the camp fires, processed hides, stitched winter clothing, and raised the young.
"The light is completely gone, Tatanka. Are we truly going to keep tracking in the dark?"
Apache, the youngest hunter in the party, scanned the shifting shadows of the pines with clear anxiety.
"Keep moving," Tatanka replied, his voice flat and unyielding. "The beast is tracking deep blood from its rear leg. It cannot sustain that pace for long. Keep your eyes on the ground; it is nesting nearby."
Tatanka was the marksman who had driven the flint point into the cheetah's leg. His precision with the short bow was famous within the clan. His legendary feat of dropping three Dire Wolves single-handedly during a winter freeze had earned him his formal title from the clan chieftain.
In the Clovis tongue, *Tatanka* meant *The Buffalo*( American Bison )
The Clovis people were a fiercely martial culture, and their naming conventions reflected that grit. Before reaching adulthood, children were referred to strictly by casual nursery nicknames or random descriptors.
For instance, if a birth attendant went down to the riverbank to draw water for a newborn's first bath and heard a pack of predators on the ridge, the child might simply be called *Wolf-Howl* until his true hunt.
A formal name was a prestigious honor, earned only through blood or service and granted exclusively by the chief.
"Yes, Tatanka."
Apache and the remaining hunters fell back into line, though the unease in their chests was mounting.
Tatanka was openly angling to contest the chieftaincy when the current leader stepped down, which made his hunting methods aggressively reckless. Dragging a party through apex-predator timber long after nightfall was a fundamental rookie error. But in his obsession to secure the cat that had ruined their meat spit, Tatanka was willing to ignore the rules of the mountain, dragging his kin into the dark alongside him.
The canopy turned pitch black, the stars blocked by heavy winter clouds. Tatanka's movements grew hurried as the trail ran cold.
"AWOOO—— AWOOO——"
A succession of jagged, high-pitched rumbles drifted from the northern ridge. Even at a distance, the collective volume of the pack sent shiver through the veteran hunters.
"Tatanka, we must turn back to the fire. We can pick up the trail at first light," one of the older hunters urged, his hand tightening on his spear shaft. Apache and the others quickly murmured their agreement.
"It is nothing but a localized gray wolf pack," Tatanka ridiculed, refusing to look back at his kin. "If your blood has turned to water, run back to the cave. I will secure the prey myself."
The hunter's confidence was absolute. With a roaring fat-pine torch in his left hand, a recurve bow at his shoulder, and a quiver of balanced, flint-tipped shafts at his hip, he had no fear of nocturnal pack animals. In his mind, the wolves were the ones who should be hiding from his light.
Realizing the man's stubbornness had cleared the limits of reason, Apache and the others refused to follow him deeper. They turned back along the ridge trail, leaving Tatanka to navigate the timber alone.
Left to his own demise, Tatanka tracked the crimson trail to a small clearing. The earth here was torn up, marked by a heavy pool of fresh, dark blood.
And lying right in the center of the grass was his own flint-pointed shaft.
The cat had stayed here long enough to yank the arrow free. Tatanka's breathing quickened, his chest expanding as he realized the prey was within a few hundred yards. He raised his torch high, casting long, dancing shadows across the brush as he swept the perimeter.
"There."
Cut into the soft soil beneath a juniper bush were several sets of distinct, overlapping cat tracks. They were clear, Paw shapes, but the sizes were entirely inconsistent. There were tiny prints, medium prints, and one set of deep, wide impressions that looked massive.
"That cheetah has a pride?"
Tatanka's eyes flashed in the torchlight. If the wounded beast had retreated to a communal nesting site, he wasn't just tracking a single pelt anymore—he had just stumbled into a jackpot.