A single spruce grouse was a decent meal for the cheetah, but for James's massive, updated framework, it didn't even qualify as an appetizer. With his current metabolic demands, he required at least twenty to thirty pounds of raw flesh daily just to maintain his baseline power.
"Not a bad output. Keep that work ethic up," James thought, leaning down to briefly nudge the cheetah's head with his muzzle as an acknowledgment of its service.
"REOW~~"
Feeling the heavy pressure of the gesture, the cheetah partially closed its eyes, curving its long spine inward as it leaned into the touch. For a split second, it didn't look like a lethal pursuit predator at all; it looked like a domesticated housecat soliciting affection.
James sheared the grouse cleanly in half with his carnassials, letting Aurora taste the avian protein while he bolted down the rest. The flavor profile was excellent, but two bites in, the resource vanished.
The taste left his mind drifting into a brief fantasy. "If only there were birds the size of bison wandering these ridges..."
"ROAR!!"
Suddenly, Aurora unleashed a sharp, jagged bellow directly toward a dense cluster of low-lying scrub. The cry was packed with an unnatural blend of territorial fury and raw panic.
James snapped out of his thoughts, his ears pinning forward as he tracked her line of sight. The moment his pupils focused on the intruder shifting through the brush, his pulse spiked violently.
Standing nearly two and a half meters tall within the juniper brakes was a colossal, flightless avian entity.
It possessed a massive, disproportionately heavy skull anchored to long, column-like hindquarters. Its defining asset was an immense, laterally compressed beak shaped exactly like a heavy battleaxe, its tip tapering into a lethal, down-curved hook.
A Terror Bird—Titanis.
"Speak of the devil..." James thought, his muscles tensing instantly. "I asked for a bigger chicken, but this is ridiculous."
"SCREECH! SCREECH!!"
The giant avian spotted the group.Its thick scaly feet churning the damp soil as it leveled its massive beak toward them, its blood-red eyes completely dilated with absolute aggression.
James found the bird's behavior entirely confusing. They hadn't crossed into its immediate nesting radius, yet the creature was emitting signs of total, unhinged territorial malice—as if it viewed their feline shapes as ancestral enemies.
"SCREECH!!"
The flightless monster didn't wait for a tactical engagement. It opened its massive beak, unleashed a piercing, metallic shriek that echoed off the limestone rock faces, and drove its heavy legs into an explosive sprint, hurtling straight toward them.
THUD THUD THUD
The impact of its heavy, three-toed feet rattled the loose gravel. Faced with a two-hundred-kilogram missile, James, Aurora, and the cheetah scattered instantly, diving into the lateral brush.
But the Titanis wasn't interested in a general perimeter clear. It ignored the cheetah and James entirely, its red eyes locking firmly onto Aurora's white hide. It swiveled its hips mid-stride, pursuing her into the timber with terrifying velocity.
"ROAR——"
Aurora pushed her limbs to their absolute limit, but the long-legged bird held the advantage in open acceleration. Within a hundred meters, the shadow of the massive beak was hovering directly over her flanks.
"SCREECH!!"
The Titanis reared its thick neck back, using the heavy muscular leverage of its spine to drive its beak downward like a falling hatchet, targeting the area of Aurora's back.
The kinetic energy behind that vertical strike was immense—enough to shatter the spine of an adult tapir.
In a fraction of a second, Aurora executed a desperate, lateral roll across the dirt, the tip of the beak slamming into the earth an inch from her ribs, cleaving a deep gouge into the soil.
She scrambled frantically to recover her footing, but the bird had already adjusted its weight, its massive head rising for a second terminal strike.
She was out of options to run from this creature.
BAM
Before the axe could fall a second time, a heavy, golden mass collided with the bird's upper torso. The immense lateral impact disrupted the avian's center of gravity, causing its long legs to stumble.
Leveraging the vertical terrain, James had scaled a low-hanging pine limb, using the branches as a launchpad to drop his entire weight directly onto the bird's feathered spine.
"ROAR——"
James drove his front claws deep into the lateral muscle sheets beneath the feathers. His reinforced claws tore through the tough skin like hot steel through fat, causing a heavy spray of dark crimson to slick the bird's plumage.
"SCREECH!!"
The sudden trauma sent the bird into a frenzy. It abandoned Aurora entirely, thrashing its torso and bucking violently across the clearing in an effort to dislodge the golden weight from its back.
But James's forelimb strength was built for wrestling megafauna. He locked his chest flush against the avian's spine, compressing his upgraded skeletal framework until he was immovable.
Moving with cold tactical precision, James shifted his grip, hauled his torso forward along the feathers, and extended his neck. His jaws opened to their maximum threshold, locking onto the bird's elongated, skin-covered windpipe.
He closed his teeth with the full power of his jaw muscles, driving his sabers clean through the cervical column.
CRACK
The moment the ivory met bone, the bird's neural coordination shattered. Its long legs buckled beneath it, and the massive frame crashed heavily into the dirt, rolling over its own shoulder.
James snapped the vertebrae completely with a final, twisting bite.
The white froth around the bird's beak turned into a thick, bubbling crimson, its metallic shrieks deteriorating into a low, wet rattle before its long limbs went completely rigid.
Done.
James pulled his sabers free, his breath coming in jagged, ragged gasps as he stepped off the carcass. His heart was hammering wildly against his ribs.
If his reaction time had been a second slower, Aurora would have been crippled or killed. The strike power behind that beak was catastrophic.
He looked around the pine stand, feeling a wave of relief. "Thank God for the trees," he thought. "If we were out on the open areas, It would be hard to reach its spine."
---
[DING! Host killed a Titanis. Gene Points +120.]
---
The System notification cut through his racing thoughts, letting the adrenaline begin to drain from his muscles.
---
[DING! Detection of an organism suitable for gene replication nearby—Titanis.]
[DING! Titanis blood collection complete. Stored in the System gene bank. Gene replication requires 30 Gene Points. Please view the system gene bank for details.]
---
James pulled up his internal interface, scanning the newly unlocked avian data string.
---
[Titanis Gene: Hind Limb Muscular Reinforcement. Cost: 30 Gene Points.]
[Titanis Gene: Skeletal Pneumatization (Hollow Bone Architecture). Cost: 50 Gene Points.]
---
The first option—the hind limb upgrade—looked promising. The explosive power within those dinosaur-like legs was undeniable.
But as his eyes skimmed the second option, James's mind stalled.
Hollow bones? That was the classic avian adaptation designed to shed body weight for flight mechanics.
"A Sabertooth tiger with hollow bones?"James thought,
a mental image of him trying to wrestle an ancient bison with brittle, air-filled legs flashing through his head.
"Are you trying to turn me into a lawn ornament, System? If I take that, my legs will snap like twigs the next time I slam into a horse."