The first thing Sobek had to do was find a suitable place for him. Not exactly a territory where he could fish, but more a place full of preys and with not many predators, possibly with some kind of refuge that he could use as his outpost.
Unfortunately, for several kilometers the river continued normally, without offering any safe point. No covered area, no hiding place, not even a denser zone where it would have been easy to camouflage. After several wanderings, however, he finally arrived in a place where the river bed widened and the water became lower.
He had arrived in a swamp; the water of the river poured into some kind of marsh, slowing the current and allowing the birth of small islets. Large mangroves grew everywhere and in the areas where the water was lower there were huge reeds. Sobek could see several fishbirds perched in trees or intent on fishing. Not only them: there were also numerous pterosaurs, some of them very large; Sobek was able to see a flock of tapejara, flying reptiles with strange crests on their heads, and even a tropeognathus with a wingspan of eight meters that fish thanks to two crests present at the end of the beak that caught small fishes like a net.
Sobek swam where the water was highest. The reason was simple: he knew that this area, even if it was full of preys, was also full of predators. The reeds and muddy water were the perfect place for carnivores such as crocodiles or snakes to hide.
However, it was also the best place for him: he could see that there were different varieties of fishes underwater, so surely the place was full of fish-eating dinosaurs that he could hunt like he did with the baryonyx.
Eventually he found a place to settle: a large islet in the middle of the swamp on which three mangroves grew. The trees would have helped him to hide himself and the water would have prevented large predatory dinosaurs from reaching him. There was always the danger of crocodiles, but it was unlikely that they would have abandoned the safety of the water to hunt him: generally they were animals that captured preys in the river.
Once on the islet he began to sweep away the excess branches and remove the sharp stones. Then he flattened the sand well and covered it all with some dry leaves. In a short time, an excellent bed (at least for the merciless nature's standard) was completed. He had made it slightly bigger than him, since he would have soon grown up again and he didn't want to have to do everything again every time he would have leveled up.
Once the work was done, he lay down in his new bed. Although he was proud of his work, he felt that it was in no way comparable to the familiar warmth of the nest.
He shook his head to dismiss those thoughts. He had other things to think about. "System, open the interface!".
[Spinosaurus aegyptiacus]
Level: 10
Length: 10 m
Height: 3.6 m
Weight: 5 ton
Diet: carnivore, fishivore
Strength: 1,350
Agility: 1,170
Defense: 860
Maximum speed: 11 km/h
Experience points: 9,600/40,000
Skill points:
Fame points: 0/1,000,000
Bonus Money: 1,580
Apparently his attributes looked good, but Sobek knew they weren't good enough. His current goal was only one: to impose his hegemony on the swamp.
The water in the area was too shallow for too large crocodiles or snakes to hunt us; consequently he would not have encountered fifteen-meter long giants such as the sarcosuchus or the titanoboa. Removed these two superpredators, therefore, he could set himself the goal of overcoming in strength all the other predators that were there.
Crocodiles, anacondas, fishes, fish-eating dinosaurs and so on: he had to become able to beat them all. He was already well under way: with [Ambush] on level 2/5 and [Swim Speed] on max, he could easily defeat a baryonyx. However, the baryonyx wasn't his only opponent: there were other large creatures like the suchomimus.
Once his abilities and size made him the undisputed king of the swamp, Sobek was confident he would have risen to the rank of superpredator. In a sense, he could therefore see the swamp as his training ground.
He had already decided how to improve skills: he wanted to improve at least once [Rapid digestion], then he would have focused on maximizing [Ambush]. This was for a very specific reason: parasites and diseases thrived in the swamp, and [Rapid digestion] ensured their destruction. Consequently improving it at least to level 1/5 was a good investiment.
Sobek sniffed the air. He had memorized the smell of baryonyx, so even in the midst of the swamp's immensity of smells he could spot it. As he expected, there was one not far from him.
He dived back into the water and activated [Ambush], then he headed for the source of the scent. While he went he was able to observe better the animal life in the swamp: as he expected, that territory was full of fishes and amphibians. There were also reptiles that swam in the putrid water and in the air there were dragonflies big as eagles called meganeuras.
Finding his prey was easy: the baryonyx wasn't exactly hiding. It was fishing in an area where the water was rather shallow, so much so that it didn't even reach its withers.
As soon as he saw it, Sobek activated [Swim speed]. Now his top speed was 11 km/h, as a result with that skill at its maximum potential he turned his body into a bullet traveling at 110 km/h!
The baryonyx just had time to turn its head towards him before a ten-meter spinosaurus jumped on its body and bit its neck. The impact wasn't enough to kill the baryonyx, but Sobek was prepared: grabbing its head with both forelegs, he rotated it of one hundred and eighty degrees. With a 'crack', the baryonyx's neck snapped neatly.
Once he had killed it, Sobek dragged the corpse to his new islet: he had no intention of eating it in the middle of the putrid water, where he risked becoming infected with some disease. It was one thing to eat in the clear, clean water of the river; another was the dirty, muddy water of the swamp.
Once reaching the islet, Sobek lay down on his bed and began to eat baryonyx. That was going to be his meal of the day.
When he finally finished it was already late in the evening. The first stars had begun to appear in the sky.
The baryonyx had given him 25,000 experience points and 5 skill points. With those 5 skill points he upgraded [Rapid digestion] to level 1/5.
He felt a tingling sensation in his stomach, but nevertheless he felt better: it was as if he felt safer. Perhaps it was due to the fact that he now had to worry less about potential parasites.
Unfortunately, even with the 25,000 experience points he had obtained, he still couldn't level up: his current booty amounted to 34,600 points, but to level up he needed 40,000. He would have had to wait until the next day before hunting again and thus gain enough experience points.
Sobek made himself comfortable and fell asleep. When a gust of wind hit him and made him shiver, he remembered with nostalgia the heat produced by his brothers and sisters who thronged on him.
THUMP.Sobek was awakened by a vibration.THUMP.Memory reminded him of the t-rex's footsteps, which made him shiver. However, he quickly understood that it couldn't be the case: a tyrannosaurus wasn't that heavy. Those footsteps seemed to have been produced directly by a mountain that had been magically given legs and had begun to walk.THUMP.Sobek stood up, eager to find out what was causing that sound. However, when sleep completely abandoned his eyes and he was able to focus, he almost jumped back!Next to the islet tha he had turned into his home there were a group of real behemoths that were peacefully crossing the swamp. They had huge necks at least nine meters long and just one of their legs was taller than him![Prey identified: Dreadnoughtus schrani, titanosauridae. Experience: 200,000 points]Sobek was stuck. For the first time he met the giants of prehistory: the sauropods!Sauropods were the largest land animals ever to appear on Earth. Elephants and mammoths were just li
The following day Sobek immediately resumed the hunt. This time, nothing would have stopped him from moving to a new area. The day before he had gained some skill points, but this time he was desperate to find another large predatory dinosaur to defeat and devour.He swam for kilometers, keeping clear of any spot where crocodiles or snakes might hide. He noticed several freshwater sharks on the way, but he completely ignored them: he had no intention of stopping and risking being attacked again. He had learned from what had happened to him with the alligator, and while he had been lucky that time, he was not going to risk it again; after all, if the alligator had hit him even a little, it could have damaged his delicate sail irreparably, which meant causing severe blood loss. Sobek would not have risked that much: some small sharks weren't worth it.Eventually he came to an area where the mangroves were slightly denser, forming a real forest above the swamp. He was far enough away from
[Spinosaurus aegyptiacus]Level: 12Length: 12 mHeight: 4.2 mWeight: 6 tonDiet: carnivore, fishivoreStrength: 1,680Agility: 1,430Defense: 950Maximum speed: 13 km/hExperience points: 1,900/60,000Skill points: 0Fame points: 0/1,000,000Bonus Money: 1,830By now Sobek's length had become equal to the one of a t-rex. However, his height was still less: a tyrannosaurus generally was 5.5 to 6 meters tall. This is for a simple matter of skeletal structure: the body shape of the spinosaurus was more horizontal, favoring the quadrupedal gait, while that of the t-rex was diagonal, allowing a bipedal gait.Even leaving out that detail, the difference between him and a tyrannosaurus was glaring. A t-rex had dozens of times his strength, ran at least twice his speed, and most importantly had a muzzle designed to bite and tear. Quite the opposite of him, in short. Not to mention that a t-rex was at least two tons heavier than him. He still had a long way to go before he could reach the top
The following days were the easiest of all for Sobek. Each day he caught at least one oxalaia, which, in addition to satisfying his hunger, earned him 33,000 experience points.After a day he had already been able to climb to level 13, reaching 13 meters in length and 4.5 meters in height. In three days he was able to reach the level 14, obtaining a length of 14 meters and a height of 4.8 meters. In a week he finally reached level 15, reaching 15 meters in length and 5.1 meters in height.By now he was bigger than many adult spinosaurs, but he was planning to become even more: the herd of oxalaia in fact had been reduced by very few in number. Despite his soaring level up, Sobek hadn't killed more than six oxalaia in total.Even so, he had gained an immense amount of skill points!Since an adult oxalaia granted 5 skill points, he had earned the titanic amount of 30 skill points. Sobek estimated that under normal circumstances he wouldn't have reached such quantity in less than a couple
By the time he got close enough to the poachers, Sobek understood two things.The first was that he could understand their language. He didn't know how it was possible: perhaps it was the same as one present on Earth in his previous life? Yet it didn't sound like English, French, Italian or any other language he knew. Furthermore, at the level of probability it was basically impossible for humans to develop the same language in a different world, because language wasn't a fixed thing, it evolved according to history and society. It was like expecting that somewhere in the universe existed a perfectly identical planet to Earth, where every single action of every lifeform happened the same way. It was simply impossible.The second thing he realized was that the poachers didn't have too strong weapons: if they did, they wouldn't have been in a hurry to leave before the oxalaia herd woke up. Dinosaurs were still animals, so they could be killed by human weapons, but they had characteristic
"Do you see anything?""No! Nothing at all"The six poachers who had headed north had the impression that they were looking for nothing. Wherever they headed, there was nothing but water, mangroves and aquifers; no trace of the spinosaurus."That bastard ran like a train! By now it will have distanced us by kilometers!" one of them, a fat man with a freckled face, snapped. Definitely, he was starting to get seriously annoyed by the situation.Another poacher, a guy with long hair and short arms, was more optimistic. "It may be as fast as a train, but it's still an animal. Sooner or later it will get tired of running away and we will catch up with it"His words were not wrong at all, in fact they were quite logical, but the guy who had spoken first still did not change his dark mood. "Tsk. You are always an incurable dreamer, Karl. We're spinning around here, we won't find it anymore"The poacher named Karl was about to reply, perhaps to try to lighten the mood again or perhaps to scold
After half an hour, Sobek heard the roar of the engines approaching. He promptly plunged back into the water: he couldn't risk to be seen, not now at least. His plan was carefully thought out and he knew exactly how he had to proceed.When Wheathley finally reached where Karl's last transmission had come from, he found only one of the boats overturned and another on fire behind a small passage in the mangroves. A real massacre that left not even a single survivor.The other poachers were nervous. Such a sight was enough to worry even men accustomed to death. "Was it the spinosaurus to do this, boss?" one of them asked."It seems obvious to me. No other animal would be strong enough to move a motorboat like that" Wheathley grumbled as he watched the wreckage of the burning speedboat. Only a creature that swam with the speed of a boat could do such damage.Suddenly one of the poachers shouted: "Over there! It's over there!"Everyone turned to the spot he had indicated. In the distance th
"Move! Everyone aboard the ship!""Shouldn't we wait for the boss?""Fuck him! The boss is dead! He hasn't answered the radio for twenty minutes, like everyone else! We have to get out of here before the spinosaurus returns!"In addition to the poachers who had gone to hunt Sobek, there were still five remaining on the islet of the oxalaias. They had originally regretted being left behind to check the animals, but now they were thankful they hadn't gone chasing the spinosaurus with Wheathley. Now they were in a great hurry to leave: the instant their leader had ceased communications they had decided it was best to disappear before the spinosaurus returned for them too."What do we do with the oxalaias?""Get the cages with the cubs and leave the others here! Spinosaurs are territorial, we don't have time to bring even the adult specimens on the ship!"Suddenly one of the poachers shouted: "Over there! It is coming!"Under the terrified gaze of the poachers, a sail had appeared in the m