The deafening roar of the sabertooth shattered the quiet of the savanna night. It was an unnatural, piercing sound that sent shockwaves through the grasslands, forcing distant herds of native horses and camels to turn their heads around toward the riverbank.
By then, the Toxodon had finally registered the vibration. It swung its blunt, heavy cranium around, only for the image of a massive tiger expanding through its field of vision.
BAM
Launching his strike from the blind spot, James unleashed a terrifying burst of speed and power. He closed the ten-meter gap in a heartbeat, compressed his rear limbs, and vaulted into the air like a heavy artillery shell, landing squarely across the Toxodon's massive, sloping hip structure.
According to his established hunting logic, his next mechanical sequence was locked in: drive his foreclaws deep into the hide to anchor his weight, find his balance across the spine, and wait for the precise time to plunge his sabers into the neck or cervical column to finish the prey.
It was the textbook execution for a Smilodon, a model he had refined through a dozen successful harvests.
But this time, his calculations failed.
The entire surface of the Toxodon's hide was coated in a thick, semi-dried armor of river mud—the natural insulation the giant utilized to regulate its core temperature and prevent its skin from cracking under the sun.
In the pitch black of the basin, James hadn't accounted for the texture.
The moment his front claws slithered over the beast's spine, they found zero structural hold, shearing through nothing but a slick, wet sheet of grey muck. His weight shifted instantly; his balance collapsed, and he slid completely off the side of the barrel-shaped torso, hitting the mud in a messy tangle.
THUD
Fortunately, the Toxodon's clearance was exceptionally low to the earth. James rolled out of the impact immediately, re-centering his balance and scrambling back onto his paws before the giant could react.
"ROAR~~"
James's unexpected slip paralyzed the secondary vanguard. Aurora and the tool cheetah froze at the edge of the reeds, their coordinated flanking speed completely disrupted by his sudden loss of positioning.
"MOO~~"
The Toxodon slowly pivoted its massive, low-slung frame, opening its wide muzzle to emit a deep, vibrating rumble of warning.
With 1.5 metric tons of solid bone and muscle anchoring it to the soil, the mammal felt zero existential dread from a passing carnivore. In its reality, any predator bold enough to challenge its boundary needed to measure its own threshold carefully, lest a failed harvest end in its own execution.
"The traditional wrestling style hunt won't penetrate that mud coat," James calculated, his teeth clicking as he wiped the gray slime from his whiskers. "We'll have to play the long game. A war of attrition."
Despite the failure of the initial launch, James refused to abandon the hunt. He shifted his strategy instantly.
In his past life documentaries, when a pride of African lions targeted an adult hippopotamus on dry ground, they never relied on a single, decisive lock. They utilized a relentless, multi-pronged harassment campaign. They would bait the titan away from the current, exploit its sluggish turning speed, and repeatedly harvest its hindquarters from behind to bleed it dry before delivering the final killing bite.
James took three deliberate steps back, retreating into the shadow of the high needlegrass to re-set the positions. Aurora and the cheetah mirrored his alignment, vanishing back into the darkness.
Seeing the predators retreat by it's warning, the Toxodon exhaled a heavy sigh, took two slow steps forward, and lowered its broad snout back into the sedges, resuming its grazing.
"This thing has zero survival instinct," James thought, tracking the movement through the stalks.
Quietly adjusting his angle until he was anchored perfectly behind the beast's tail, James launched his second attack.
Learning from his previous error, he didn't attempt to scale the mud-coated spine. Instead, he dropped his center of gravity low, darted beneath the line of the hips, and opened his jaws wide, locking his teeth directly onto the short, column-like rear leg of the titan.
The moment his jaws closed, James engaged the full compressive output of his muzzle. The ivory sabers sliced cleanly through the thick mud layer, shearing deep into the vascular muscle sheets of the hock.
Unlike native horses or camels, the structural configuration of a Toxodon's hind limbs prevented it from delivering a lateral or rear kick; its anatomy was built strictly for forward locomotion, leaving its rear completely defenseless against a low anchor.
"MOO!!"
The sudden trauma to its leg forced a sharp, agonized bellow from the giant's throat. It twisted its massive torso violently, trying to bring its heavy muzzle around to crush the golden tiger attached to its leg.
But its turning speed were far too sluggish. James pulled his teeth free effortlessly, stepping wide of the swinging flank before the giant could complete the pivot.
An instant later, James swiveled behind the hips again, delivering a second, deep laceration to expand the original wound channel.
Aurora capitalized on the opening, launching her frame from the opposite side to lock her teeth into the alternate rear leg.
The tool cheetah remained at the periphery, its slender body entirely unsuited for this thing. Even if the Toxodon remained motionless, the cheetah's specialized jaw architecture lacked the leverage to penetrate the dense hide, making it a mere observer to the slaughter.
The enraged river titan spun in frantic, heavy circles, desperate to clear its flanks, but the two Smilodons operated like a coordinated pair, staying permanently anchored behind its turning radius.
"MOO~~"
As the deep muscle tissue of its hindquarters was disassembled, the giant finally recognized the lethality of the trap. Panic taking hold, it pivoted toward the riverbank, attempting to drag its mass back to the security of the deep current.
But James and Aurora refused to yield the lane. They renewed their offensive, using their full body mass to anchor themselves to the trailing limbs, their teeth tearing through flesh and tendon without a shred of restraint.
Within ten minutes, the structural integrity of the Toxodon's hind legs failed completely. The muscle groups were reduced to a ragged, bleeding mass, the pale gleam of bone visible through the crimson channels. Unable to support its 1.5-ton bulk, the titan collapsed forward into the grass, just a little far from the water.
"ROAR!!"
Seeing the giant dropped, James knew the perfect time came.
He launched his tawny frame forward in a clean, explosive arc. He drove his front claws deep into the tough hide of the rump, planted his rear paws against the lower belly, and used his long tail to balance his center of gravity as he scrambled upward, successfully mounting the beast's spine once more.
This time, his position was absolute. His reinforced claws functioned like iron spikes, pinning his mass securely into the hide, while his flexible ankles locked tightly against the coarse fur.
With its hind limbs paralyzed, the Toxodon possessed zero capacity to buck or rock its torso to dislodge the weight; it could only press its heavy jaw into the dirt, emitting a succession of low, hollow groans.
It was completely neutralized—meat on a chopping block.
But as James hovered over the spine, his jaws parting, a major tactical dilemma materialized. He had no clear path to deliver the final strike.
The neck?
The Toxodon's cervical structure was as wide as a oak barrel, dense with layers of protective fat and muscle. Even his long sabers were insufficient to reach the carotid artery or the spinal cord from this angle; driving them blindly into that mass risked jamming his weapons or fracturing the ivory against the vertebrae.
The spine?
The upper ridge of the beast's back was formed by a row of elongated neural spines—a dense, bony wall that mirrored a bison's hump. It was completely impenetrable.
"The only soft entry point is the underbelly,"James realized.
He slipped off the giant's back, dropping into the mud beside the flank. He braced his wide forelimbs against the top of the barrel chest, engaged his core musculature, and began to apply a massive, steady lateral pressure. He gave a sharp, commanding roar, signaling Aurora and the cheetah to assist.
THUD
Expending a significant fraction of their remaining energy, the combined leverage of the three cats finally overcame the giant's center of gravity. The 1.5-ton Toxodon rolled over onto its side, exposing the soft, white-grey skin of its unprotected abdomen.
James didn't waste a heartbeat. The three cats converged on the exposed vector, their claws and teeth shearing through the dermal layers to open the abdominal cavity.
Fresh blood and internal organs spilled across the grass in a violent, crimson display. Yet, the predators held no regard for the aesthetics of the harvest; they immediately began to eat the high-fat resources.
"MOO~~"
The Toxodon continued to emit low, bubbling groans through its wide muzzle. Given the immense, stubborn vitality of its primitive metabolism, its consciousness remained active despite the total evisceration of its core. It could only stare blankly across the dark savanna flats, tracking the stars as its life force slowly drained into the soil.No one knew the pain of being eaten alive. But nature was never merciful. It was a world where you either eat or be eaten .
If you harmed nature, it would take its revenge sooner or later. What James didn't know was that its revenge had already begun.
No one could escape the laws of nature—not even Supernatural powers.