As twilight deepened, James and his crew paced through the rugged timber of the Olympic range.
This ancient, mist-shrouded system shared its title with the legendary mountain of Greece, named by later humans as the home of the ancient pantheon.
Navigating a dense stretch of moisture-laden rainforest, James's eyes pinned a sudden, heavy trail of dark fluid splattered across the wet needlegrass. A continuous succession of thick drops tracked toward a hidden drainage corridor, mapping the precise trajectory of a severely compromised organism.
"Let's see what kind of asset left this trail,"James rumbled quietly, directing a short chuff toward the tool cheetah.
If their luck held, they might harvest a free morning meal without expending significant energy.
The cheetah translated the directive instantly, lowering its muzzle to verify the scent before accelerating down the blood trail. James and Aurora maintained a steady pace right behind it.
"RAAAHHH!"
Within minutes, a deep, booming vocalization echoed through the conifer stands, instantly accompanied by the sharp, defensive hissing of the cheetah.
The target was clearly not a passive herbivore.
James lengthened his stride, clearing a final barrier of moss-covered roots to find the cheetah locked in a high-pressure standoff with a massive, broad-shouldered primate.
"Is that... a Gigantopithecus?"
Examining the creature's massive proportions, a wave of genuine surprise crossed James's mind.
A true giant. Its very name was an absolute reflection of its structural layout.
The male primate clearing the lane stood well over three meters tall, its dense mass easily tracking at half a metric ton—precisely double the weight of a standard adult sabertooth tiger.
By comparison, a modern silverback gorilla averages a modest 1.7 to 1.8 meters in height with a maximum weight under 250 kilograms. Stacked against this Pleistocene giant, a modern gorilla looked like a juvenile next to a fully developed adult.
"REOW~~"
Even though the massive primate was displaying multiple active wounds across its chest, the cheetah's programming forced it to recoil, its small brain registering an instinctive dread of that immense mass. It refused to close the distance.
The cheetah had never crossed paths with a primate of this scale. Prior to this cycle, its interactions with the order were limited to minor arboreal targets like howler monkeys, spider monkeys, and capuchins.
Those miniature tree-dwellers were resources the cheetah could easily harvest at will. But with the roles reversed, its own slender frame looked like a minor animal that this giant could snap with a single hand.
""RAAAHHH!" "RAAAHHH!"
The wounded alpha primate began rhythmically thumping its heavy fists against its massive chest plate, baring a set of thick, blunt teeth as its expression twisted into pure fury.
Without warning, the giant launched a heavy charge. It utilized its thick forelimbs as a knuckle-walking support system to build immediate momentum, before rearing onto its hind legs as it closed the gap, swinging a massive, heavy fist straight down toward the cheetah's skull!
"REOW~~"
The cheetah turned tail and bolted, refusing to absorb the impact.
Spotting James entering the clearing, it immediately looped back, taking up a defensive position right behind the golden tiger's heavy shoulders to reset its confidence.
James ignored the cowardly cheetah, his emerald pupils locked onto the massive primate as his mind calculated the possibility of his victory .
In his old human life, he had analyzed a record of a captive silverback gorilla easily shattering a sheet of heavy, reinforced safety glass with a casual strike. A conservative calculation estimated the impact force of that punch at nearly two tons.
Since this Gigantopithecus carried double the mass of a modern gorilla, its maximum punching power would inevitably scale significantly higher.
However, theoretical data metrics didn't alter the reality of wild combat.
In practice, a great ape possessed immense raw strength, but it lacked the long, specialized claws or razor-sharp carnassial teeth of an apex predator. Furthermore, its heavy frame made its locomotion clumsy and linear.
When engaged by a high-tier enemy, a primate's offensive routines were remarkably basic, carrying a slow attack speed and a low accuracy index.
This was precisely why James remembered historical records of modern leopards successfully preying on adult gorillas under the cover of dark. Against the specialized hardware of a prime lion or tiger, a great ape stood almost zero statistical chance of survival.
"The only way to verify the data is a live demonstration," James thought, his foreclaws uncoiling from his pads.
Operating as a nomadic predator meant continuously testing his strength against the strongest animals this continent had to offer. He had already broken the American lion, the teratorn, the Toxodon, and the grizzly. Now, it was time to close the ledger on the giant primate.
"ROAR——"
James secured the tactical initiative, launching his broad frame straight toward the primate with explosive velocity!
The Gigantopithecus didn't flinch. It unleashed a deafening roar of its own, taking two massive strides forward to meet the challenge head-on.
As the distance closed to three meters, the giant reared its torso up, driving its heavy iron fists down in a direct trajectory toward James's skull.
To James's neural tracking, the primate's mechanical movements appeared to operate in slow motion—clumsy, heavy, and entirely predictable.
He had no intention of engaging in a mutual blunt-force brawling match. As a feline, his monopoly lay in his lethal agility and blade hardware.
With a sharp twitch of his tail to shift his center of gravity mid-air, James effortlessly altered his lane, letting the giant's fists slam uselessly into the mossy earth. Before the primate could reset its balance, James slipped directly into its blind spot.
Driving off his powerful hind legs, James launched his mass directly onto the primate's heavy back. His front claws hooked securely into the thick hide and fat layers, his pads feeling the massive muscle groups of the giant's shoulders contract and swell beneath the fur.
CRUNCH!
James drove his jaws downward, targeting the upper spine. However, because his left saber was still sheared in half from his previous battle, the mechanical bite alignment felt slightly uneven, preventing a clean penetration of the bone.
"ROAR~~~"
The giant reacted instantly to the pressure. It threw its entire weight backward, collapsing its body toward the earth like a falling stone wall, intending to crush James beneath its half-ton mass.
James read the counter-move perfectly. He released his claw grip instantly, executing a clean backward leap to clear the impact zone before the giant hit the dirt.
The primate rolled heavily across the forest floor, crushing several low juniper brakes as its weight tore through the soil, leaving a heavy smear of crimson across the moss.
Two massive lacerations now scored its back, extending from the shoulder line down to its hip. The thick hide had been sliced cleanly by James's reinforced claws, the deep tracks welling with dark blood.
"RAAAHHH!"
Scrambling back onto its feet, the giant unleashed a furious, blood-soaked roar.
It launched a secondary charge, moving forward like a heavy biological tank—lacking high velocity but carrying immense physical pressure.
James refused to accept a head-on collision. He waited for the precise millisecond the giant committed its weight, executed a swift lateral loop, and mounted the primate's back for a second time, his jaws tearing away a massive segment of flesh from its shoulder.
The intense pain compromised the giant's internal balance, its knees buckling slightly. The combat had been active for several minutes, yet the primate hadn't managed to land a single point of impact against James's hide. The total failure of its offensive routines drove it into a state of helpless, frantic rage.
Within three more exchanges, the structural deficit became absolute. James's foreclaws had torn a deep, ragged incision across the giant's abdominal wall, exposing the lower tissues. Every movement caused the primate agonizing pain.
Furthermore, its short, stocky rear limbs had been systematically targeted, its heavy thighs reduced to a bleeding, compromised mess.
Sensing the immediate approach of its own death, the giant realized it could not win this fight. If it remained in this area, the golden tiger would bleed it to death.
The terrified primate turned its shoulders, attempting a desperate retreat down the slope.
But James had no intention of allowing a prime, half-ton meat to leave. He closed the distance in three explosive bounds, launching his entire mass against the giant's rear to plow it flat into the mud.
This time, James secured a flawless clamp directly over the giant's throat. His remaining long saber drove deep through the thick skin and muscle, cleanly puncturing the primary windpipe and killing the primate on the spot.