James decided to move out before Aurora noticed he had been watching her hunt. He didn't want to ruin her moment, so he quickly turned and began tracking back toward the reservoir.
He had only traveled a few hundred yards when a sharp, frantic roar shattered the quiet timber behind him. It was Aurora.
James skidded to a halt, his ears pinning back. He pivoted and sprinted toward the sound, kicking up chunks of damp earth as he went.
When he broke through the brush, he saw the problem. A pack of heavy, thick-jawed Dire Wolves had already formed a loose perimeter around Aurora. They were snarling, snapping their teeth as they slowly advanced on the peccary carcass lying at her feet.
Stealing meals was standard practice in the Pleistocene. The Dire Wolves were the ultimate opportunists; they could hunt on their own, but they never passed up the chance to bully a lone predator out of a fresh kill. Their scouts were always patrolling the woods, looking for a weakness to exploit. They had clearly been trailing Aurora since the moment she brought down the pig.
"ROAR——"
Aurora stood over her prize, her first instinct being a loud, calling roar for backup. In the past, whenever these heavy-set wolves tried to corner her, a single call would bring her massive parents charging out of the brush to scatter the pack.
But as her voice echoed through the empty trees, there was no answering thunder.
The reality of independence hit her in that split second. Her parents were gone. She was entirely on her own against a dozen hungry wolves.
"AWOOO——"
The alpha male of the pack let out a guttural, jagged snarl, testing her resolve. He bared his heavy, bone-crushing teeth, stepping closer to the meat. The rest of the pack followed his lead, lowering their heads and growling in unison, preparing for a coordinated rush.
Faced with a dozen large canids, Aurora's survival instinct overrode her hunger. Her eyes flashed with fury, but she began to back away from the kill. Fighting them alone was suicide. She dropped the peccary carcass, preparing to abandon it to save her life.
But before the wolves could close the distance, a rapid, heavy pounding sound thundered through the undergrowth.
Something massive was coming—and it was moving at a terrifying speed.
The alpha wolf caught the sound first, turning his heavy head with a look of suspicion.
Through the ferns, James emerged like a launched projectile. His Agility made him a blur of tawny fur. Before the pack could even shift their formation, James cleared the last bush in a massive leap and crashed straight into the center of the fray.
"ROAR——"
Landing with an earth-shaking thud, James didn't hesitate. He reared up slightly, his shoulders bunching as he threw a massive, sweeping paw strike at the nearest wolf.
BAM!
The blow landed squarely on the wolf's jaw. The sheer force of the impact lifted the 70kg animal off its feet, sending it flying into a tree trunk. The reinforced 10cm claws tore through its muzzle like steel hooks, leaving a spray of crimson in the air.
The sudden violence stunned the pack for a heartbeat.
The alpha wolf backed up several steps, his eyes wide. He recovered quickly, giving a sharp, commanding howl—the signal to swarm. In his experience, a single cat could still be overwhelmed by numbers. Even a Sabertooth could be dragged down if enough jaws latched onto its legs.
Responding to the command, the wolves rushed James from all sides, snapping their jaws and trying to anchor themselves into his hide.
But James had no intention of being in defensive position. He stood his ground, using his massive forelimbs like twin clubs, swinging his heavy paws in a relentless, blinding flurry. His striking power was easily over a ton now, driven by the explosive strength of his upgraded muscles.
Every wolf that tried to close the gap was met with a deafening crack as his paws connected with ribs and skulls. The speed of his output was too much for them; animals were sent rolling into the dirt, dazed and bleeding, their aggression completely broken.
Within a minute, James had cleared a physical boundary around himself. The remaining wolves backed away, circling three meters out, their ears flat against their heads, terrified to move within his reach.
However, two persistent wolves had managed to scramble onto his back during the chaos, burying their teeth into his shoulders and flanks.
They bit with everything they had, expecting the flesh to tear. Instead, they found themselves biting into something that felt like cured leather over steel plates. Their teeth couldn't penetrate the density of his Lv2 Skin. They couldn't even draw blood—all they left were faint indentations in the fur. It was the same invulnerability usually reserved for the thick hide of an adult Mammoth or a Ground Sloth.
"ROAR!"
James gave a violent, twisting shrug, throwing both wolves off his spine.
He didn't give them a chance to recover. He lunged at the first one, pinning it to the earth with his massive forelimbs, and drove his sabers straight through the back of its neck. The blades cleaved the spine instantly.
One down.
He yanked his teeth free and charged toward the second wolf, which was scrambling backward in a panic, trying to turn and run.
James caught it by the hindquarters, flattening it into the dirt. He raised a heavy paw and delivered a rapid, devastating succession of strikes to the back of its skull—three blows in the span of a single second.
CRACK. CRACK. CRACK.
The final blow shattered the wolf's skull completely, sending blood and brain matter spraying across the grass. The sheer, raw brutality of the kill was an absolute psychological shock to the rest of the pack.
James stood over the carcass, his front paws covered in dark wolf blood, his long claws dripping. He looked like a demon of the Pleistocene forest.
"ROAR——"
He let out a deafening, full-chested challenge and took a sudden, aggressive step toward the surviving wolves.
"WHINE~~"
The alpha wolf's courage broke completely. He gave a pathetic whimper, tucked his tail between his legs, and bolted into the deep woods. With the leader gone, the remaining wolves scattered like birds, fleeing in every direction to get away from the monster.
James didn't pursue them. He stood in the clearing, his chest heaving slightly as he regulated his breathing, and turned his head to look at Aurora. He gave her a short, commanding roar.
"Pick up the meat. We need to move before more scavengers show up."
Aurora finally snapped out of her daze. She stepped over the dead wolves, grabbed the peccary by the neck, and quickly fell into step behind James as he turned back toward his territory.
For a young Smilodon starting out on her own, a reliable territory and food were important, but nothing matched the need for safety. They weren't solitary animals by nature; their biology craved the security of a pride, a shared strength to hold the line against the nightmares of the Ice Age. This instinct was even stronger in females.
As she followed the heavy, rhythmic stride of the golden cat ahead of her, Aurora felt that missing weight return. He was a force of nature—reliable, immovable, and dominant.
She had found her pride.
James walked on, his internal thoughts quiet but resolved. He looked back at her once, watching her struggle with the heavy Peccary.
"Alright" he thought, his human mind settling into the reality of his new life. "Let's go home, Our home."