Chapter 31: Battle with carnivores

Sobek needed a long time to consume the parasaurolophus. Even with [Rapid digestion], consuming such large an animal took time; after all, that dinosaur weighed over two tons, so the amount of meat it had to swallow was quite large.. When he finished it was already evening. Sobek was a little annoyed by this. Eating his prey had always been a source of annoyance for him given all the time it took, but at least in the swamp he could use his little island to take refuge away from any other predators; now that he had no safe haven he had spent the whole time looking around fearing that at any moment some fearsome opponent would have appeared. After all, a dead parasaurolophus was tempting to many: any large predator would have wanted a good piece of it, and Sobek was not at all sure he could protect his prey in such a situation. If the opponent was too tough, he would have been forced to give up the prey and therefore also the experience points. "With [Fast eating] I could certainly do it faster, but that's not the skill I need now..." His first thought always had to be his survival. While he could eat a lot more preys and thus level up faster using [Fast eating], it was more convenient for him to focus on strengthening his claws or speed of regeneration. For now, [Regeneration] and [Deadly claws] were his priority; [Fast eating] could be left for a second time. After all, an animal that had no weapons was always a dead animal, no matter how fast it ate. By the time he finished to consume the carcass, the sun was already going down. Sobek, however, although until then he had refrained from moving at night, decided to go hunting once again. It was a gamble: large predators were often nocturnal. It was much easier for a tyrannosaurus to hide in thick vegetation and approach its prey if it also had the darkness of night as cover. But Sobek wanted to use the dark of the night to learn how to recognize smells and don't rely only on his sight. He already knew some smells, such as that of tyrannosaurus, but many of those that came from the forest were unknown to him. It is therefore better to use the darkness to check which animals produced them, in order to avoid ending up in a nest of giganotosaurs. Following the smells, he moved throughout the forest. He found many animals he had already learned to recognize, such as hadrosaurs and triceratops. However, he also had the opportunity to see something new. For example, he was finally able to find an ankylosaurus, another extremely famous dinosaur that could not be described in any other way than a walking fortress. When the huge living tank saw him it crouched on its paws and began to wiggle its tail like a club. Sobek had no intention to attack that monster: even a tyrannosaurus would have thought twice before attacking an ankylosaurus. Besides the fact that its armor was basically impenetrable, a single swipe of its tail meant he became lame... in best case scenario. Even after he had obtain [Regeneration], it was a risk that he couldn't taken lightly. Sobek found that there were many animals that he couldn't attack yet. The world of dinosaurs was merciless and animals had evolved the best weapons ever to appear in nature. Even apex predators were used to hunting in pairs or in packs, since it was very difficult to lay out, for example, a triceratops alone: a single blow of those horns in the right spot and the heart would have stopped beating. No wonder that, unlike a parasaurolophus, a triceratops provided 30,000 experience points. The sauropods, then, had no equal. Their gigantic size made them basically unassailable. Sobek saw a pack of them only from a distance, but he could see that each of them was worth 200,000 experience points, and that was just a pack of apatosaurs! He didn't dare to imagine how much giants like brachiosaurs, alamosaurus, patagotitan, supersaurs or argentinosaurs were to be worth. Sobek wouldn't have been surprised if he saw the notification '300,000 experience points' when he met an adult specimen of those species... or even 500,000. Hunting only two apatosaurs would have allowed him to level up, but attacking such large creatures was a mad action. No, even worse, it was a suicidal action. Sobek never dared to do such a madness. Incredibly, however, luck came to his aid. In fact, he came across a young sauropod who had broken away from the herd. It measured 'just' ten meters, a sign that it must have been just a juvenile. Luckily, sauropods weren't exactly experts at parental care, and none of the adults were bothering to wait for it or help it, leaving it alone at the mercy of whatever dangers lurked in the forest. The perfect prey. Without thinking twice, Sobek came out of his hiding place and slashed his throat with his claws. The skin of the young apatosaurus was thick, but not as thick as that of an adult specimen: even so, the spinosaurus had to struggle to cut it. And considering that he already had [Deadly claws], it showed just how tough that hide was. Compared to that, an elephant's hide, so tough that it could partially resist even small-caliber bullets, was trash. After he made a big wound he escaped, moving away from the animal. There was no point in attacking again: he just had to wait for it to bleed to death. It didn't take long: after just twenty minutes the young apatosaurus fell to the ground, and after just a couple of spasms he was no longer able to move. Sobek immediately went to break its neck as soon as he was sure that it was too weak to react in any way. Seeing the size of the prey, Sobek knew he would have feasted all night. And even though he was an easy prey, the apatosaur's size would have granted him 30,000 experience points, like a triceratops! Sobek knew it wasn't going to be that easy to level up. Finding a solitary young sauropod, or at least a weak giant animal, was just a matter of luck. In most cases he would have had to deal with animals who knew how to defend themselves. He absolutely had to upgrade his natural weapons... which meant he had to fight carnivores again to get skill points. And incredibly, almost as if fate wanted to give him a hand, just then came a deep growl from behind the trees. Sobek spun around before he saw two dinosaurs surely carnivorous with a strange double crest on their heads staring at him menacingly. [Prey identified: Dilophosaurus wetherilli, dilophosauridae. Experience: 23,500 points] Seeing that Sobek didn't move, the two carnivores finally came out into the open, exposing themselves to the light of the moon. Films like Jurassic Park had portrayed dilophosaurs as small, devious, poison-firing creatures. Nothing could be more false. In reality they were hunters over two meters tall and at least six meters long, and they were unable to spit poison. That was just a Hollywood fantasy, like the fact that the tyrannosaurus could only see things that move. However, that didn't mean they weren't dangerous to Sobek. Even though he was 18 meters long and three times the height of dilophosaurs, he was still a freshwater predator. His claws might not be enough to counter two such agile predators, and the dilophosaurs seemed to know this very well. Sobek, however, had no intention to give them his prey: he wouldn't have had very soon enough luck to find 30,000 experience points basically free, so they would have had to pass over his corpse to take the apatosaurus! As if they understood his intentions, the two dilophosaurs attacked. One of them came on him head-on, while the other began to circle. Sobek knew what their plan was: one of them wanted to keep him busy while its companion attacked him from behind. The dilophosaurus that had attacked him head-on did not dare to try to overcome the defense of his claws, but its intent was only to give the other one time to go around and hit him from behind. However, Sobek was no longer an ordinary spinosaurus. His vision now had a much wider field and he could follow the dilophosaurus as it circled him. He chose to play their game... but only for the moment. When the dilophosaurus finally attacked, sure to get away with it, Sobek quickly dodged and hit it with a lash of his tail. Sobek's body was much more agile than that of a common spinosaurus, and his strength was still considerable. Even though it was just a flick of the tail, the power was such that the dilophosaurus flew for three meters and crashed into a tree. It fell to the ground in spasms: if not its entire spine, Sobek had at least broken its rib cage. The other dilophosaurus' attitude towards him changed completely: it realized that they had underestimated their opponent. But it was too late now; no longer having to worry about the other dilophosaurus, Sobek charged. In such a fight, size mattered. When it came to a two-on-one, then it was a question of intelligence; but in one-on-one, the biggest usually won. And Sobek was still the biggest terrestrial predator ever exist. The dilophosaurus tried to escape, but it didn't have time: with a blow of his claws Sobek inflicted a fatal wound on its side. The theropod fell to the ground in pain and the spinosaurus took the opportunity to crush its head with a paw. He then walked over to its companion determined to do the same thing, but he found that it had disappeared. Evidently it had recovered from the blow in time and had taken advantage of his distraction to escape. It didn't matter. If he could, Sobek would have smiled triumphantly. Apparently he shouldn't have had just to eat all night, but the next morning as well.