Adon fluttered in the air just above the mountainside, helplessly staring down at the gap in the rock face that led into the Golden Eagle’s eyrie.

He was still processing.

What just happened? Did my Mana ball just miss? No, I know that didn’t happen. I was right behind the eagle. And the way it looked—it looked like the energy ball just got blown off course somehow. A freak gust of wind? That I didn’t feel on my body at all? Sensing the attack can’t explain this. That damn bird didn’t even dodge. So, it must have a passive defense. Some kind of automatic wind deflection of attacks—or even just unwanted objects—that get too close.

His thoughts were cut short as the Golden Eagle suddenly reemerged.

What? Already?

The great bird still had a hint of red on its beak, so it must have already torn into the poor fox it had taken before it returned home. Yet there was no way it had spent sufficient time inside to eat the beast, unless it simply swallowed the carcass whole—in which case, why bother going into the eyrie in the first place?

Adon received the probable answer, though he did not like it.

The echo of a squawk sounded from somewhere within the eagle’s nest, and Adon knew that this fellow he had been attempting to hunt must have a mate or offspring somewhere inside the crag, waiting for him. It was impossible to be sure which one, with the way the echo distorted sound. But either way, he instantly felt conflicted about killing the male.

I’m probably depriving some little eaglets of their father, he thought guiltily. The reason the eagle is spending so much time hunting is because it’s the one feeding whichever family member lives in that case. I’m going to make some orphans, just because I want to get stronger…

But he made himself follow the eagle as it began to climb into the sky. There was nothing else to do. He had pursued the eagle all the way out here, to the mountains. If Adon was going to become an apex predator in his own right, dethroning another apex predator was inevitable.

Circle of life, Adon, he told himself. You’re either killing or being killed. You’ve been on the wrong side of that one often enough yourself. You need to make sure you’re on the right end this time. The eagle is a stepping stone in your journey. Maybe the most important stepping stone so far.

He didn’t quite believe it, but it was enough to keep his wings working.

And then he was closer to the eagle, which was soaring in a leisurely fashion on a gentle air current that kept it high above the earth.

At that point, the problems of his situation were enough to take his mind off of the ethics of killing apex predators in the wild.

How do I do this? It’ll probably deflect any attack I launch…

Paradoxically, the fact that the Golden Eagle was a worthy challenge made him more comfortable, rather than less, with the thought of killing it. He would at least be working hard for his supper this time—assuming that Adon actually found a solution for his problem.

He followed the eagle closely, using Telekinesis to hold onto the eagle’s head and keep himself within range for an attack, but no solution came to him.

If the eagle could really use the wind to deflect any object that came its way, no attack would be effective. He would have to get the eagle to attack him, or he would have to predict where it was going to attack and get there first—because the eagle certainly was not blowing away the creatures it attacked.

Fat chance of that happening, though. Even if I see the prey it wants to pounce on before this Goddess-damned bird does—which is unlikely, because it seems to have amazing eyesight—I would have to outrace it to the ground.

And when the eagle attacked its prey, it was faster than at any other time, suddenly diving out of the sky with a sound like a thunderclap.

Oh, hell, I’ll just try the dumbest, simplest stuff I can do and escalate to higher and higher levels of aggression. The worst that can happen is that I eventually get this bird’s attention, and then it attacks me, which would be an upgrade to my present situation. If it tries to eat me, I can attack more easily from that position than I can if it blows away anything that isn’t prey anyway…

The idea of attacking the eagle this way made him nervous, but Adon forced himself to go through with it.

First, he would try simply tackling the bird. If his body could get through the wind defense and make physical contact, he could start cutting into the eagle’s flesh with his Mana-enhanced limbs.

He beat his wings hard, closing the distance further.

Then Adon reinforced his body with Mana and launched his tackle. He used a combination of Telekinesis and powerful wing flaps, throwing himself as hard as he could.

With all the force he could muster, Adon slammed hard into the wind that seemed to enclose the eagle’s body from attack. It instantly deflected him, and his body was sent spinning through the air away from the eagle.

He steadied himself quickly, having expected something like this. The eagle had neither turned its head nor changed direction. Adon was willing to wager that it had not even noticed the attack—just like his last one.

He observed the way his body felt after hitting the eagle’s defensive wind. It was surprisingly all right. In fact, it was kind of good.

A combination of dizziness and giddiness at the sudden, swift change of direction and spinning.

It’s like an amusement park ride, he realized. This is kind of fun.

It was the closest to playing a game that he had come since he reincarnated in this world of bug-eat-bug.

All right, maybe I’ll do that again, Adon thought. Um, for science! To understand my enemy. Need to try this a few more times to understand. He shook his head. Who am I trying to fool? Let’s go! I want to turn my brain off and get on the roller coaster.

Stolen story; please report.

Adon flew up to the eagle, this time fueled by a sense of fun more than anything else, and he repeated the experiment, with identical results.

Then he went again.

This is so much fun!

He wanted to laugh. He wanted to do a little dance, twirling through the air.

But he needed to move quickly, to catch the eagle again, although it was still soaring rather aimlessly from Adon’s perspective, knowing as he did how fast this bird could move across the sky.

Adon spent the next twenty minutes charging the eagle a dozen more times. Despite his frank lack of effort, he did learn some things, partially by accident, partially because he did pay attention, and his Impeccable Memory made it impossible for him to forget something that had just happened, especially if he had been paying attention.

He learned that he did not need to reinforce his body to withstand the wind. It was fairly gentle. Though it moved relatively quickly, there was nothing to hit his body against, as it was just pushing items in a fast-moving current around the eagle’s body, trying to direct them toward the ground or other parts of the sky where the eagle wasn’t.

He felt that he also confirmed that the Golden Eagle was not truly aware that anything in particular was being deflected. Even when Adon flew straight at its head and got bounced off of the shield in that region, the eagle was not distracted in the least.

It had continued flying calmly, steadily around its domain, looking for food or patrolling or something, without reacting to anything Adon did.

Either the bird had saint-like patience, which seemed incongruous with the brutality he had seen it was capable of, or it really did not know he was there.

As Adon was reviewing what he had learned, he saw the Golden Eagle change its posture. It was no longer flying around aimlessly. It was starting to flap toward something.

Had it spotted prey?

No, as he watched it, it became apparent that the eagle was not about to strike anything. It moved much more quickly than this when it attacked.

Instead, the bird fluttered over to the top of a tall tree and perched there.

Oh. I guess it’s taking a break.

He flapped over to a tree nearby and watched carefully to see if there were any new clues to the eagle’s behavior that might help him on his hunt.

As he watched, the Golden Eagle spent ten minutes simply looking all around it—checking for prey and predators, Adon guessed.

Then the eagle tucked its head partially into its wings and closed its eyes—or at least the eye Adon could see from where he was. One leg released its grip on the wood and disappeared under the eagle’s lower feathers. The other seemed to lock onto the branch it was perching on even more tightly.

The bird became very still, its breast slowly rising and falling as most of its body relaxed.

Are you serious?

The Golden Eagle was taking a nap.

You definitely don’t know I’m hunting you, then. Because then this would be ridiculous.

It was still a little difficult to believe that this was real.

Adon fluttered cautiously closer. He had been enjoying getting some energy back by simply resting on his treetop and basking in the sunlight. But if the eagle was truly asleep, this might be an opportunity that he could ill afford to miss.

Its defenses might be down. They should be down, if there was any volition involved in this wind shield whatsoever.

Adon landed on the closest tree to the eagle’s perch. He stared cautiously for several seconds, unwilling to make any aggressive moves.

He fluttered up and over to the tree closest to the eagle on the other side.

Still no movement. No signs of the eagle paying attention to anything around it. No indication that this was a trap.

But you wouldn’t give it away if it was a trap, would you?

Adon didn’t believe that, though. He began to consider what he should do if this bird was actually sleeping.

I could try to tackle it now, with my wings reinforced and blade-edged with Mana and my Transformation Adaptation.

But that felt at once imprudent—what if the bird was faking and tried to take a bite of him?—and less likely to be effective than some other options.

Maybe it would be better to fire his Mana ball, but it made a bright light, which might catch the eagle’s attention. His only advantage right now was that he was invisible. The Mana ball and fire magic were the only abilities that he had that operated within the spectrum visible to non-magical creatures, because they were concentrations of Mana outside of the body.

All right then. He came up with the most cautious attack he could try while still having a decent chance of doing damage.

Without further delay, Adon poured Mana into his spines and then shot a barrage of them in the Golden Eagle’s direction.

A dozen spines approached the still target. Adon stared and held his body rigid, afraid and excited and hopeful.

The spines hit the space where the wind shield ought to have been, and they passed right through.

The eagle released a little cry of surprise as a dozen spines stabbed into its body.

Its eyes flung open, and Adon shot out another flurry of Mana-reinforced spines before it could move away.

The spines closed to within a few inches of the eagle’s body, and then he saw them go flying in all directions.

Damn it! I missed my window.

Adon shot out more spines, reinforcing them with Mana again, and this time, he locked onto them with Telekinesis, willing them forward, closer to the eagle’s body, for more stab wounds.

The eagle had spread its wings wide then, taking an intimidating posture. Its head swung slightly drunkenly back and forth, eyes blinking unsteadily, as it tried to search for its enemy while groggy.

It definitely had not known that something was hunting it before now, Adon noted.

The third volley of spines drew close, but despite Adon pushing them onward with his Telekinesis, the wind that the Golden Eagle semi-consciously defended itself with was too strong. He was reminded that Telekinesis I was still quite weak as the spines he had shot went flying wildly in all directions apart from toward the eagle.

So now what? Adon wondered.

The spines he had fired would not be enough to kill the eagle—at least not anytime soon. They might slow it down, and perhaps his venom had grown deadlier since his Evolution, though he doubted that it would be enough to kill an apex predator.

But any further attacks he launched would be deflected.

The eagle, meanwhile, could not even see who was attacking it.

It cut a slightly pitiful figure, turning wildly back and forth as if it might see the hidden predator if it just looked a bit harder.

There was an emotion in its eyes that was hard for Adon to interpret. If he had to put his finger on it, though this might be his human bias slipping in, he thought the great bird of prey looked hunted. As if it felt cornered and knew something it did not understand might kill it.

The dozen places where Adon had landed his spines—the breast, left wing, and the neck were all perforated—bled slightly, making it impossible for the Golden Eagle to forget that something was after it.

A part of Adon sympathized, even as a part of him relished the advantage he had obtained from what seemed such a disadvantageous position. Even thinking of his next step paused for a moment as the enormity of this accomplishment struck him. He had wounded an apex predator. It was as good as landing an injury on a lion.

Then the bird flapped hard with its wings—there was that almost thunderous noise again—and the eagle was airborne once more.

I’ll have to fly after it again, Adon thought, determined not to let the Golden Eagle escape.