After Adon and the Princess said their goodbyes, he hopped up onto the side of the box of scraps the Vendetta Ants had died pursuing.

In what felt like a miracle, the cardboard seemed to be completely untouched by the flames. But of course, Adon knew it was not a miracle. The actual targets of the Princess’s magical fire were cinders now. But nothing else in the garden had burned as far as he could see. Just ants.

I’d better make sure I never tick her off…

There were still some excellent scraps inside the box. The ants had not come close to finishing their thievery. Apple chunks, some slightly wilted leaves of lettuce, and the tops of several carrots with the green leafy portion of the plant. Enough vegetation to fill Adon’s Biomass to the maximum. He stopped eating at that point, and he wrapped some of the food that remained in a silk bundle, which he suspended from his birth plant.

Now that he had some backup food in a slightly safer place, it was time to resume his task of searching for high level prey.

Adon activated Color Change and started walking. With the new upgrade of Color Change, he needed very little focus on his body’s coloration to keep adapting to shifting backgrounds. It was a bit like working the pedals of a car when you’ve been driving for years. So his mind was free to focus on other tasks.

He kept his main pair of eyes peeled for movement on the surface level, while his Simple Eyes looked out for movement above the horizon line.

And he thought about next steps.

He was looking for a species that was above him in the natural hierarchy to kill, but if he could deal with the bluebird permanently, that would be a weight off Adon’s mind.

He didn’t like the idea of a Godzilla sized monster out there somewhere, nursing a grudge against him, though he supposed it would be funny if they were to meet again someday, and Adon was a flying magical creature that could kill the bluebird in a hundred different ways.

Still, he preferred to deal with the probable problem now rather than wait for it to fester—or, if the bird was smart, wait for it to follow him home one day and then attack Goldie and Red while Adon was out hunting.

As he moved across the garden, Adon visualized how his fight with the bluebird might go. He could probably use his Mana-infused mandibles to cut the bird’s wings right off of her body, but that would leave him open to whatever desperate moves the bird might try at close range. A better way to go might be that Mana energy orb.

But he pictured the bluebird dodging away from the glowing death ball before it could do any damage.

She might even understand something about Mana. It felt like that sucking wind attack was supernatural. Maybe she infuses Mana into her lungs or something to pull things through the air.

So he would need to be at close range if he wanted to use the Mana energy attack.

Maybe I get in close like I’m trying to make it a physical fight, and I try to fire the energy ball at her head as soon as I can get it charged.

The bluebird was fast, though. The more Adon thought about a possible future encounter, the more he felt that he needed some advantage. There was every possibility that he could blow the bird’s head off with that ridiculous attack, especially if the bird tried to suck him in with her vacuum cleaner breath attack. But it seemed equally plausible that the bluebird would rip him in half before he could charge and fire a sufficiently powerful burst of Mana, or that she would dodge and turn the tables on him.

How many shots do I even have with the energy ball? he considered. Maybe as many as seven, if he was being generous with himself and assuming that he didn’t need to use Mana for anything else during the fight. That seemed unlikely. So probably more like four or five, allowing for me enhancing myself a few times during the fight and saving a little bit to heal myself at the end.

And he resolved not to use the energy attack on the bird even once unless they were in a close quarters fight. If she knew that he had a weapon like that, the smart thing to do was fly away. The bluebird hadn’t seemed stupid to Adon.

He visualized getting in close, blowing the bird’s head off, and dragging the body away behind him, the stump of the neck bleeding. The thought was a little gruesome. But he couldn’t help observing the bright side of taking on such a large creature. Even if he blew its head off, the energy ball wasn’t big enough to destroy all that edible meat. He, Goldie, and Red would have plenty of food for the next couple of weeks while she recovered from laying her eggs. They could lie low without going hungry, and they would even be moving closer to their Evolutions.

As his mind produced this pleasing image, his Simple Eyes detected movement in the sky. Adon looked up with his more powerful main set of eyes.

Oh, that’s not it, he thought. There was a crow flying through the air. He was a little apprehensive about trying to fight any bird larger or smarter than the bluebird—and crows were both larger and smarter, from what he saw now and remembered from previous lives.

Adon reassured himself that Color Change was still active—he did not want any new birds taking an interest in him. And he kept walking, watching both ground and sky.

There seemed to be very few creatures active in the immediate vicinity of where he had his conversation with the Princess. Probably something to do with the presence of the human flamethrower who had wiped out the Vendetta Ants.

In Adon’s more mundane previous world, animals survived humanity largely by avoiding people and other apex predators. They had special instincts and heightened senses relative to humans for those purposes. If he had to guess, Adon wouldn’t be surprised if Rosslyn’s display of magical power had scared off a lot of bugs and other animals that could sense magic.

Frankly, he felt a lot safer with the garden less openly active.

But I hope she didn’t scare all the other animals away. A fight with another mantis would do him a lot of good right now.

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Adon’s Simple Eyes alerted him to movement in the sky again. He looked up to capture the shape with his main eyes, and there she was. He was almost certain of it.

That has to be the same bluebird from before, he thought. She had taken off from the roof of the palace, he realized, observing her flight trajectory.

I wonder where she’s going. What was she doing on the roof? And where does she live now? Adon was all but certain she would have abandoned her old home after most of her eggs were stolen from there.

He stood and watched the bluebird as far as he could. She flew over the garden only a short distance before she dove down somewhere that Adon couldn’t see. Some shrubbery was blocking his way. Only a few seconds later, however, he saw the bluebird rushing back up into the sky, a worm-like creature clutched in her claw and another in her beak.

As Adon watched, the bluebird flew back up the rooftop and appeared to land somewhere just out of sight.

Though he stood there watching for several minutes, she did not poke her head out again.

The nest must be on the palace rooftop.

Adon felt a little nervous about the idea of fighting on the palace rooftop, but there were some obvious benefits to approaching the bird while she was guarding her hatchlings. Baby birds, just like caterpillars, couldn’t fly yet. So the hatchlings would be low in mobility. Adon could target the hatchlings, and the bird would naturally have to react to protect them. Or he could target the bird, knowing she would not be able to move far from her hatchlings.

Even if she picked up the hatchlings to keep them safe from danger, that was one or two of her limbs that she wouldn’t be able to use in the fight. A bit like the advantage Adon had when the bluebird chased after her own eggs during her first fight with him.

It was exactly the sort of edge he needed to have the best odds of taking down a vastly more powerful creature.

Adon decided to go after the bluebird. Any doubts he had were alleviated by reminding himself that he had survived the last encounter with the bluebird with barely a scratch, and he was much more powerful now than he had been then.

This time I’m not here for the baby. This time I’m coming for you.

He walked over to the palace main building. It was a long but uneventful stroll. The bird made it look easy, with her wings. When he reached the outside, he began slowly, steadily climbing up the outer wall.

He was almost to the top when he saw the bluebird’s head peeking out from the rooftop.

I see you.

Then the bluebird took to the air again. For a moment, Adon thought she might have seen him, and she was going to come over and attack him before he could get his footing on the rooftop. But Color Change was still active.

As he watched, the bluebird flew in the opposite direction, slowly moving away from him.

This is perfect, he thought. I can get into an ambush position on the rooftop and attack her from concealment when she comes back to the nest with more food!

He quickly climbed the rest of the way onto the roof and began making a beeline for the nest, which he saw was a clumsy circle of twigs, leaves, thread, and other detritus, partially shielded under a raised loose roof tile.

Then he sensed swift movement in the air with his Simple Eyes.

He turned his head so that he would have a chance to react if the attack was coming for him. But he needn’t have bothered.

The shape that moved, which Adon had not noted before—when it was a tiny shape floating in the higher regions of the sky—had bigger prey in mind than a caterpillar.

Adon used Identify as the creature swooped down and took hold of the bluebird with two sets of what appeared to be long, razor sharp talons.

Soaring Red Kite (Female)

Oh my Goddess.

A terrible cry echoed through the air. Then the bluebird was silent.

And the kite began winging away, droplets of red falling from between its locked claws.

Oh my Goddess…

It seemed a horrifying fate for the bluebird, though Adon knew it was no better than what he had planned. But this was just so unexpected that it was hard for him to swallow.

He watched the kite until she flew out of view, toward the woods that Adon could now see lay over the garden wall.

As the kite moved out of his range of vision, Adon realized that the reason he was staring was because some tiny part of his mind was wondering if he could kill that bird. If he could figure out where the kite lived and poison it or blow it away with magic.

But as soon as he confronted the thought, he knew it was foolish.

Far too ambitious for a caterpillar, he told himself. You can defy the law of nature to some degree. You can prey on a bluebird, if you try to give yourself every possible advantage. But that thing is a real predator. It probably eats bluebird once a week. If you try to go after that kite, you’re as dead as that bluebird.

Adon almost felt sorry for the bluebird for a moment as he reflected on how she hadn’t had a chance even for a moment. Then he remembered where he was.

There is no one to defend the chick, at least.

Adon began moving quickly toward the nest again. As he did, he saw another creature—another bird—racing to the same place as well.

That crow he had spotted earlier had apparently marked where the bluebird’s nest was. Perhaps it had intended to rob the bluebird of its hatchlings regardless of whether the bird lived or died today. It might have just been waiting for an easy moment to attack while the bluebird was distracted.

The larger crow would have won a fight between itself and the bluebird anyway. But now it would get a meal with no fuss.

As Adon raced forward, the crow landed and began pulling the nest forward, out of the shadows of the raised roof tile. Its eyes seemed almost to gleam with avarice.

Adon began charging Mana in the space between his mandibles, as he had the last time he used his energy ball attack.

The crow, focused on tearing away the bits of plant to get at the hatchlings, paid the invisible caterpillar no mind at first. The first of the baby birds came into view, and the crow began pecking at the coral-pink hatchling.

Adon felt a tug at his heartstrings for the tiny creature even though he still intended to eat it himself if he got the chance.

A moment later, the crow’s eyes took on a slightly orange glint. Its head turned to face Adon.

And it dropped the baby bluebird, already bleeding from where its wing nub used to be, and began advancing toward the caterpillar.

Even though Adon was camouflaged, his energy ball was not. It had no skin that could blend in with the environment.

Fortunately for Adon, the crow seemed more fascinated than afraid.

That’s right, he thought. You guys love bright shiny objects, don’t you?

There was nothing brighter and shinier in this world, as far as Adon had seen, than concentrated Mana.

The crow leaned in close to get a better look, and Adon let loose his attack.