“The damn beast is too clever by half.” he thought in anger. Ryan had been hunting the last member of the pride for days, failing to sight it even once. The lioness had moved her territory eastward, out of the area covered by the carnivore sanctuary and into cattle country. She was feeding well, judging by the numerous carcasses he had found over the past few days, but remained extremely elusive. The only confirmation of her continued presence had been the plethora of tracks she was leaving behind. Ryan had figured out that she mainly hunted at night and holed up somewhere in the rocky hills during the day. He always lost her tracks when she entered the area and even though Ryan had gone over the entire range of hills with a fine comb several times he had yet to find her.

He was frustrated and actually considered breaking of the hunt but then remembered why his singular focus was that bloody animal. For the umpteenth time he checked the read-out that Recombinant Omnivore graciously provided him with. It showed a mocking 92%. 92% of a 100% and the only animal that Ryan knew that could complete that progress was mocking him. It was like she knew that he just needed to feast on her raw meat to decode the rest of her DNA that granted the Skill he wanted. Ryan had been looking forward to finally choosing a mutation unlocked by that particular organ. After eating cooked lion for a few weeks he had plenty of possible mutations he could choose, increased sense of smell, more fast twitch muscle fibres, claws, stronger canines, fur and several others whose effects the combined intellect of John, Alexis and Ryan couldn’t figure out. Sitting at 92% decoded however was the one mutation that Ryan was sure was the only possible choice he could make, the refractive shield that had allowed the lions to enter stealth.

For that simple reason Ryan had been stalking the wily lioness for the past week, narrowing down her territory, analysing her habits and just trying to get a glimpse of the elusive feline. All to no avail. He’d changed his strategy over the last two days and holed up outside her known territory in a small shack, approaching from downwind during the early hours of the night, straining his hearing to find her when she made a kill and fed. It was hopeless but he persevered nonethgeless. What annoyed him the most was that he was forsaking plenty of experience during this singular hunt, chatting to William and Alexis made it clear that the Guild as a whole was slowly but surely reaching Level 16 and that William was knocking on Level 17. Although the Guild struggled to find suitable prey in the nearer environs by now they were still making descent progress. The semiregular raids in town for supplies and the intermittent combat in support of Resolute’s actions there also helped a bit. At least his Skills were getting a workout. Ryan could feel the growth resulting from near continual use of Enhanced Senses, Track, Stealth, Identify, Dimensional Anchor and Portal. His newest Skill, now codified by the Interface after he had reliably used it a few times, Graviton Perception was making great strides too and he expected that he had to rely on it to find and engage the lioness.

Graviton Perception

While remaining stationary and with intense focus Player can utilise the Bifröst to detect moving sources of Gravitons in a sphere centred on the Player’s location. Once a source has been detected Player will remain aware of it irrespective of its velocity relative to the Player. Radius of sphere, sensitivity to velocity and mass, level of focus required, energy efficiency and requirement to remain stationary can be improved with intense training.

He had been using the Skill near non-stop while awake since he had been notified of its existence, only to be interrupted by splitting headaches at increasingly infrequent intervals. By now he could move around slowly with it running in the background, all while remaining fully aware of his environment. It still burned through his energy pool more quickly than he liked and he could only sense targets massing in excess of around ten kilograms and moving at least at walking pace, but he believed that greater familiarity with the Skill would rectify the issues. He also hoped that the radius of this omnidirectional awareness would increase beyond the already respectable 50 metre distance it already encompassed. Last but not least, since the Skill had been codified by the Interface, it now interacted with Hunter’s Mark.

It was near midnight and Ryan was keeping station downwind of a large herd of cattle, remaining just close enough to hear them clearly. He hoped that the lioness would chose to hunt this herd out of the three in her range as it was the weakest with their mutation focused less on defence but more on their senses than the other two if their name was anything to go by. He had found the herd after he identified the lioness’ latest kill as a Vigilant Bovine. He had previously attempted to ambush the lioness at the site of her kills but the cat had refused to revisit the site of her kills which was far outside of their general modus operandi. From what he could determine the lioness also vacated the premises once she had her fill and didn’t linger and, judging from the tracks, carried off part of the kill. The abnormal behaviour puzzled him but Ryan accepted that he couldn’t rely on his knowledge of animal behaviour patterns before initiation.

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Ryan was slowly moving back and forth along a small arc centred on the herd, intently scanning with Graviton Perception for any anomalies. Judging from the noise emanating from the herd it was still grazing in a relaxed manner, unaware of his presence and not bothered by any other predator. Ryan remained as far away from the herd as was feasible because he expected the lioness to approach from downwind as well. The rank feline smell of the large cat would alert the herd of her presence otherwise. Ryan just had to hope that she wouldn’t approach downwind from even his position and as a result would likely abort the hunt if she smelled him.

Hours passed and Ryan had moved closer to the herd several times as it was slowly moving upwind. Ryan remained stationary on the far riverbank of a small dry river the herd had crossed earlier, the elevated position increasing the range he could hear the herd at. Staring at the river sand brightly lit silver by the waning moon he slowly massaged his temples as he tried to combat the nagging headache that the prolonged use of Graviton Perception had given him. Ryan nearly missed the quiet hnnk, hnnk, hnnk sound and the soft meows moving up the riverbed towards his position. “She has cubs. Shit, goddamn shit! Fuck!” he swore to himself, thinking furiously. Ryan hadn’t seen any tracks of the cubs and when he had engaged the pride before no cubs had been present, they must have been barely a few weeks old then. The fact that she had cubs however clarified the lioness’ strange behaviour otherwise. The family was now approaching his position at a quick pace and Ryan was debating with himself. “I need that Skill.” “I can’t kill her. It’s a death sentence for the cubs.” “I need that Skill, I have to.” “Can I capture the cubs? Johannes should be able to keep them alive. Maybe he can tame them.”

Desperately trying to come up with a solution to the dilemma Ryan found himself faced with he engaged Graviton Perception to gather more information. The cubs were small, just registering at the lower spectrum of his Skill. Judging by this and with the knowledge that they were likely around 6 weeks old when he killed the pride they should now be around three to four months old. If she had carried off her kills and was taking them along on their first hunt they had started eating meat. “If I can capture them they will survive.” Ryan subvocalized to himself as he made his decision. He would kill the lioness.

Ryan marked two of the three cubs with Hunter’s Mark, lamenting the fact that he couldn’t mark the third as the Skill hadn’t grown sufficiently. Ever so slowly he nocked an arrow lifted the bow and aimed in the general vicinity of the lioness. She was moving in bits and spurts, herding the cubs along, occasionally chuffing at them, annoyed. With near superhuman focus Ryan concentrated on his Gravitonic Perception, smelling the golden glowing shape of the lioness sinuously striding before his eyes, seeing her thumping heart, hearing her ponderous body weighing on the world. The synesthesic glut of information remained as wildly colourful as always as Ryan’s intense focus painted a glowing target across his entire existence. He aimed where he absolutely knew he should and with his eyes closed released the string with the softest sigh.

The tri-blade broadhead cut through the air with a sibilant hiss before it hit the lioness that was in the process of dodging after hearing the twang of the released string. She never completed the move, the blades, driven by a draw weight in excess of two hundred pounds and honed to razor sharpness then enchanted with an energetic cutting edge, cut straight through any resistance her body might have otherwise offered. The arrow punched a triangular cut through her lungs and both ventricles of her heart before existing through her far shoulder and burying itself deeply in the soft river sand. The gout of blood that spat out of the devastating wound painted a macabre black rosette in the silver river sand. The lioness gathered herself and charged in his approximate direction only to collapse a few moments later as the life left her body with a last snarl. The cubs, scared and confused, hunkered down and remained motionless as Ryan approached the tableau, bittersweet triumph weighing on his soul.