Chapter 8: The Hunt [2]

[Enhanced Legs]:

Description:The user’s leg muscles become more powerful, granting increased agility, acceleration, and jumping ability. Movement speed is significantly improved, allowing for quicker sprints, evasive maneuvers, and higher leaps. +2 Physical

A sudden surge rippled through my legs, like a coiled spring ready to explode. Curious, I decided to test it out. I bent my knees and jumped.

And holy shit.

It felt like I was soaring.

The world blurred beneath me as I launched into the air, reaching a height no beast my size had any business reaching, my stomach flipping from the sheer speed of the ascent.

A second later, gravity finally caught up to me, but instead of crashing painfully into the ground, my strengthened legs absorbed most of the impact.

The earth still cracked beneath my feet with a solid thud that echoed through the forest, yet I barely felt it.

My lips curled into a grin.

This was power.

Testing it further, I dashed forward and almost immediately noticed how much faster and lighter my steps felt, each stride carrying me farther than the last.

A laugh escaped me before I could stop it. This was insane.

Up ahead, a small river shimmered beneath the afternoon sunlight, its clear surface cutting through the forest like a silver ribbon.

A perfect sight.

I wanted to see how far I could jump.

Reaching the riverbank, I bent my knees and exploded into the air, my legs launching me far higher than I had ever imagined possible.

The river rapidly shrank beneath me, becoming nothing more than a streak of green winding through the dense forest, and for one exhilarating heartbeat I felt completely weightless, as though gravity had simply forgotten I existed.

Then it remembered.

The landing was anything but smooth. I overshot my mark, misjudged the distance, and slammed straight into a tree hard enough to crack the bark and send a jolt through my entire body.

A dull ache flared in my shoulder, but I couldn’t help laughing as I pushed myself into a sitting position.

"Damn," I muttered with a grin. "That felt good."

I had definitely gotten stronger; there was no denying that, but thinking back to the ogre, I knew this still wasn’t enough. Not even close. I wanted more. More strength. More power. More food.

As if my body agreed, my stomach let out a loud growl, startling a nearby squirrel and sending it scrambling up the nearest tree.

I wiped the blood from my mouth and looked up.

The canopy above was alive with movement, tiny creatures skittering through the branches while birds perched high overhead, their beady eyes fixed on me with obvious suspicion.

As my gaze swept across the treetops, I spotted a small troop of birds a short distance away, pecking at the bark of nearby trees before dropping to graze on the greenery below.

They were fat, dark-feathered creatures with sharp beaks and dull red eyes.

[DuskBeak - Lvl 2]

"Even a fat bird can have trust issues."

A smirk tugged at my lips as I read the one-liner.

Seriously, whoever was writing these system messages needed to be arrested. Still, as ridiculous as it was, the notification had already shifted my attention to the flock ahead. These birds were my next prey.

Most of them were level 2, while the rest were level 1.

They certainly weren’t big enough to fill me up completely, but that wasn’t the point anymore. I wasn’t hunting because I was hungry.

I was hunting because every meal made me stronger, and in this world, power meant survival.

As far as I was concerned, any living, breathing thing was fair game.

I activated Camouflage, my body blending into the surrounding foliage like a chameleon disappearing into its environment.

I had no doubt these birds possessed incredibly sharp eyesight, and if I wasn’t careful, they’d be gone in a heartbeat.

Because of that, I moved with painstaking caution, each step deliberate, my breathing slow and controlled.

The trick wasn’t just staying silent.

It was having the patience to move so slowly that nothing about me seemed out of place.

And the closer I got, the slower I became, until I was barely moving at all.

Then, the moment I crossed some invisible threshold, every single bird snapped its head toward me in perfect unison.

I froze.

The movement was so sudden, so unnaturally synchronized, that a chill crawled down my spine.

They couldn’t see me... right?

My Camouflage was still active, and if they had truly spotted me, they would’ve taken off already.

Yet none of them moved.

They simply remained perched where they were, staring in my direction as though they knew something wasn’t right.

They couldn’t see me.

But they could definitely feel that something was there.

A presence.

They were waiting, their bodies tensed and claws digging into the ground, looking ready to bolt at the slightest hint of danger.

If I crept any closer, they’d scatter for sure, but if I stayed where I was for too long, they might become suspicious anyway.

There was no perfect solution. In the end, I did what any self-respecting predator would do.

I took the risk and lunged.

The moment I moved, the birds exploded into the air, wings flapping wildly as they scrambled to escape.

But... I wasn’t the same predator I had been just a few minutes ago.

I had Enhanced Legs.

The instant they took flight, I dropped into a crouch, my muscles coiling like a loaded spring as raw power surged through my limbs, the same explosive strength that had carried me over a river bend in a single bound.

Only this time, I wasn’t leaping over an obstacle.

I was leaping in for the kill.

I shot into the air, launching myself upward with such force that the ground cracked beneath my feet.

The birds hadn’t expected me to reach them, and although they reacted the instant I burst into the sky, they were already too late.

My jaws snapped shut around one of them, trapping its struggling body, while my hand...