Eren watched for over two hours, maybe even more as he didn’t have a clock in this forest.

The battle shifted constantly as new creatures showed up and others retreated or died. At one point he tried counting and got to at least thirty-five different species in the clearing, fighting or eating or just wandering through and taking a bite out of whatever was closest.

He started noticing patterns the longer he watched. The physical fighters always went after isolated targets. The magical ones attacked from range in groups. The scavengers sat at the edges and only moved when something fresh died. The ambush types like the spiders and the two-headed serpent picked off anything that strayed too far from the main fight.

This is an ecosystem. The battle IS the ecosystem. Every creature here knows what it’s supposed to do and does the same thing every time.

His original plan to sprint in and grab valuables from the destroyed nests was completely dead. If he dropped to the ground right now he’d last about three seconds. Maybe two.

I’m staying in this tree. Forever. I live here now. This branch is my apartment and I’m never leaving.

The electric cats were the ones he kept coming back to. They hunted as a pack and their method was brutally efficient. Three or four would circle a target and one would rush the front as a distraction.

Then two more charged from opposite sides at the same time and clamped their jaws on the target. Double electrical discharge from both sides. The target’s muscles would lock up and it would drop. The pack wouldn’t even finish eating it, they’d just mark the body with their scent and move on to the next kill.

They don’t eat during the fight. They kill, mark and come back to collect later. That’s not instinct. That’s strategy.

The green-stripe support ants fascinated him just as much. They never fought with their own bodies but every engagement where they softened the ground ended in a win for the brown colony. He watched them turn a losing fight into a complete rout by sinking an entire enemy squad waist-deep in mud half a second before their own soldiers hit the stuck formation.

If I had a skill like that... change the terrain under someone’s feet while they’re running toward me...

He cataloged everything he could. Which things were fast and which were slow. Which ones used magic and which used numbers. Which panicked when isolated and which got more dangerous when cornered. His brain was absorbing combat information like a sponge and his Tracking skill was pulsing steadily in the back of his head the entire time like it was feeding on everything he observed.

.. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

The battle died down around the two-hour mark. The ant colonies retreated underground dragging their dead and whatever loot they’d managed to grab. The scavengers picked the clearing clean in minutes. The glowing bug swarm was the last to leave, humming up into the canopy like a cloud of tiny stars fading into the leaves.

The clearing looked like a war zone. Scattered armor plates, scorched earth, patches of hardened mud and acid burns everywhere. It reminded him of the aftermath photos from documentaries about real wars except instead of bullet casings there were broken mandibles the size of kitchen knives.

Eren let out a long breath and realized his hands were shaking. He’d been gripping the branch so hard for two straight hours that his fingers had locked up.

That was the most insane thing I’ve ever seen. And I’ve watched some crazy shit in the last twenty-five days.

He looked to his right.

The colorful bird was still there. It had watched the entire battle too, tilting its head occasionally but barely moving otherwise. Now it turned and looked directly at Eren with eyes that had way too much going on behind them for a bird.

Then it dropped off the branch.

Eren almost yelled thinking it had been hit by something but the bird dove straight toward the clearing at a speed that made the fire birds look like they were hovering. It reached the ground and grabbed something in each talon. Two bodies. Two of the hairless electric cats from the battle, each one almost two meters long and definitely heavier than the bird carrying them.

It flew back up to the tree with both corpses like they weighed nothing. Landed on the branch next to Eren and dropped one of the dead cats right at his feet.

Then it looked at him.

Eren stared at the dead cat. Then at the bird. Then back at the dead cat.

Did this thing just... give me food?

The cat’s body still had faint electrical arcs running across its exposed muscle tissue. He’d just watched these things kill dozens of armored ants with single bites. Their meat had to have some kind of electrical or magical properties.

This bird killed those electric panther things like it was picking up groceries. I’ve been running from these ugly bastards for weeks and losing sleep over them. And this bird is handing me one like a house cat dropping a dead mouse at its owner’s feet.

He turned to look at the bird but it had already picked up the second cat in its beak. The corpse was bigger than the bird’s entire body. Easily a meter and a half of dead muscle and exposed sinew.

The bird opened its beak wider than any beak should physically open and swallowed the entire thing in one motion. The cat’s body slid down its throat and the bird’s neck bulged out horribly for about two seconds before settling back to normal.

It just swallowed a two-meter cat. Whole. In one gulp. Like I eat a grape.

The bird went back to its spot and settled its feathers like absolutely nothing had happened. Its plumage shifted from blue to green in the fading light and it closed its eyes.

Eren’s brain finally processed what he was looking at.

This bird had been sitting two meters from his sleeping spot for weeks. Every single night he’d been tying himself to a branch and passing out within arm’s reach of something that could eat creatures bigger than him in a single bite. Something so powerful that every predator in the forest apparently avoided this tree because of it.

That’s why nothing climbs the inner trunk.

Not because the tree had some magical repelling property. Because of this bird.

His Tracking skill pulsed hard in the back of his skull and something clicked into place.

[Congratulations! Your skill Tracking (Basic) levelled up]

-Level 8 > Level 9

Two level-ups in one day. From 7 to 9 from tracking the anteater and now 8 to 9 from finally understanding what the real apex predator in this harmless looking territory actually was.

But that wasn’t all.

There was a fear in his chest now and as long as he sit here, Eren would feel it from this moment on.

It wasn’t the usual panic he felt when a jaguar or a panther jump on his face, not the daily running-for-his-life adrenaline or something close. No, this was new.

The kind of fear you feel when you realize you’ve been sleeping next to a loaded gun for three weeks and it could’ve gone off any night and you never would’ve woken up.

He finally realized why even in that previous carnage and blood-storm of magical bulls*it, nothing hit his tree or even close area of the tree.

Everyone was wary of the thing on the tree all the time, and they didn’t even defy their fear when they almost died, which was the real terrifying part.

The fear sank deeper inside him as Eren heard system’s voice in his head.

[Congratulations! You have learned a new skill]

[Observe (Uncommon) - First Evolution League

-Allows the user to see or sense the approximate level of living creatures in the Evon Universe. Maximum detectable level and presence varies based on user’s Perception and Intelligence stats with the skill level]

Eren read it three times.

See Levels around my level and sense upper levels by feeling it huh..

I will feel how strong things are now, but for some of the weakest ones in early levels of the skill. Not even a snake or a bird for now. Maybe just slimes or bunnies..

He looked at the colorful bird sleeping away in it’s tiny nest on the top of the tree.

The new skill activated on its own and a number settled into his mind, not as something he saw but as something he felt! Like someone had whispered it directly into the base of his skull while pushing the laughable skill level wasn’t enough to explain the creature’s existence.

The presence was so high that his hands started shaking again.

Skill supposedly shouldn’t say or give a number. But somehow Eren could feel it’s boundless power and insanely high level!

He turned his head away from the bird very slowly and pressed his back flat against the trunk. The bird didn’t move. Its breathing was calm and steady.

Okay. Okay okay okay. Don’t move. Don’t make noise. Don’t even think too loud.

He sat there watching the sun go down through the ruined clearing below while his heart hammered against his ribs so hard he was worried the bird could hear it.

I really need to be nicer to the birds man. I’m lucky they don’t understand human curses.