Baryonyx

Sobek had seen it right. Over the next five days he relentlessly hunted the amphibians that inhabited his new fishing area. He spent the whole day there and only returned to the nest in the evening.

There were amphibians of all kinds: acanthostega, ichthyostega, crassigyrinus, eriops... each of them was just one and a half meters or at most two meters long, but they had a high nutritional value and there were plenty of them, consequently they were enough to satisfy Sobek.

He currently had 7 skill points. Each amphibian had provided him with 0.5 skill points at most, but with so many of them he had accumulated several. He also found a torpedo fish hidden in the mud which gave him 1 more skill point.

Thanks to [Swim speed] it was enough for him to sneak up on his prey and charge once he got close enough. Sobek was counting that once [Ambush] was improved, the hunt would have become even easier.

Unfortunately, on the contrary the experience points provided by the amphibians weren't much. In all that time, Sobek had managed to reach 'only' 8,600 experience points.

Even with this relatively slow rate of growth, he hoped he could improve [Ambush] and level up by the end of the week.

But one day, as he was about to reach his hunting post, he smelled a different smell in the air.

"Intruder!"

For a moment his instincts flared up and he felt immeasurable anger. For a carnivorous animal, territory was everything. Knowing that someone was daring to steal his preys made him feel like someone was taking a child away from him.

Fortunately, rationality got the better of his mind and forced him to face it calmly. If the opponent was too strong, attack it without thinking was absolutly not a good idea.

Sobek swam quickly but carefully across the river until he reached his territory. There, deep in the center of the reservoir, he found another dinosaur intent on fishing!

It was clearly a fish-eating dinosaur: it had no feathers but only scales suitable for moving in water. It was greenish in color and vaguely reminiscent of a crocodile, with long claws and strong legs.

[Prey detected: Baryonyx walkeri, baryonychinae. Experience: 25,000 points]

Now it was all clear to Sobek. From the beginning he had considered the possibility of encountering other animals similar to him. Apparently this hypothesis had come true.

The baryonyx was a distant cousin of the spinosaurus and could reach seven to nine meters in length. At first glance the one in front of him measured about seven and a half meters. On Earth this dinosaur and the spinosaurus had never met, but in that messy world a meeting between the two was inevitable.

When Sobek arrived at the reservoir he had checked that it was not owned by some other predator, but seeing that no one had shown up for days he was convinced that he was the only one using it. In fact this baryonyx had probably just arrived, which is testified by the fact that it wasn't hunting in the most fruitful area, a sign that it was still becoming familiar with the place.

As he approached, the baryonyx also spotted him. Unlike to the fishes, the sail on his back was clearly visible to the dinosaur. Sobek roared to him, and actually the baryonyx seemed to back away; he hoped it would have gone away on its own, but then the animal stopped.

A baryonyx would never dare compete against an adult spinosaurus; even if they had more or less the same weapons the difference in size and power was too big. However, Sobek was still young, so the baryonyx thought it was worth to take the risk and fight.

Thay was not flattering to Sobek. The baryonyx had more or less the same weapons as his own (claws and jaws) but it had two advantages over him: agility, because it was lighter, and the absence of a sail on its back. The sail for the spinosaurs was a weak point, since it could be easily injured and lead the animal to death.

In a fight with a common young spinosaurus, the baryonyx would most likely have been the winner. However, Sobek had something that the other spinosaurs didn't have: abilities!

If they had been on land he wouldn't have thought twice about escaping, but now they were in the water: he could use [Swim speed] whenever he wanted!

All he needed was the right opportunity. But he didn't wait for opportunities: he created them!

As usual, he was the first to attack. The baryonyx looked bewildered to see him suddenly approach, but it hurried back and opened its jaws to catch him. Sobek feigned an assault on his legs; the baryonyx stepped aside and took the opportunity to try to bite his sail.

That's when Sobek activated [Swim speed]. Under the astonished gaze of the baryonyx, the sail disappeared with all the spinosaurus underwater at an unnatural speed; a moment later, Sobek emerged and grabbed the baryonyx by the neck, twisting it ninety degrees and dragging its head underwater.

He didn't want to waste time trying to inflict a fatal wound. His goal was to suffocate the baryonyx. Even though they were aquatic predators they still needed to breathe frequently: they still had lungs, no gills, and they couldn't hold the breath as long as the crocodiles. Also, the baryonyx wasn't even a full acquatic dinosaur: it fish with half of its body out of the water, like a giant heiron, so the evolution had never had to improve the apnea ability. It couldn't stay underwater for more than five or ten minutes.

The baryonyx wriggled furiously in the water, trying to breathe, but Sobek held it tight and prevented it from emerging. The animal waved both its hind and front legs, but since Sobek had turned it on its side they could not reach it, not without breaking the baryonyx's neck cleanly.

Sobek found it ironic that a sail would now have been useful to the baryonyx: if it had one he would never have been able to grab it by the neck. It was the classic story of the deer and the horns: the deer was so proud of its horns, but then it died because they got stuck in the branches of the trees while it fled from the lion. In the same way here the baryonyx believed that it had the advantage due to the absence of the sail, but it was precisely that lack that marked its doom.

After more than twenty minutes of twitching the baryonyx stopped moving. Sobek held him underwater for another ten minutes to make sure it was really dead, then seeing that not a single bubble of air escaping from its mouth he was convinced to let it go.

Unlike its other preys he didn't drag it to the shore. The baryonyx was too big and it would have taken Sobek a long time to eat it all: on the ground he risked that some other predator would have noticed the carcass and steal it, or worse kill him too in the process. In the middle of the water, on the other hand, he could eat it with peace of mind: he only had to constantly move his tail to scare the fishes and prevent them from coming to claim a piece of it.

It was a long and exhausting process that took the whole day. When only the skeleton of the baryonyx remained, Sobek was able to enjoy the fruits of his victory: in one stroke he had obtained not only 25,000 experience points, but also 5 skill points!

It was the highest score he had achieved so far. Without hesitation he went up to level 8!

He was tempted to even immediately go up to level 9, but he stopped. It was better to not overload the body: he preferred to wait for the pain and tingling to disappear completely before leveling up again. While he was waiting, he could update [Ambush]!

As his skill points returned to 2 and the skill level rose to 1/5, Sobek felt his body tingle and he suddenly felt his scent grow weaker. In addition, the noise he emitted seemed to have subsided as well. He was radiant; now it would have been much easier to catch preys.

Once again, however, a notification from the System came to interrupted the happiness.

[Caution! You have reached the level of 'high-ranking predator'. Your size guarantees you absolute dominance over any medium-sized creature! As a result, your Inventory slots have increased to 3 and the amount of extra experience needed to level up with each advancement will go from 2,000 to 10,000]

"What!? Why!?" Sobek exclaimed in his mind. 10,000 more points for each level advancement? Was the System trying to bleed him out? He wanted to cry while he watched the experience point bar for the next level advancement go from just 11,000 to the monstrous 20,000.

If he had known, he would have advanced to level 9 before! Dammit!

It took him a while to let off some steam. Thinking about it with a clear head, it made sense: with [Ambush] he could have had an easy game against the baryonyx from the start. Since a single baryonyx provided 25,000 experience points it was only natural that the level up cap would have gone up this much. This, however, certainly didn't calm him!

Of course, there was the other side of the coin: now he knew that he no longer had to fear any middle-ranking carnivores. Sobek had vaguely understood how those ranks worked and believed he had made a fairly truthful classification.

The middle rank, where he was before, included all the large predatory mammals such as tigers and lions, both modern and prehistoric. While they were dominant predators on Earth, they weren't worth much on Eden: the largest carnivorous mammal that ever existed was no more than five meters in length, consequently it could only tremble in a world dominated by giants. Of course, not only mammals were medium-ranking predators: Sobek believed that all predatory dinosaurs less than seven meters could be classified as such.

The high-ranking predators on the other hand included very large predatory dinosaurs, such as carnotaurs, abelisaurs, ceratosaurs and so on. Some crocodiles and snakes could also be classified in this rank. Having reached the length of eight meters, Sobek too had entered in it.

Talking about the superpredators, they included those dinosaurs so large and powerful that they were unrivaled in their environment, such as tyrannosaurs, carcharodontosaurs, giganotosaurs and others, as well as of course titanic crocodiles like the sarcosuchus or monstrous snakes like the titanoboa. Spinosaurs probably also fit the title, since their size made them excel over all other fish-eating dinosaurs (baryonyx, suchomimus, and others). However, that didn't mean that they were invincible in the river: if a spinosaurus had met a sarcosuchus, another superpredator, the crocodile would probably have won.

Finally, the apex superpredator, the highest rank allowed by the System before the rank of 'beast lord', was a predator devoid of any adversary. That was the result Sobek aspired to achieve: only then he would have been completely devoid of natural enemies. It was then that he would have started creating his own army, even if he still didn't know how. But he was sure that he would have understood it when it would be the right time.

After several minutes of repressed anger, Sobek forced himself to bite the bullet and accept the situation. After all, he couldn't do anything about it: he certainly couldn't shrink or lose his skills!

However, he still had 15,000 experience points left by the baryonyx, which added to the 8,600 he already had guaranteed him a total of 23,600 experience points. He could still go up to level 9, although the expense would have been much more expensive.

Even if snorting with annoyance, he agreed to level up again.

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AUTHOR THOUGHTS

Hi! Time for another little paleontology lesson:

1) Baryonyx (whose name means "heavy claw") is an extinct genus of spinosaurid theropod dinosaur that lived in the Lower Cretaceous, about 130-125 million years ago (Barremiano-Aptiano), in present-day England and Spain. The genus contains a single species, namely B. walkeri, based on an almost complete specimen discovered in 1983 in Surrey, England. It is thought that it could have been 7 to 9 meters long, although some estimates are even greater. Currently it is thought that it hunted while it was half immersed in water, therefore in a middle way between the almost completely terrestrial style (like the one of the suchomimus) or completely aquatic (like the one of the spinosaurus), and that it used its long neck for fish like some acquatic birds like heirons. However, it is also thought that he could feed on land animals, even if they weren't his first choice.

2) Now let's give some explanations about the previous chapter. Stethacanthus wasn't really a shark, but an extinct paper fish strictly related to sharks. It lived between the end of the Devonian period and the beginning of the Carboniferous period (360-350 million years ago). Its remains have been found in Scotland and the USA. We still don't know very much about this strange animals, and we don't even now what was its natural habitat. It was probably a sea fish, but I decide to insert it in the river as a little reference to the BBC documentary "Walking with monsters".

3) Brontoscorpio was a giant one-meter long scorpion that lived in the Silurian period (440-416 million years ago). At that time it dominated the sea and it hadn't many enemies, even if there were other predators like giant squids and other even bigger scorpions like pterygotus. It probably spend all its life in the sea, but some paleontologists had teorized that this scorpions could be the first animals to go out from the water, and so that it could also lived in the rivers for a little fraction of its life. I decided to put it in the story as another reference to "Walking with monsters".

4) Acanthostega was a primitive amphibian, one of the first vertebrates to have recognizable legs. It lived in the Upper Devonian period, about 365 million years ago, in what today is the Greenland, and it was anatomically intermediate between lobed-finned fish and the earliest tetrapods fully capable of walking on land. Same for the icthyostega, that lived in the same period and in the same place. Crassygirinus and eryops, instead, lived in the Carboniferous period, one 350 million years ago in Scotland, the other 300-278 million years ago in North America. This time there is no reference, I just wanted to put them in the story.

5) Did you believed it, right? What a prankster that I am! Of course there is a hidden reference. The crassygirinus appeared in the fifth episode of the BBC series "Prehistoric park" (again, who remember that masterpiece?). Good day for you all!