Chapter 5 - Hunt

Three whole months have passed since Spencer arrived in this world. Throughout those months, he has been searching for more creatures to assimilate to make himself stronger. Not so long ago, he had come across a massive tank-like animal, it was roughly the size of an elephant, sporting armor that had seemed to put a modern-day tank to shame, covered in spikes and tick layers of hardened skin. It also had a hammer-like appendage at the end of its tail.

The creature was fairly powerful, as Spencer watched it withstand all the attacks of a bigger dinosaur and then proceed to shatter its leg with one swing of its tail, completely crippling the predator. Once the dinosaur was on the floor wailing, the creature raised its tail, slamming it into the head of the reptile, putting it out of its misery in mere seconds.

After it left, Spencer went up to the carcass and absorbed it. In doing so, he gained an even thicker skin than what he had before, his muscle strength and density increased greatly as well, his claws and fangs gained some additional sharpness, however, the most shocking turn of events was that he grew a tail. A very reptilian tail at that.

Examining it, he found it to be much stronger than he previously thought. He tested this by slamming it against the nearest tree. The tree put up zero resistance and was easily blown to pieces by this singular swing. It felt as if he was hitting a twig, not a tree comparable to the thickness of a grown man.

Coming to the realization, the continuous assimilation of creatures with similar genomes must give him the most dominant traits of the species over time, as he was becoming more and more reptilian as he kept consuming the prehistoric animals.

He soon escaped his thought process, when he noticed the creature getting a little too far away. Chasing after it to see where it was headed, once he finally caught up, he saw it was integrating itself back into a larger group of similar animals.

Entering stalk mode, Spencer began to circle around the group, making sure to keep his presence hidden while studying the group of living tanks.

After a while, he noticed one of them leaving the group by itself. Taking this opportunity, he slowly went around and followed after the creature.

Staying hidden as his main priority, he sneaked after the animal unnoticed.

The creature soon arrived at a meadow, stopping in its tracks, it began eating the lush green grass that was sprouting from the soil. Seeing this, Spencer snuck up behind it with his claws all ready and prepared beforehand.

Lunging himself at the creature, he swung his claws at it as hard as he could against its thick backside.

*CLANK!*

"Huh?" Spencer looked at the results with shock.

To his utter surprise, his claws bounced off of its back. It was as if he was trying to slice through reinforced steel, it didn't even leave so much as a scratch, completely opposing his idea of cutting it in half.

The creature startled by his sudden attack swung its tail, slamming it into his side.

*CRACK!*

"AAAAAARGH!"

The amount of pain he felt was unbearable. His entire left side shattered, his arm, and what felt like at least three of his ribs were destroyed on impact. He felt his broken ribs piercing his organs, causing him to fall to the ground, writhing in pain, before he could gather his thoughts due to how disoriented he was.

The creature raised its tail and slammed it down. As the spiky appendage sunk into his back, shattering his spine and everything else Spencer coughed out a mouthful of blood. Losing his ability to move, in that instance, he lost consciousness.

The creature had left Spencer's broken body on the floor of the meadow, not bothering with it the slightest, and made its way back to its group.

Surprisingly, Spencer had not died from this, his body was in the process of regenerating itself, repairing the damage it received at an accelerated rate. The damage could be seen visibly being repaired, but he was still unconscious, unaware of what his body was doing.

As it was fixing the damage it was also strengthening Spencer's body, making it more tolerant to blunt force trauma.

.

.

.

.

The sun has long receded below the horizon when Spencer's body was fully restored, all of the brutal damage he had sustained was now fixed, and his body was now more attuned to take higher levels of physical abuse. All that was left for Spencer was to wake up from pain-induced slumber.

A bit more time had passed, the night had already replaced the daylight luster when Spencer finally began to stir and wake up. Opening his eyes and adjusting, he realized that he was spread out on the floor and that he was gazing at the night sky.

"What the hell happened?" He asked in confusion.

As he said this he started to remember what had happened to him, how he was defeated so easily.

"AAAAAARGH! I will kill that damn thing the next time I see it!" The thought of his embarrassing encounter made Spencer fume with anger.

He slammed his fists into the ground, creating a small hole. He picked himself up as well as his broken pride, he truly believed he was one of the most powerful creatures in this place, and he was brutally knocked out and put in his place by a creature that didn't even take him seriously.

Clenching his fists, Spencer began to shake in frustration.

*RUSTLE!* *RUSTLE!*

The sound of nearby bushes could be heard.

Hearing this, Spencer quickly turned his head in the direction of the noise. From the bushes came a creature not much smaller in size than him. It stood on its hind legs, sporting small horns protruding from the sides of its head.

Seeing the creature, Spencer turned to face it, his grin grew from ear to ear. Due to his razor-sharp teeth, his smile could give nightmares to any modern-day man.

*ROAR!*

The creature spotting Spencer roared, trying to intimidate him.

Spencer was very angry with his earlier experience with that brute of a creature. He gladly accepted the challenge, taking in a deep breath, only to have it erupt from his lungs with a powerful response in the second.

"RAAAAAAAAAARGHHHH!!!!"

He released a roar so loud, it made the creature's previous roar sound like a whisper compared to his.

This greatly intimidated it, causing it to take a few steps back.

"What's wrong? AM I TOO MUCH FOR YOU?!" Spencer spoke with nothing but anger in his voice.

The creature turned around began to escape from this fearsome opponent.

"No, no don't run, COME BACK HERE!" Spencer yelled at the creature as he bolted after it.

Tacking it to the ground with full force, he grabbed it by the neck and slammed it against the ground, holding nothing back. He released his full uncontained rage upon the poor creature, tearing it apart as it was shrieking from the pain.

Spencer kept slamming it into the ground relentlessly until it just stopped shrieking entirely. Noticing this, he looked at the mangled and broken creature in his hands.

He raised the animal above his head.

*BOOM!*

*SNAP!*

He slammed the creature into the ground, greeting a small crater and snapping its neck, ending its misery.

The creature liquified and was absorbed by Spencer, causing him to gain another increase in his height and his senses increased even further. The change was so great that he began smelling all kinds of different things, from bugs to the many different creatures in the forest. His body tensed in anticipation.

Extending his claws, Spencer ran deeper into the forest, in pursuit of whatever he could put his claws on.