For the next days and weeks Sobek remained in that area to explore it properly. Although he could have eaten quite a lot of fishes, he hadn't seen many big carnivores. Unfortunately, the presence of the large herd of spinosaurs discouraged other predators. And since he didn't like the idea to eat his own 'family', Sobek had to settle for smaller preys, such as freshwater sharks and some dwarf crocodiles. In fact, he hadn't gotten many skill points.

But just when he had started to think that staying there hadn't been such a good idea, fate came to his aid again. Or rather, it hit him. Straight to the right shoulder, and with a lot of force.

Sobek was swimming placidly in the waters of the lake, watching the spinosaurs feast on nearby fishes when something hit him like a train. Sobek had been pushed at least ten meters to the side by something huge. When he recovered, he saw a giant crocodile furiously biting his neck!

He had been attacked by another sarcosuchus!

If they had met earlier, Sobek would probably have died. He had let his guard down too much and this would have been fatal to him until recently. The sarcosuchus had managed to approach without being seen and had bitten him in the neck: under normal circumstances, the victory would unquestionably have belonged the crocodile. The massive jaws of the sarcosuchus would have shattered the bones of any creature as if they were appetizers; being bitten by such a predator was tantamount to instant death, especially if the unlucky victim was bitten in the neck.

However, Sobek was now virtually invulnerable. The spinosaurus could only giggle as it watched the sarcosuchus try in vain to penetrate his skin. The crocodile was almost spinning around in anger at not being able to injure him.

With [Reinforced skin] his body could withstand much higher pressure than the crocodile's jaws. The sarcosuchus' teeth couldn't even scratch it!

Sobek could have killed the crocodile at any time, but he waited because he was curious to see how long it would take it to realize it had no chance. Its bites didn't even tickle him. He felt himself bursting with pride: seeing such a dangerous animal not even being able to scratch his skin made him feel powerful.

It took the sarcosuchus ten minutes to realize that its efforts were all vain. When it understood that it was bothering the wrong opponent, the crocodile turned around and tried to get away, but Sobek certainly had no intention of letting go of such a large prey: in a few moments he reached it, he grabbed it and finally he killed it, then he dragged the corpse out of the water and devoured it.

By the time he finished, he had gained enough skill points to maximize [Powerful bite]!

Sobek roared in triumph as he watched the ability reach level 5/5. Suddenly he felt able to smash everything with his jaws! Now the bites of the tyrannosaurus, the megalodon and any other living creature could only be considered inferior to his!

Suddenly he received a notification from the System.

[Warning: you have reached the rank of 'apex superpredator'. You have reached the supreme top of the food chain; you are now the strongest carnivore ever existed and nothing can threaten you. As a result, your Inventory slots have increased to 5 and the amount of extra experience needed to level up with each advance will go from 30,000 to 100,000]

Unlike the other times Sobek was not bothered to see the experience bar needed to level up from 390,000 to 460,000 points. He didn't have any need to get bigger at the moment. On the contrary, the notification of the System could only bring him joy: it was the definitive proof that he was now an unrivaled predator!

Taken by the frenzy, he spotted a tree trunk and bit it. Even though it was over a foot thick, its jaws snapped it as if it were made of butter!

Sobek roared again, this time even louder. He had reached the supreme rank!

Greatness, strength, agility, deadly claws, extraordinary bite, speed, sharp senses, intelligence: who in the world would have dared to challenge him?

Come now, all those fools who thought they could beat him! He would have killed them one by one! A new absolute apex predator was born!

Humans too, let them shoot him now! He would have eaten them all and smash their weapons! He was the strongest creature that ever existed! He was invincible!

After that last thought, Sobek forced himself back down to earth. Perhaps he was getting too carried away by euphoria: he doubted that even in his present state his body would hold up against missiles. He still had a long way to go before he could openly challenge humanity.

However, he had fully achieved one of his most important goals: now, no creature in the sky, land and sea could threaten him anymore. He was undoubtedly the strongest of them all. Therefore, he could finally begin building his own army.

Animals respected only strength and obeyed only those who proved stronger; and now, Sobek was the strongest. No matter how stubborn his opponent was, he would bow to him as soon as he realized how evident the disproportion of strength was.

The time had come. He had already unlocked a good portion of the [Food System] and had a large amount of bonus money on his side, so he could easily feed his new pack and keep the dinosaurs from killing each other. All he needed now was a way to communicate with them.

His goal for the next few days would be to unlock [Linguistics]. Then, he would have been completely ready.

He was about to shut down the System when he realized one thing: his fame points had gone from 67 million to 82 million. Strange, he didn't remember doing anything to interact with humans, at least in the last... months? Yes, he was pretty sure it had been months, even though he didn't know how many.

"I would say that today is my day!" he thought while he looked the fame points. "But what happened?"

=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

AUTHOR'S THOUGHTS

Aaaaaaaaaand here we go again! Yes, we returned to our little conversation. Don't worry, this time it will be fast.

1) Homo neanderthalensis, commonly called Neanderthal, was a hominid closely related to Homo sapiens sapiens (ie us) who lived in the Paleolithic period, between 200,000 and 40,000 years ago; it takes its name from the Neander valley near Düsseldorf in Germany, where the first fossil remains were found. He was a highly evolved hominid, one of the most evolved in terms of intelligence: he possessed high lithic technologies and had a rather advanced social behavior, almost on a par with Homo sapiens sapiens. After a short period of coexistence with us, the Neanderthals disappeared in a relatively short time, an event that has not yet been fully explained. According to the most accredited theory, their extinction was due to our presence: Homo sapiens sapiens in fact had a more varied diet and a culture based heavily on trade, which would have allowed them to have an advantage over the Neanderthals that, over time, they have been deprived of their living space; this, added to the climatic changes due to the Ice Age, to variations of the magnetosphere that would have allowed solar radiation to hit the earth's surface causing negative mutations for the species, to a lower resistance to long journeys and to a lower adaptability, led the Neanderthals to decline until it disappears completely. The few survivors probably ended up mating with Homo sapiens sapiens: in fact our current genome would seem to have traits of Neanderthal DNA. There are other theories, but in any case today, on Earth, Neanderthals are extinct (like all other hominids except us). However, since there is no extinction problem on Eden, Neanderthals and all the other hominids in my history coexist with Homo sapiens sapiens, but since they have lower intellectual abilities and a different culture, their development has been slower than that of their 'cousins', leaving them at the level of pre-industrial civilizations.

2) Neytiri, Eytucan and Mo'at are all characters from James Cameron's 'Avatar' movie. Here their roles are somewhat different: in the film, they are a family ruling the Na'vi clan (with Eytucan as leader, Mo'at as priestess and Neytiri as their daughter and future priestess); in my story, they are unrelated, although they have very similar roles (with the exception of Eytucan, who is only the leader of the hunter / gatherer here). Eywa, the deity worshiped by Neanderthals, is also present in 'Avatar' with a very similar role (with the difference that in the film the Na'vi are much more monotheistic, in my story a more polytheistic culture). All the other characters that have appeared in the Neanderthal city are themselves characters that appear or are mentioned in the film.

3) The Neanderthal religion, with Eywa as the supreme goddess and several spirits/demigods acting as its emissaries, is also a reference to the universe of Tolkien, creator of 'Lord of the Rings' and many other books: also in the Tolkenian universe in fact there is a supreme divinity, Eru, who commands the whole cosmos even though he hardly ever intervenes physically, while his substitutes are performed by minor divinities (Valar and Maiar).

4) Titanoboa is a snake that lived in South America about 60 million years ago, in the Paleocene, the period immediately following the KT extinction. It could reach 13-15 meters in length and easily devour even crocodiles; it is the largest snake that has ever existed. Its enormous size was probably due to the higher temperature at that time, and this also probably caused its extinction as, as soon as the temperatures started to drop, the titanoboa was unable to survive because it was unable to heat the his huge body.

5) And in conclusion, a little gem of paleontology: the Meraxes gigas is a theropod that, although the remains were found in 2012, was officially described only in 2022. Consequently, it is a rather recently discovered dinosaur. According to estimates, it is likely that it could exceed 10 meters in length, thus being comparable to many other giant carnivorous dinosaurs.