Grey stared at the two evolutionary pathways floating before him, his expression slowly becoming more serious as he considered the implications of the choice.
Until now, every improvement he had received had been relatively straightforward, with the system either rewarding him for surviving or allowing him to absorb traits from creatures he defeated, but this was different because choosing an evolutionary path meant deciding what kind of creature he would eventually become.
[Evolutionary Path: Goblin Warrior]
[Focus: Physical strength, durability, close-range combat]
[Evolutionary Path: Goblin Hunter]
[Focus: Agility, perception, tracking, ranged combat]
Grey read both descriptions several times before leaning back against the roots of his shelter, his fingers tapping slowly against his thigh as he thought.
The Warrior path was tempting.
Strength had already proven to be his biggest weakness, and if he became physically stronger, creatures like the Thornwolf would no longer possess such an overwhelming advantage over him.
A more durable body would also make mistakes less dangerous, and considering how many times he had nearly died since waking up in this world, having something that could keep him alive seemed extremely valuable.
The Hunter path, however, suited what he had already begun developing.
His Predatory Instinct had allowed him to survive opponents that were physically stronger, while his newly acquired Night Vision made fighting in darkness considerably easier.
If the Hunter evolution improved those abilities, Grey could potentially turn the forest itself into a weapon, striking from advantageous positions instead of confronting stronger creatures head-on.
Neither option was bad and that was what made the decision difficult.
Grey rubbed his chin as he considered his options.
"There’s probably another path eventually."
The system remained silent.
He looked at the two choices again before finally selecting the one that felt most compatible with his current abilities.
Goblin Hunter.
The moment his decision was made, the interface changed.
[Evolutionary Path Selected.]
[Goblin Hunter progression initiated.]
[Current Evolution Progress: 31/50]
Grey’s eyebrows rose.
"So I don’t evolve immediately?"
Apparently not.
The system had simply unlocked the direction of his evolution, while the actual transformation would only happen after he gathered enough Evolution Energy.
Grey wasn’t disappointed, in fact, he preferred it this way.
If the system had suddenly transformed his body without warning, there was no telling what kind of side effects could have occurred, and he wasn’t particularly interested in waking up with an entirely different body while standing in the middle of a forest filled with monsters.
He closed the interface and stepped outside.
The moon had moved considerably higher into the sky, casting pale light between the branches while the forest slowly settled into its nighttime rhythm.
Grey could hear insects moving beneath the leaves, distant creatures calling to one another, and the occasional rustle of something much larger traveling through the undergrowth.
He immediately noticed something different.
His senses were sharper.
The forest no longer felt like an endless wall of darkness.
Every movement seemed more distinct, every scent more noticeable, and every sound carried information that his mind instinctively attempted to process.
Grey crouched and placed one hand against the ground.
There were tracks everywhere.
Most of them belonged to creatures he didn’t recognize, but his Predatory Instinct seemed to automatically distinguish the fresher trails from the older ones.
He followed one with his eyes.
Then another.
Finally, he noticed a trail that immediately caught his attention.
The footprints were tiny, too small to be from the creatures he had fought.
Grey followed them for several meters before discovering a cluster of small blue berries growing beside a moss-covered rock.
He carefully inspected them and the system appeared.
[Unknown Forest Berry]
[Edibility: Safe]
[Minor nutritional value]
Grey smiled.
"Finally, something that doesn’t want to kill me."
He chose one and put it in his mouth. The taste was unexpectedly sweet. Grey ate another, then another.
He quickly gathered as many as he could carry and brought them back to his shelter, placing them into a crude pile beside the remaining animal meat.
It wasn’t much, but it was the beginning of something important.d
Grey looked around his tiny home and realized that he had unintentionally created the foundation of a survival camp.
It was primitive, ugly, and barely worthy of being called a shelter, but it belonged to him.
For the first time since arriving in this world, Grey felt slightly less like a helpless creature that had been dropped into the wilderness.
He had somewhere to return to and that thought alone was strangely comforting.
Grey eventually settled down beneath the roots and closed his eyes.
He needed sleep because he was feeling Increasingly tired, so he decided to hunt tomorrow.
He had intended to gather enough Evolution Energy to reach fifty and evolve.
That was his plan. Unfortunately, the forest had different ideas.
A low vibration passed through the ground sometime during the night.
Grey’s eyes opened immediately.
He stayed perfectly still for a few seconds before another vibration, this time much more intense, occurred.
Something enormous was moving through the forest.
Grey slowly sat upright.
His Predatory Instinct activated before he consciously understood why.
Danger.
The warning wasn’t displayed by the system, he could feel chills around his spine.
Something inside him was telling him that whatever was approaching was different from the creatures he had encountered before.
Grey crawled toward the entrance of his shelter and carefully looked outside but there was nothing.
The forest appeared normal yet the birds had stopped making noise and insects had gone silent.
Even the wind seemed to have disappeared.
Noticing that something was seriously wrong Grey’s expression became serious.
"This isn’t normal."
He waited and a few seconds passed when suddenly an explosion went off.
Boom.
Something struck the ground in the distance and Grey felt the vibration beneath his feet.
He immediately stood but another impact followed.
Boom.
Grey’s instincts screamed at him to hide and he immediately listened.
He extinguished every trace of his presence as best he could, crawled deeper beneath the roots, and waited.
The next impact never came, instead, something else happened.
A sound rolled through the forest.
It was so distant that Grey couldn’t immediately identify it, yet the moment he heard it, every hair on his body stood upright.
It was a roar, not the howl of a wolf or the growl of a beast.
A roar so deep that it seemed to shake the air itself.
Grey’s body froze and the system appeared.
[Warning.]
[High-level lifeform detected.]
Grey’s eyes widened.
Another notification appeared.
[Recommended action: Retreat.]
Grey stared at the words.
He had never seen the system recommend anything before.
That alone was enough to make his blood run cold.
Then the forest changed.
A powerful gust of wind swept through the trees, bending branches and sending leaves flying through the darkness.
Grey instinctively covered his face but something passed overhead.
For less than a second, a gigantic shadow crossed the moon.
Grey looked upward and he saw only darkness, then the shadow vanished beyond the trees.
His heart hammered against his ribs.
"What the hell was that?"
The system didn’t answer.
Grey remained frozen beneath the roots for several minutes before slowly lowering his gaze.
He had no idea what had just passed above him but whatever it was, he knew one thing.
He was nowhere near strong enough to fight it.
Morning arrived several hours later and Grey emerged cautiously from his shelter.
The forest looked almost exactly as it had the previous day, except for one detail.
Several enormous trees had been crushed.
Grey walked toward the destruction and stopped.
A massive indentation stretched across the forest floor, cutting through vegetation and leaving broken branches scattered everywhere.
He crouched beside it.
The footprint alone was larger than his entire body.
Grey stared at it for several seconds until he noticed something else.
’Scales?’
One enormous scale lay half-buried in the soil as Grey approached cautiously and touched it.
The system immediately reacted.
[Unknown Material detected.]
[Analysis incomplete.]
[Warning: Biological signature exceeds current analysis capacity.]
Grey’s hand immediately pulled away.
He stared at the scale.
"You’re telling me the system can’t even identify it?"
For the first time, Grey began to understand the true scale of this world.
The Thornwolf had almost killed him.
The Moonfang Hyenas had forced him to fight carefully despite being weaker individually.
Yet whatever had left this footprint could apparently pass through the forest without even noticing creatures like them.
Grey looked toward the direction the tracks continued.
He should have walked away, instead, curiosity began pulling him forward.
A short distance more. He planned to investigate, then come back. At least, that’s what he convinced himself.
Grey followed the enormous tracks through the forest, moving carefully and staying downwind whenever possible.
The deeper he traveled, the stranger the surroundings became, with the vegetation growing thicker and the trees becoming so enormous that their trunks disappeared into the canopy far above him.
After nearly an hour, Grey noticed something unusual.
There were no monster tracks here.
Every creature had apparently avoided this region.
Grey’s Predatory Instinct suddenly became extremely active.
His entire body tensed and the system appeared.
[Territorial pressure detected.]
Grey’s pupils contracted.
[Warning.]
[You have entered the territory of an extremely powerful lifeform.]
He immediately turned around and was about to scramble away until he heard a deep breathing that sounded almost impossibly powerful.
Grey stopped, he noticed that the sound came from somewhere ahead.
He slowly turned toward the enormous stone formation hidden behind the trees.
At first, he thought it was a mountain.
Then two enormous golden eyes opened within the darkness.
Grey couldn’t move.
Something massive shifted behind the rocks, revealing a portion of dark crimson scales that seemed to absorb the surrounding moonlight.
The creature slowly lifted its head showing a pair of enormous horns that emerged from the darkness.
Then another pair.
Grey’s body instinctively dropped into a crouch.
The system began flooding his vision with warnings.
[Critical Warning.]
[Critical Warning.]
[Target analysis impossible.]
[Target exceeds current system permissions.]
Grey’s breathing stopped as the creature opened its eyes fully.
For thousands of years, the ancient dragon had remained asleep beneath the forest, waiting for a reason to awaken.
Now, for the first time in an age, something had disturbed her slumber.
Her golden pupils narrowed and she deeply inhaled. Then her gaze shifted directly toward Grey.
The forest trembled beneath the weight of her presence.
And somewhere within that ancient mind, a single thought surfaced.
[Who has entered my territory?]