Now that all that was done, Jelo decided to go look for Mira once again, especially now that he had eaten the Dabba heart, his headache was gone completely, and his fuel reserves were fully replenished. The gnawing hunger that had been driving him to the edge of madness had vanished, replaced by a feeling of strength and vitality that made him feel almost invincible.

Almost. He was smart enough to know that overconfidence would get him killed in a place like this.

He stood up slowly, brushing the dried blood and dust from his clothes as best he could, though it was mostly a futile gesture. His clothing was torn and stained beyond any hope of looking presentable, but that didn't matter right now. What mattered was finding Mira before something terrible happened to her.

Jelo set off to find her, choosing a direction that felt right based on nothing more than instinct and the faint hope that the portal hadn't separated them by too great a distance. His newly enhanced senses were working overtime, taking in every detail of his surroundings with crystal clarity that would have been overwhelming before his level-up.

As Jelo walked through the ruins of the Forgotten City, he kept scanning his surroundings constantly, painfully aware that the area was dangerous and that anything could spring on him from the shadows at any moment. His eyes tracked every pile of rubble that could hide a threat, every darkened doorway, every collapsed building that might shelter something waiting to ambush unwary prey.

His ears strained to catch any sound that seemed out of place, the scrape of claws on stone, the rustle of movement, the telltale breathing of a predator lying in wait.

The silence was oppressive, broken only by the sound of his own footsteps crunching against the debris-strewn ground and the occasional groan of unstable structures settling under their own weight. The wind whistled through broken windows and gaps in walls, creating an eerie soundtrack to his journey.

Fortunately, as he moved forward through the desolate landscape, no Dabba seemed to be hiding in the shadows waiting to attack. The streets remained empty, devoid of the threats he'd been expecting. Every instinct told him he should be encountering resistance by now, should be fighting for his life against the mutated creatures that supposedly infested this entire region.

He wondered if he was going to be attacked at all, or if there were actually any Dabba in this immediate area. The absence of threats was almost more unsettling than being constantly attacked would have been. It felt wrong, unnatural for a place like this.

In his opinion, this place should be crawling with Dabba. The Forgotten City had been abandoned for years, left to become a breeding ground for mutated creatures fed by the residual radiation that still poisoned the environment. By all logic, he should be running into packs of them, fighting constantly just to maintain forward progress.

So their absence might mean a few things, and Jelo's mind worked through the possibilities as he walked. Either they had migrated away from this specific area for some reason, perhaps the radiation levels had changed, or food sources had dried up. That seemed unlikely given the nature of Dabbas, but it was possible.

Or they were avoiding him specifically, having somehow sensed that he wasn't worth the trouble. Maybe killing that massive mutated Dabba had marked him as a threat, his scent now carrying warning signals that made lesser creatures think twice about attacking.

Predators were smart enough to avoid prey that might cost them too dearly, and he was worth much more meat than a simple meal justified if it meant risking death or serious injury.

But there was a third possibility, one that made Jelo's enhanced senses go on even higher alert. Something bigger and scarier might have driven the smaller Dabba away, something that would make the area even more dangerous than it already was.

An apex predator that had claimed this territory as its own hunting ground, something so threatening that even mutated Dabba knew better than to compete with it for space.

The thought was sobering. Fighting dozens of smaller Dabba would certainly test his strength and mainly his stamina, wearing him down through attrition and numbers. He'd have to manage his energy carefully, use his abilities efficiently, and stay mobile to avoid being overwhelmed. It would be challenging but survivable.

But fighting one giant predator, something powerful enough to clear an entire region of other threats, would test everything about him. His strength, his speed, his tactical thinking, his ability to adapt and overcome. There would be no room for mistakes, no opportunity to learn its patterns through multiple encounters. One fight, winner take all, with his life as the stakes.

Jelo shook his head slightly, trying to push the dark thoughts aside. He was borrowing trouble, worrying about threats that might not even exist. For all he knew, the Dabba population in this area really had just migrated somewhere else for perfectly mundane reasons.

As he pondered these thoughts while continuing to move through the ruins, sudden growls caught his attention. The sound cut through the oppressive silence like a knife, instantly putting every nerve in Jelo's body on high alert. His enhanced hearing picked up the nuances, multiple sources, coming from his left, perhaps thirty meters away and approaching.

Jelo stopped immediately, his body going perfectly still as his mind shifted into combat mode. He crouched low, reducing his profile and preparing to move explosively in any direction. Then he pounced in the direction of the sound, deciding that meeting the threat head-on was better than waiting for it to choose the terms of engagement. His feet carried him forward with his enhanced speed, closing the distance rapidly.

The growls grew closer and louder, taking on distinct characteristics that told Jelo these weren't human threats. The sounds were too deep, too primal, carrying the unmistakable quality of animal aggression. His muscles tensed, ready to activate Dragon Claw or Wing Burst the instant the situation required it.

Finally, two Dabba emerged from the shadows between collapsed buildings, their forms becoming visible in the dim red light that filtered through the poisoned sky overhead. Jelo's eyes took them in quickly, his new Assess skill activating automatically as his mind processed the threats before him.

They were both mutated, that much was immediately obvious from their size and the wrongness of their proportions. But unlike the reptilian Dabba he had fought earlier, the massive, reptile monstrosity that had nearly killed him, these were mammals. The difference was striking, showing just how varied the mutations caused by the nuclear radiation could be.

One of them was clearly a tiger in its base form, though calling it simply a tiger was like calling a hurricane a light breeze. Instead of the usual orange and black coloring that tigers were known for, this creature's fur was black and white, creating a stark, almost hypnotic pattern across its massive body.

The contrast was beautiful and terrifying in equal measure.

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