Beside the Hummer’s stripped frame lay the parrot-thing, where the hawk had thrown it.

Bare skin everywhere except the wings, roughly the same size as the hawk, beak enormous and broad — blunt where the hawk’s was blade-sharp. Unimpressive in death.

Shen Cong watched the hawk feed for another moment, exhaled slowly, and raised the crossbow again.

He had the behavioral footage he needed. Time to end this. Whatever the original activation metal in the Hummer’s frame meant — and he was certain it meant something significant — he wasn’t going to let a bird eat through it while he stood watching.

The instant his wrist moved, the hawk felt it.

One eye swung toward him. Then its legs drove against the frame and it dropped forward, spreading its wings mid-fall, already moving before the bolt had crossed half the distance.

The sound of its cry reached him a beat after the hawk itself had gone — it was already that fast.

The bolt missed clean.

Then the hawk came at him — a single explosive surge toward Vajra’s window, talons first, aimed at the opening. Shen Cong yanked back from the port and came up with the fang knife, ready to cut whatever came through. The hawk pulled its claws at the last instant, no contact, and was gone again — already airborne, already circling, already lining up the next pass.

It dove again.

This time Shen Cong was ready. When the talons came through the window he drove a fang javelin out the gap and felt it connect.

Thud.

Between the hawk’s legs. Not a kill, but real damage.

“Kree—!”

A shriek of pain and it ripped free, beat upward, and began circling at altitude. High enough that accurate shooting was impractical.

Shen Cong settled in and waited. The hawk wasn’t leaving — the Hummer frame held too much attraction for it. Waiting out a person with a persecution complex and six years of solitary living behind him was not a competition the hawk was going to win.

Half an hour later, hunger outweighed caution. The hawk dropped back to the frame and resumed eating.

This time Shen Cong didn’t open the window. He opened only the firing port — and picked up Wang Gen’s QBZ-95 assault rifle.

Captured last night, limited ammunition, less raw stopping power than an Activity-infused bone-gold weapon. But against a body made of flesh, kinetic energy was plenty. And a bullet traveling at two or three times the speed of sound wasn’t something the hawk could read and dodge at close range. Not the way it had evaded the crossbow bolt.

He sighted through the port.

The hawk turned one eye toward him. He held still. The hawk watched him for a moment, then turned back to the metal.

There it was.

Tat-tat-tat — tat-tat-tat.

The 95 opened up and put a burst straight into the hawk’s body at point-blank range.

“Kreeeeee—!”

It thrashed, wings hammering, trying to get airborne. Didn’t make it. More than a dozen rounds and it was down, twitching in the dirt.

Thwack.

A fang arrow through the skull. Just to be certain.

Fight over.

Once he’d confirmed both birds were dead, he climbed out, collected both carcasses, and got to work cutting the Hummer’s remaining frame apart. Whatever drew evolved creatures to that metal, it was clearly valuable. He dragged all of it inside Vajra before anything else could come looking.

Sharp Eagle — an evolved hawk-type bird, evolution class: evolved beast. Size comparable to a large goat. Wingspan 5.48 meters. Fast, agile, combat style centered on diving talon strikes and beak attacks. Highly dangerous.

Activity core: the beak. Slightly curved, long, blade-narrow, razor-edged.

Shen Cong read the Sharp Eagle’s numbers: Lv0.479 / Activity Value 0.426H / Talent 0.889H. Higher evolution level and higher Talent than any of the mutant humans from the southern district.

The bare-skinned parrot-thing got its own entry.

Melancholy Bird — an evolved parrot-type bird, evolution class: evolved beast. Comparable in size to the Sharp Eagle but inferior across every measured dimension. No feathers on the body except the wings. Wingspan 4.36 meters. Vocalization resembles a crow. Combat capability limited to pecking and scratching. Unremarkable in a fight.

Activity core: the beak. Flat and broad — more like a duck’s bill than a raptor’s weapon.

Numbers: Lv0.533 / Activity Value 0.395H / Talent 0.741H. Weaker than the Sharp Eagle in combat and Talent both, but its Level was actually higher — above 0.5.

Shen Cong looked at those numbers and looked at the direction both birds had come from.

West.

These two have evolved further than anything I encountered in the southern district. And they came from the west. The west is Hefei. Hefei is the abundant zone.

Wang Gen had mentioned it: the abundant zone had richer ambient Activity, denser evolved species populations. Long-term exposure to high Activity concentration accelerated evolution. Of course creatures living there would be climbing faster than anything out here in the barren zone.

Abundant zone. Oasis.

Something lit up behind his eyes.

The barren zone’s ecology was broken — food chains that didn’t close, gaps in the system that nothing had moved to fill yet. Left alone, it would keep deteriorating. But the abundant zone and the Oasis might tell a different story. A place where evolution had progressed far enough that a new equilibrium was forming. A closed loop. Something that actually functioned.

He wanted to see it.

For now, though: stay in the barren zone, keep working. Research, strengthen, prepare. Arrive at Hefei at full readiness.

What he hoped most to find on the road there was more evolved trees — something like the Man-eater Peach Tree, something that could push his body further. Raw physical capability might matter more than Vajra once he reached Hefei. To borrow military resources for the overhaul, he couldn’t stay inside the cab permanently. He’d have to deal with people face to face, probably maneuver inside whatever faction structure existed, endure whatever was necessary for as long as necessary.

Get the overhaul done. Then decide how to live after that.

The only person in this world he trusted was himself.

The two evolved birds provided fresh high-Activity meat. Both had been at significant Levels — their flesh was dense with Activity content, and eating it produced a familiar deep internal heat, the kind that pressed at the edge of further physical enhancement. His body was registering gains again on a regular basis.

The Bull Demon King Totem was running again, pulling ambient Activity steadily into Vajra. With sufficient material to amalgamate, the siphon risk stayed manageable — the incoming Activity could go into expanding the vehicle rather than overflowing into him.

And to keep the siphon suppressed going forward, he’d decided on a new protocol: at regular intervals, deliberately draw down Vajra’s Activity Value slightly, keeping the gap between Vajra and himself from widening too far. If their Activity Values moved in sync, the overflow pressure never built. Manage it carefully and they might even cross into the Lv1 era together.

For reference, the current level table:

(End of Chapter 83)