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Jack's mind stirred as his telepathic perception swept through the island.
Beneath the dense, bone-strewn terrain of Skull Island, something moved—a coordinated rhythm of predatory intent, slithering through the earth like a tide of malice.
He narrowed his eyes.
"Skull Crawlers," he muttered, voice low and cold.
"So it was you behind the disturbance."
Moments later, the creatures burst from the cracked soil like a swarm of nightmares.
Over fifty of them—skull crawlers of various sizes—clawed their way to the surface.
Bone plates clacked as they moved, their hollow eye sockets glowing with an eerie green shimmer.
They hissed and screeched, their decomposed hides hanging like rags from calcified ribs.
They had come in full force.
To Jack, they looked like little more than feral rats dressed in horror.
No strategy. No discipline.
Just blind hunger.
Still, he didn't underestimate them—not entirely. Numbers could overwhelm.
One misstep could become a fatal weakness.
"Hisssss!!"
The lizards screeched in unison, and as if bound by a hive mind, they rushed toward the fallen King behind Jack—King Kong.
The great titan lay broken and bloodied, breath shallow, half-buried beneath rubble.
The stench of fresh blood had drawn these scavengers like flies.
They wanted to feed. But Jack would not allow it.
"You dare steal my prize?" he said, eyes flashing.
"You pathetic, bone-clad rats."
His body tensed, then surged with electric light.
Crackling arcs danced across his ivory dragon scales, flickering like wildfire across metal.
In an instant, the energy condensed, crawling like serpents beneath his hide.
KZZZZZT!
With a sharp roar, the power exploded outward.
From his body leapt silver-white bolts of lightning, beautiful and deadly.
The arcs twisted through the air like living chains, weaving through space with pinpoint accuracy.
Dozens of streaks locked onto targets with guided precision, slamming into the Skull Crawlers mid-charge.
The upgraded electric ray gene in Jack's body, now at level 3, had evolved to monstrous energy.
These were no mere shocks—each bolt carried tens of millions of volts, enough to vaporize flesh and boil bone.
The first wave of lizards collapsed where they stood.
Their bodies convulsed, glowing for a split second with an eerie light, then shattered from within.
Blood vaporized into crimson mist. Bone fragments clattered like brittle glass across the stone.
[You hunted a Giant Skeleton Lizard (exotic beast) and obtained gene points 3500]
[You hunted a Giant Skeleton Lizard (exotic beast) and obtained gene points 4000]
The messages flickered in Jack's mind like a calm drumbeat amidst chaos.
Still, more lizards charged. Those in the rear leaped over the fallen without pause, jaws gaping wide, tongues flickering with venom.
Jack ducked, dodged, and retaliated.
He twisted his body mid-air, tail smashing one lizard into a pile of splinters.
Another leaped at his flank—he caught it mid-motion, slammed it against a boulder, and electrocuted it in his grip until its core exploded.
But the lizards were adapting. A few had learned to split off and circle behind.
Others began tunneling mid-battle, trying to undermine his footing.
Their leader, a larger skeletal creature with twin horns protruding from its jawbone, barked guttural orders from the backline.
"Smart little bastard," Jack muttered, noting the shift in tactics.
"Let's see how smart you are... when I turn your skull into dust."
He switched his plan, bracing all four limbs and drawing deep into his bioelectric core.
Instead of a wide arc burst, he focused his output, compressing the charge.
The air grew heavy, energized. Pebbles vibrated at his feet.
When the next wave came, he met them not with lightning, but with speed.
A blur of gold and silver tore through the lizard line, tail whipping like a sword.
Jack ducked a snapping jaw and kicked another beast in the chest, sending it flying twenty meters into a jagged cliff wall.
Before it hit the ground, a single bolt from his claw ended it mid-air.
The smarter ones tried burrowing again.
Jack anticipated it this time—he stomped the ground hard, sending an electrical shockwave underground.
The tunnelers shrieked in agony as their bodies seized and ignited from within.
But not all attacks could be prevented.
One of the larger lizards caught him off-guard, leaping from behind and clamping onto his side with bone-crushing jaws.
Jack grunted in pain, blood oozing from between the monster's teeth.
Instead of panicking, he turned toward the beast and unleashed a concentrated electric burst at point-blank range.
The lizard held on for a second longer, then twitched, eyes going blank, and dropped dead.
[You hunted a Giant Skeleton Lizard (exotic beast) and obtained gene points 4500]
"Hisssss!!"
The leader hissed again, more frantic this time. It had watched nearly its entire force decimated in minutes.
Panic set in. Its tail flicked twice—a retreat signal.
Jack caught the motion.
"Oh no, you don't."
With a leap, he was in the air, wings spreading wide.
The leader hadn't even gotten halfway to its escape tunnel before Jack slammed down behind it with a thunderous impact that cracked the earth.
It spun and slashed—claws raking out in a desperate attempt to protect itself.
Jack blocked one strike, took another across his arm, twisted, grabbed the leader's tail, and yanked hard, ripping it free from the ground.
Boom!!
He lifted the creature and brought it head-first into a boulder.
The skull shattered with a sickening crunch, fragments scattering like ivory shrapnel.
[You hunted a Giant Skeleton Lizard King (exotic beast) and obtained gene points 5000]
The surviving lizards lost all cohesion. With their leader dead, fear overtook instinct.
They screeched and scattered, diving back into the safety of their underground tunnels.
Jack stood amidst the carnage, chest heaving slightly.
He didn't pursue it right away. Not because he couldn't—but because he didn't need to rush.
He looked toward the cracked opening in the earth.
"So that's where you crawled out from..."
He approached the entrance to the underground nest—massive enough for the lizards, but far too narrow for his current form.
Jack frowned. "No point squeezing through."
"I'll give you a poison gas bomb."
Jack's scales shimmered faintly, rippling with energy as his body adapted to a new tactic.
The stinging cells beneath his armored hide contracted, releasing a stream of colorless, odorless neurotoxin—deadly to any living organism without immunity.
He spread his wings wide and beat them once, hard.
WHUMP!
The powerful gust of wind carried the invisible cloud down into the yawning mouth of the lizard nest.
A moment of silence passed.
Then came the sound—low hissing, followed by chaotic shrieks of agony.
The noise built rapidly, then vanished instantly, as if snuffed out by death itself.
A soft chime echoed in Jack's mind as the simulator processed the outcome.
[You hunted a Skeleton Lizard (exotic beast) and obtained gene points 2000]
[You hunted a Skeleton Lizard (exotic beast) and obtained gene points 2100]
[You hunted a Skeleton Lizard (exotic beast) and obtained gene points 1800]...
It continued for several seconds as notification after notification piled up.
The system calculated the final tally.
Jack opened his status panel.
More than 100,000 points had come from the skeleton lizard horde alone—a staggering gain.
It was one of the largest single hauls he'd ever achieved.
He exhaled slowly, satisfied.
"No need to wipe them all out," he muttered.
"Too many kills now will just ruin the hunting grounds later."
The smart predator didn't burn the forest—it learned to let it grow back.