Even as I roll the thing changes direction and follows me, it is about to bite into my shoulder when Bones slams his shield into the side of it. It zips away from the impact as if startled and then circles back to take another look at me. It almost seems like it can't see Bones at all, it has completely ignored him from the start.

If it is like a snake and sees heat then it would make sense, after all Bones is an undead, he doesn't have body heat. That makes Bones my best weapon in this fight, if it can't sense him his every attack will be a surprise attack. The thing is cautious, it is still circling and sizing me up, but once it decides to attack it will be on me in an instant.

The thing is faster than the bird-things, but the way it changed direction instantly is what has me worried. If it can react faster than I can dodge then my only option will be to not leave enough room for it to attack. So I plan to lure it into attacking me and just barely dodge the attack, I won't have room to attack it either, but Bones will.

"Bones, wait until it attacks me, then go for the kill."

Bones gives me a nod and gets ready, then I take a single step back as if I am going to run away. Instantly the thing stops circling and shoots at me like an arrow, and I wait until it is inches away. At the last possible second I lean just far enough that the thing scrapes against my armor as its mouth passes me.

Before Bones can reach it to attack it has looped back and wrapped around me. It has me wrapped up so fast I don't even have time to react and it immediately starts squeezing. Luckily for me its strength doesn't match its speed and all I feel is a light pressure as it tries to crush me.

With my arms pinned to my sides I don't have the leverage to break free even though I am much stronger than it is. Now that it has stopped moving Bones has a clear shot at it, but he takes his time to line up his attack. In one sudden move he lops the things head off and once he does the body drops to the ground freeing me.

"Good job, Bones!"

He chatters at me, he seems happy that I praised him, and then he goes back to looking around watching for danger. He keeps watch while I start carefully skinning the body, I want to keep the entire skin intact if I can. Snake skin has a lot of uses and I'm sure Walter will enjoy working with it.

As I start peeling the skin off I find out the secret behind how the thing moved. Along its spine it has thousands of pairs of translucent wings, I decide to leave them alone so I don't mess up the skin. I was hoping it flew with magic, then maybe eating its heart would give me the ability to use magic again.

Now I am reluctant to eat its heart, I wouldn't mind having wings, just not insect wings. I would prefer black feathered wings, that would look awesome! Surprisingly when I find the heart it is small, small enough to eat in one bite, but then I find another and another.

By the time I am done butchering the body I have found ten small hearts and no beast core. I sit looking at the pile of hearts trying to decide if it is worth the risk of getting insect wings. Eventually I decide to take the risk and pop one in my mouth, it is surprisingly sweet and tasty.

One by one I eat all ten hearts but devour does not activate which is disappointing to say the least. There have been times when devour didn't activate so it's not a big deal, the lack of a beast core worries me more. The turtle had one, and the bird-things had them, so why would this thing not have one?

It is a puzzle and one I don't have enough information to solve which drives me nuts! Then again the existence of this cavern is like that, I don't see how a jungle with what should be prehistoric monsters can exist outside a movie. I know this is another world but I feel like the science I know should still work here, unless it was all done by magic, but even that doesn't make any sense.

If only I had more knowledge of this world, maybe I should ask the goddesses how much they know about the world. That won't work though, I already know that their knowledge is limited by their worshipers. So no getting easy answers out of them either, maybe Vacker would know more since he was raised on the main continent.

Shaking my head I put aside all these random thoughts and focus on finishing my task before the smell of blood attracts something nastier. In fact I am surprised nothing has come looking yet, I haven't even heard any small scavengers moving around nearby. This whole situation is getting really confusing, there is a huge ecosystem but what I have seen of it doesn't make any sense.

The silence is what bothers me the most, I just can't figure out why everything is so silent. Since it is a cave sound would carry further than normal, but that still doesn't explain the need for total silence. The only thing I can think of is that the top predator hunts by sound, but I have made a lot of noise since I came in here and haven't seen it.

Once everything is put away in my pouch I decide to continue exploring, I need to solve this mystery or I will go insane. I do my best to make no noise at all, that is until I find a special rock sticking up out of the dirt. It is almost ten feet tall and at least half of it is Armatite, I just can't walk past that much Armatite.

Within a minute of me starting to swing the pickaxe I hear a roar, the same roar I heard when we first found the cavern. A few minutes later I hear the roar again, but this time it is definitely closer. Despite the risk I keep swinging the pickaxe, and every chunk that breaks off the stone goes straight into my pouch.

If whatever is coming forces me to run away I will at least take what I can with me. Soon I start to feel vibrations through my feet, impact tremors just like in the movie. They just motivate me to swing harder and faster to get as much ore as I possibly can.

The next roar is deafening, and is almost right on top of me from the sound of it. I quickly stuff the last few pieces of ore into my pouch along with the pickaxe and draw Blitz as I look towards the source of the roar. I see the head above the trees and am surprised because it has no eyes, other than that it looks a lot like a t-rex.