With a sharp cry, Chen Xu surged forward. From his flank, Ape-Man One and the Ape Captain mirrored his movements at a forty-five-degree angle, shrieking and brandishing their crude stone tools as they charged at the panicked herd of antelopes.
In that instant, their presence filled the blind spots on his sides. From the perspective of the antelopes, the path ahead was now a corridor of doom, hemmed in by the chaos Chen Xu orchestrated.
The wind whistled past his ears as the herd bounded forward. Ages of instinct and survival honed in the Stone Age, the antelopes drove their hooves into the soft soil, kicking up clouds of dust that shimmered in the sunlight.
In the haze, they twisted and turned with a dancer's grace, veering sharply away from Chen Xu's approach. But their flight was scattered. Only one or two might stumble into the trap he had meticulously prepared.
"They run faster than I imagined…" Chen Xu muttered, eyes narrowing. His muscular arms swung the heavy wooden staff, yet the effort drained his inner energy far more than he expected. The sheer exertion of such large-scale maneuvers, even bolstered by his second-stage mastery, tested the limits of his strength.
"Woah!" A sudden roar escaped his throat. He planted his feet into the earth like stakes, coiling the energy of his body into a single, explosive motion. The staff in his hands became a tempest, a twisting dragon of force that cleaved through the air, sending a resonating wave toward the herd.
The antelopes panicked further, scattering chaotically, and ran blindly toward the underbrush. From the sides, seven or eight ape-men burst forth, weapons raised and bellowing, cutting off the escape routes. Though their attacks were minor compared to the lethal precision Chen Xu could deliver, the combined pressure suffocated the herd's instinct to flee rationally.
Some antelopes leapt over their attackers, but most were funneled directly toward the pitfall. With a thunderous crash, the ground swallowed the lead animals. A plume of dust erupted like a miniature mushroom cloud, filled with the desperate, piercing cries of prey meeting the inevitable.
Even without the arrows and spears, the sudden stop after their high-speed dash inflicted carnage. Momentum alone shattered legs and ribs, and within moments, fifteen or sixteen antelopes lay twisted at the pit's bottom. The few survivors, landing on the backs of their fallen companions, were swiftly skewered by waiting ape-men with sharpened bamboo spears.
By the time Chen Xu and his hunters reached the pit, the hunt was decisively over. Joy and triumph rang across the mountaintop.
"This will hold us for days," Chen Xu muttered, surveying the scene, "but it's no long-term solution. Those black apes beneath the cliff—those must be dealt with soon."
Despite the looming threat, he allowed himself a brief smile. The twenty-three antelopes—now reduced to eighteen, stolen by nocturnal predators—would fill bellies tonight. For the ape-men, this was victory: the conquest of wild nature itself.
As night fell, Chen Xu instructed each hunter to carry their kill back to the mountain top. He, however, lingered. Under the rising moon, he moved silently, gathering shattered branches and broken spears, restoring the pitfall to its concealed state. Then, methodically, he reinforced it with thick branches and interwoven twigs until no gap remained, camouflaging it with earth and grass.
"Tomorrow, this will yield another harvest," he murmured, surveying his work.
Returning to the mountain top, he joined the rest of the tribe as they celebrated their victory. Fire roared to life, casting a brilliant glow over the summit. The flames, fanned by the collected dry wood, leapt over five meters high, illuminating the ape-men's ecstatic faces.
Chen Xu, however, had a subtler task in mind. Sitting beside the fire, he examined the dried sinews harvested from deer, twisting them between his fingers. Flexible, resilient, perfectly cured—the raw material for a weapon he had long envisioned.
From the bamboo stalks he had carefully selected and split, he began crafting a longbow. Fire softened the bamboo, allowing him to bend it into a graceful, coiled spiral. Ape-Man One assisted, holding each segment firmly in place, ensuring the bamboo retained its shape. Layer upon layer, four stalks wound together like intertwined strands of DNA, the gentle curvature forming the elegant skeleton of a longbow.
At each end, aligned holes allowed for the attachment of bowstrings. Chen Xu spun sinews into a cord, threading it through the gaps, knotting with precision. He flexed the bow, drawing the sinew taut. A hum of latent power thrummed along the bamboo. The first longbow, crude in appearance but deadly in potential, was complete.
Chen Xu held it aloft, eyes glinting in the firelight. Tonight, they had triumphed over nature—and tomorrow, with this weapon in hand, he would begin shaping the future of his tribe.