Anomalocaris

The gods had stepped back. The Primordia were gone, their essence buried

deep in stone and sediment. And in the silence that followed, the ocean

did something remarkable: it created a hunter without divine hands to guide

it. Anomalocaris was not forged by Vita or shaped by Kael. It emerged from

the slow patience of the earth itself — the first creature born entirely

of trial and failure, the first proof that life could teach itself. Its

grasping arms swept through clouds of smaller creatures with mechanical

precision. Its circular mouth, lined with plates of crushing teeth, was

not designed by a god's imagination but by something quieter and more

relentless: necessity. Anomalocaris was not powerful in the way the First

Beasts were powerful. It did not shake the earth or split the sky. But it

was the first thing to look at another living creature and see food. That

small, terrible innovation changed everything.