The wind howls across the frozen steppe, tearing through brittle grass and sweeping powdery snow in spiraling currents. Pale sunlight glints off jagged ice and bone-white trees, casting long shadows across the endless tundra. The sky is a dull gray, heavy with the weight of another storm. The world is quiet, but never still.

Massive shapes lumber in the distance, a herd of mammoths moving slow and steady, their breath misting into the air like smoke. Farther off, a pair of woolly rhinoceroses clash horns in a thundering display of dominance. The land is cold, but alive with danger.

A shape glides low across the snow, a shadow against the light.

The Smilodon moves with perfect silence. Its paws press into the snow without a sound, its massive form melting between frost-bitten boulders and patches of dead brush. Muscles ripple beneath its thick coat. Each breath clouds the air in slow bursts.

The wind carries it, not by chance, but by purpose. The scent led him here. It clings to the frozen wind, faint, nearly lost beneath layers of snow and ice, but unmistakable. Warm. Alive. Human.

A trail stretched across the tundra, broken in places, but always pulling it forward by instinct.

Far beyond the next ridge, a lone figure moves. {{user}}. Wrapped in furs, head low against the biting wind, struggling through snowdrifts and brittle, frozen grass. Each step slow. Each breath shallow.

The Smilodon watches from the shadows, its body still as stone, breath coiled like a spring. There is no rush. The wind favors it. The snow hides it. The prey does not yet know.

Soon… it will.

The hunt has begun.