4:52 AM.
"Lucian?! What are you doing?! This isn't what we agreed on!"
A massive breach had been blown open in the iron perimeter fence of the Mojave Reserve by an explosion. A dense convoy of vehicles, all flying the ostentatious flags of the slayers, sat lined up across the wasteland.
"Our cooperation ends here, Dudley. Thanks for all your support along the way."
Lucian stood atop a jeep. With his mask on, the approachable demeanor he usually maintained had vanished completely. He didn't even spare the panicked Dudley a glance, focused entirely on calibrating the livestreaming equipment in his hands.
"Woohoo!"
Bang!
An off-road vehicle surged ahead of the convoy, charging straight toward the pitch-black, night-shrouded Mojave Reserve.
The passenger in the back seat hung out of the window, a single hand hoisting an assault rifle. The muzzle flashed with white-hot fury as he unleashed a volley into the sky, seemingly venting his pent-up aggression.
5:00 AM.
"Hello, friends of Dark Jurassic! Um... I'm not a professional streamer, so let's skip the pleasantries. Humanity's vengeance against the dinosaurs officially begins now…"
"Aaaagh—!"
A blood-curdling, agonizing human shriek pierced the darkness of the night, cut short alongside a frantic exchange of gunfire and the blast of a vehicular explosion before fading back into silence.
The words died in Lucian's throat. He began turning back toward the reserve, but halfway through his motion, his eyes locked onto a burning wreck of a car that streaked through the sky like a falling meteor.
The massive fireball smashed right into the convoy, triggering an even more violent detonation. Fortunately, the vehicles had maintained enough distance that only one car of unlucky bastards was wiped out, avoiding a catastrophic chain reaction.
Ignoring the commotion spreading through the crowd, Lucian quickly spun around to face the other side of the breached fence.
A few lingering sparks flickered in the desert, faintly illuminating a patch of white skin. A colossal, dark silhouette blotted out a section of the starry sky, with what looked like a faint yellow shimmer gleaming across its form.
Thud...
The earth trembled. The black silhouette shifted beneath the starlight, vanishing from the firelight's reflection, leaving only the steady, rhythmic tremors vibrationally signaling its approach. Step by step.
"Lights!"
Thoom—!
From the flatbed of a pickup truck, a blinding cluster spotlight cut through the darkness with a crisp click of a switch, turning night into day.
Because the light was still set to the height normally used for hunting standard dinosaurs, the beam only illuminated a pair of massive, theropod bipedal legs.
Thoom—!
A second light flared to life, adjusted significantly higher than the first, but it only managed to illuminate the thighs of the dark behemoth.
Thoom—!
A third light, a fourth light... More and more spotlights converged on the titan. The stark black-and-white patterns of its body moved forward continuously, gradually unveiling its full majesty before the crowd.
Thud...
With one final, heavy vibration that shook the ground, the colossal creature finally halted its advance, blocking the very gap blown into the fence.
Thoom—!
The final spotlight pierced the gloom, finally bringing the titan's entire body into full view!
Carlo merely squinted slightly against the piercing glare of the high-intensity lights. His feet spread out into a wide stance, and he unleashed a sky-shattering roar at the assembly before him.
"Aunnng-roOAR——!"
The sound wasn't shrill, but it carried a world-shaking, terrifying authority. The sheer volume immediately penalized those slayers who had found their headphones too stifling and kept them off.
As the long howl subsided, total silence reclaimed the desert. The slayers hiding inside their vehicles could clearly hear the frantic pounding of their own hearts and the raggedness of their breath. Had they looked down at their hands, they would have realized they had developed a sudden, collective tremor.
Yet, the smile beneath Lucian's mask never faded. He slipped through the jeep's sunroof with his streaming gear in hand, using his headset to broadcast to the entire crew.
"The target has arrived at the designated coordinates. All squads, deploy. Let's enjoy our revenge."
Boom! x3
The sound of explosions rang out from the distance once more. Carlo snapped his head around, realizing that fires had broken out in multiple locations. The pungent stench of gunpowder smoke began to diffuse through the air.
Boom! x2
Right on the heels of the first came two more detonations. Approximately fifty meters away from Carlo, another section of the perimeter fence erupted in flames, blowing open two more breaches.
The vehicles arrayed in front of Carlo immediately split into three columns. Two of them filed out in rapid succession, flooding into the left and right flanks of the Mojave Reserve.
"Hey! Over here!"
One of the crew members, following the prearranged plan, attempted to draw Carlo's attention to provide cover for the two invading columns.
A signal flare ignited in his hand with a brilliant red glow. In a sense, he was quite brave, but...
Carlo's tail lashed out like a whip. A vehicle attempting to maneuver toward his vitals was instantaneously reduced to scrap metal. Immediately after, he shifted his weight, lifted his left foot high into the air, and brought it down with crushing force onto the wrecked car.
The screech of compressing metal was punctuated by agonizing human screams. Moments later, the car exploded. Flames engulfed Carlo's lower leg, spilling outward in all directions.
"What an absolute monster..."
An explosion that would have been fatal to any ordinary dinosaur failed to inflict even a scratch on Carlo. The deaths of their comrades enraged the slayers; their vehicles began to circle Carlo, preparing to open fire.
"Wait! Don't kill him yet!"
"He killed Johnny!"
"Wear down his stamina! We need more people to witness this live, don't kill him yet!"
Lucian's command echoed over the comms. Thanks to the prestige he had accumulated, no one dared to defy him. Carlo, however, had absolutely no intention of playing along for his show's ratings.
Crunch—
Carlo stooped down and clamped his jaws around the still-burning wreckage of the car, completely indifferent to the searing heat pressing against his gums. Lifting his head high, he aimed directly at the unlucky bastard who had drawn his attention earlier, and violently hurled the vehicle.
"Are you kidding me... Did I violate some cosmic law?!"
The burning remnants of the car engulfed the man, detonating along with the vehicle right next to him.
"Whaling harpoon ready!"
Mounted on the flatbed of another pickup truck was a massive cannon barrel loaded with a metal spear. A cold gleam flashed beneath the moonlight as the harpoon shot forward, slamming dead into Carlo's flank.
Clang...
The metal tip collided with the black scales, but failed to penetrate Carlo's hide. Driven by the sheer force of inertia, the tip buckled completely, and the useless spear clattered to the ground.
"You've got to be joking..."
Carlo tilted his head and noticed that the harpoon on the ground was still attached to a retrieval cable. He stepped down hard, pinning it to the earth.
Snap!
The speeding pickup truck was violently yanked backward by the taut steel chain, flipping completely upside down on the terrain.
"Aim for his head!"
Swoosh—
Another whaling harpoon came screaming through the air. Carlo's eyes instantly locked onto the oncoming glint of metal. Timing it perfectly, he snapped his jaws shut!
He caught the flying harpoon cleanly in his teeth. This time, it was attached to a jeep. Its traction seemed slightly better than the pickup's, preventing an immediate rollover, but that hardly mattered.
Screeech!
Carlo wrenched his head, pulling the chain to drag the jeep toward his position. His colossal strength completely overpowered the vehicle's engine, causing it to stall and lose control instantly.
Carlo raised his right foot, waiting for the precise moment the sliding car drifted beneath him, and stomped down with devastating force!
Boom!
In the span of just thirty seconds, two vehicles had been completely demolished. Carlo raised his head and cast a piercing glance deeper into the reserve. His olfactory radar remained active across the entire field, closely monitoring every single movement of the humans.
———————
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