"Ah—don't come near—!"
THUD...
The ground fractured. A lucky soul was kindly returned to the embrace of Mother Earth by Carlo.
A thoroughly battered landscape stretched across the wasteland, where the pungent stench of gunpowder and grey mist refused to dissipate.
The colossal figure still stood tall, but humanity was no longer united. Fleeing, resisting, begging for mercy... yet without exception, they were all slaughtered by Carlo.
Just what on earth had these people witnessed to make them resort to begging for their lives?
"Get down!"
Boom!
"ROAR—"
A rocket propelled grenade, trailing a dragon-like plume of fire, surged straight toward Carlo's head. The latter roared and snapped his jaws shut on the incoming projectile. With a deafening crunch, the fiery light instantly vanished, sealed inside Carlo's mouth.
BOOM...
A muffled explosion echoed from within Carlo's jaws. To an outsider, his massive head merely shuddered twice.
"Am I... dreaming?"
The team member who had fired the rocket stared with eyes wide with horror. The rocket launcher slipped from his grip unnoticed as he sank to his knees.
There was no winning... It was completely unwinnable...
Huunng...
Carlo exhaled a heavy breath and opened his mouth slightly. Several charred shards of shrapnel tumbled from his maw, while thick smoke and gunpowder drifted from his lips and nostrils.
Hmm... does this count as smoking? Then again, Carlo is a good boy. He doesn't smoke cigarettes; he smokes people.
The yellow glow in his eyes dimmed slightly. Carlo locked his gaze onto the kneeling attacker. Lowering his body and head, he dug his feet into the ground and spun a full 180 degrees!
WHACK!
The tip of his tail connected squarely with the target. Accompanied by a sickening CRACK of shattering bone, this lucky soul was sent soaring into the embrace of the blue sky.
"Roar... cough, cough... cough, cough..."
Time's just about up.
The yellow luminescence in Carlo's eyes faded, and sanity flooded back into his body, causing him to hack up a few mouthfuls of dense smoke.
No, seriously, dude? What kind of garbage did you feed me?!
He quickly snapped out of it and scanned his surroundings. Human figures were still scattered across the shattered terrain.
Carlo snapped his jaws around a nearby Jeep that had been trampled flat into a 2D ZIP file. Snapping his head back, he flung it like a frisbee.
The massive chunk of sheared metal slammed down right in front of the fleeing humans, slicing the vehicle they intended to use for their evacuation cleanly in half.
Carlo shifted his earth-shattering combat style. A faint ache from overexertion throbbed beneath his soles, but it was nothing he couldn't handle.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
"God... forgive me..."
The three men in front of him watched death stride toward them step by step. They dropped to their knees and began to pray, though it was unclear whether they were worshiping Carlo or some other deity as they repeatedly slammed their foreheads against the dirt.
It was a pity Carlo's grand display wasn't being live-streamed. Otherwise, in a place like America, a "Church of Carlo" or "Dino Cult" would have legitimately sprung up overnight.
But looking at the outcome, it was probably for the best that it wasn't broadcast.
The three men prostrated at different rhythms. Quite thoughtfully, Carlo waited for the exact moment all three of their heads hit the dirt simultaneously to send them to meet their maker.
"Deploy all units to my position... Hurry, the Giganotosaurus is heavily damaged."
[Health: 264903.6 / 280960]
A faint voice transmitting from the other side of a truck caught Carlo's attention. He lifted his head and sniffed the air. Aside from the back of the truck, there were no other humans nearby, but...
Carlo froze, glancing back toward the Dreadnoughtus Oasis. He quickened his pace and strode toward the truck.
"All our men are dead!"
"What the fuck do you mean they're all dead?! You were just hunting a few ordinary dinosaurs, how did you manage to wipe yourselves out?!"
"Don't you fucking talk down to me! There's a fucking Stegosaurus here acting like a total psycho! Shoot, I've been spotte—"
Tszzzzz...
Call disconnected.
"Fuck!"
Lucian cursed under his breath as he pulled out his revolver and pressed it against his own chin. But in the next split second, the truck behind him was flipped violently into the air.
Crash...
The truck traced a graceful arc through the sky. Dragged down by the immense kinetic force, Lucian crashed heavily to the ground. The revolver slipped from his hand and landed flat on the desert sand.
THUD...
A shadow loomed over the revolver. Moments later, it was ground into dust beneath a colossal foot.
Carlo acted swiftly. Lifting his right foot, he gently flattened the man, thoroughly crushing both of his legs.
The entire sequence was executed in one smooth motion. Without an ounce of hesitation, Carlo turned and headed back toward the oasis, leaving the man's agonizing screams to echo across the wasteland.
"Damn it, I'm going to kill you sooner or later."
Amusingly enough, though Lucian had dropped his gun, he hadn't dropped his phone. Spurred by the fear of bleeding out, he immediately dialed a number.
"This is 911, what is your emergency?"
"I've been..."
Before he could finish, a shadow blanketed his body once more. Jerking his head back, he locked eyes with a pair of remarkably intelligent-looking eyes.
It was an Afrovenator.
Take a wild guess as to why Carlo didn't kill you.jpg
"Aunnng—"
A female Dreadnoughtus emerged from the forest, lowering her head to gently nuzzle White King's neck.
Katyusha and her pack sat huddled a short distance away. They hadn't fully recovered from the aftereffects of the Group Rage, but they too were silently hoping the White King would pull through this crisis.
The herbivores and carnivores had reached a mutual understanding once again, united by a fragile, glimmering hope.
Thud. Thud. Thud. Thud.
Carlo walked over with slow, measured steps. After confirming his family was safe and sound, he approached White King.
The last time, he had tilted his head up to gently stroke the giant's neck; this time, he lowered his head to nuzzle against White King's blood-stained throat.
Whirring propellers...
The thrum of a helicopter echoed from the sky. Carlo looked up and spotted the familiar triceratops skull logo, allowing his tightly wound nerves to relax significantly.
Swish—
The muscular, scholarly older gentleman opened the helicopter's side door. Holding a sniper rifle, he fired several rounds of antibiotics into the dinosaurs on the ground.
Though Carlo didn't feel much of a difference, judging by the reactions of Katyusha and the others, the medicine was clearly taking effect.
Rallying his spirits, White King let out a low bellow toward a specific direction, seemingly passing along information he had gathered from his mate to Carlo.
Carlo glanced toward the direction White King had signaled, looked back down at the sauropod, and then broke into a fast stride toward the designated area.
"Hurry up and load them into the trucks... Eek!"
Little White and several young Dreadnoughtus had been tranquilized by Dudley's men and were currently being loaded onto transport vehicles. Dudley had used the chaos to slip into the Primeval Ecological Zone, aiming to kidnap dinosaurs to build up his smuggling empire.
"Eek! Uh! Ah! Run! Run!"
But why did he let out such an incoherent, terrified screech the moment he set eyes on Carlo?
"ROAR—"
After a momentary shock, Carlo erupted into a thunderous roar and sprinted toward the trucks. However, the motors of human machinery were ultimately a step faster than him! Furthermore, these trucks weren't about to drive in circles around Carlo like Lucian's foolish squad had done.
Five trucks sped across the wasteland. Knowing he couldn't catch them on foot, Carlo lowered his head, scooped up a massive boulder in his jaws, and hurled it at one of the vehicles.
SMASH!
The truck flipped onto its side, sliding a considerable distance before grinding to a halt. The remaining four trucks paid no heed to the wreckage, pressing down on their accelerators as they bolted toward the exit.
Carlo watched the four vehicles gradually shrink into tiny black dots on the horizon, deep in thought.
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