Pov: Vik
"No..." I breathed, the words barely a whisper as my entire world ground to a staggering, paralyzed halt. "How... how are you here?!"
"It's Fucking T-Rex!!!!!"
"It's a fucking T-Rex!!!!!" I screamed, my scholar persona completely shattering into a million pieces.
I rubbed my eyes vigorously with my gloved hands, blinked three times, and stared again.
No, my vision wasn't deceiving me. Standing proudly atop the scorched obsidian plateau, surrounded by bubbling lava and ancient bio-mechanical runes, was a forty-meter-tall, scaly, apex predator straight out of a Cretaceous picture book.
It had the massive, bone-crushing jaw. It had the thick, muscular hind legs built for tearing across prehistoric plains. It had the heavy tail casually swatting away falling stalactites. And, true to form, it had two comically tiny, utterly useless little arms dangling helplessly in front of its massive, armored chest.
The only difference was that this particular Tyrannosaurus Rex was currently glowing with neon-purple bio-magical runes, breathing superheated volcanic sulfur, and radiating the spiritual aura of an S-rank Calamity Beast.
"System," I whispered, my voice trembling with profound, existential bewilderment. "Tell me I am hallucinating. Tell me that the toxic fumes of this bunker have finally breached my Poison Overlord Naaga constitution and given me a fever dream."
System: "Ding! Scan complete! Biological Classification: Archosauria Dinosauria Theropoda... Variant: Void-Infused Tyrannosaurus Rex! Power Level: Calamity Rank! Evaluation: Host, it appears the 'ancient fossilized core from the northern glacial abyss' was literally just a frozen dinosaur fossil that a bunch of idiot alchemists accidentally resurrected with radioactive mana."
"A frozen fossil..." I dragged a hand down my face, letting out a laugh that sounded on the verge of madness. "They found a dinosaur in the ice, and instead of leaving it for a museum, they hooked it up to a planetary geothermal engine, pumped it full of life-stealing forbidden arrays, and gave it an S-rank magical upgrade?! What kind of Jurassic Park bullshit is this?!"
ROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAARRRRRRRRRRR!
The T-Rex threw its massive head back, letting out a deafening, earth-shaking roar that sent supersonic shockwaves rippling across the magma lake. Waves of molten rock surged fifty feet into the air, splashing against the cavern walls.
Then, its glowing purple reptilian eyes swiveled downward, locking onto me standing on the cliff ledge.
To a normal person, being stared down by an S-rank radioactive Tyrannosaurus Rex would be the cue to write their last will and testament. But as the beast looked at me, its massive jaw parted, and its two tiny little arms gave a frantic, spastic twitch in mid-air, struggling to reach forward.
I looked at the giant, terrifying head. Then I looked at its tiny little arms.
A snort escaped my nose.
"Pfft."
System: "Host, please do not laugh at the Calamity-level bio-abomination. It has feelings, and more importantly, it has an atomic breath attack!"
"Look at its hands, System!" I wheezed, pointing an unrefined finger at the ancient beast. "It has the power to shatter mountains, and it can't even scratch its own nose! How did these guys conquer the prehistoric era?!"
The T-Rex seemed to understand my blatant disrespect. Its purple eyes flared with incandescent fury.
THUD! THUD! THUD!
Lowering its massive skull, the dinosaur charged across the obsidian shelf, each thunderous stomp shaking the entire volcanic cavern. The air compressed violently around its snout as it opened its jaws wide enough to swallow a three-story mansion whole, lunging straight for my cliff.
"Host, please activate Void Shift!" System screamed in synthesized panic.
"Hold on, Pushpa," I said, my scholar smile returning with full force as my yellow eyes flashed with green light. "Let me teach this prehistoric relic why snakes evolved past the need for legs."
I didn't dodge. I didn't summon my spatial barrier.
Instead, right as the colossal jaws snapped shut inches from my face, I raised a single, gloved right hand and casually caught the beast's upper jaw with my palm.
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
The kinetic collision sounded like two titanium asteroids slamming together. The sheer force blasted the surrounding lava outward in a massive tidal wave, but my boots didn't slide back by even a millimeter. My 7th-stage body refining frame, reinforced by Prana energy, locked the multi-ton dinosaur's bite completely in place with one hand.
The T-Rex froze. Its giant purple eyes went wide with sheer, reptilian confusion.
I finally got a something to test my limits, as ever since I get Prana energy awakened inside me, I have this deep feeling that my original power is beyond my cultivation level. If I want I can just brawl my way through the encirclement of many Void travelling realm without even using my true powers, this feeling is something that is not arrogance.
It is feeling I get after getting in contact with Prana, a energy that is more important than soul for life to exist. This energy is something that may not have power system of its own but it enhances everything, literally everything. Every power system, maybe everything in existence is compatible with Prana.
This energy is ultimate enhancer for energies.
Focusing back on my ancient friend.
It pushed harder, its massive hind legs digging trenches into the obsidian floor, veins bulging across its scaly neck as it tried to clamp down and crush the tiny white-robed human. But my hand remained an immovable mountain.
"Is that all the bite force they taught you in the Cretaceous period?" I chuckled dryly.
The T-Rex let out a muffled, indignant growl. Desperate for leverage, it tried to swipe at me with its front limbs—only for its comically tiny arms to flail uselessly in the empty air, falling short of my chest by a solid two meters.
Pushpa looked down at the flailing baby arms, raised a single black paw, and patted the giant dinosaur's snout with pure, condescending pity.
Mew.
System: "Host, you are emotionally destroying an ancient predator!"
"Good. Now let's fix its indigestion," I said.
My vertical pupils flared with emerald brilliance.
"Prana Authority: Cellular Reset."
A blinding wave of golden-green life force surged from my palm, shooting directly through the T-Rex's skull and into the corrupted alchemical bio-core anchored in its chest.
The beast didn't need to be destroyed; it was suffering from a massive alchemical overdose. The idiot researchers had forcibly fused it with a devouring formation that constantly starved its instincts, driving it into a rabid frenzy.
I don't want to hurt this guy, as he is in pain. I felt pity for it and more than anything else who doesn't like T-Rex, maybe I can use this guys for some Aura farming, I hope those guys also have a fossil of Spino.
My Prana energy acted like the ultimate biological scalpel. In less than three seconds, the golden-green light completely severed the synthetic life-drain runes, unraveling the parasitic arrays and purging the radioactive bio-toxins from its bloodline.
The dark purple corruption covering its scales dissolved into harmless grey vapor. The violent, glowing red runes on its skin faded, leaving behind the natural, earthy green-and-brown scales of a true primordial dinosaur.
The chaotic spatial loop that had trapped the island collapsed instantly as the island's planetary failsafe returned to normal.
Whimper...
The mighty S-rank roar was suddenly replaced by a low, submissive whine that sounded suspiciously like an overgrown puppy.
The massive T-Rex blinked its large, amber eyes, the manic red glow completely gone. It slowly stepped backward, pulling its snout free from my hand, and looked around the volcanic cavern in utter disorientation. Then, looking down at me—and more specifically, sensing the soothing, warm Prana aura radiating from my body—the forty-meter apex predator slowly lowered its massive head all the way to the ground, gently nudging my boots with its scaly nose.
System: "Ding! Alchemical Corruption purged!"
System: "Spatial Quarantine Array deactivated!"
System: "Host has successfully neutralized the 'Specimen' without causing an ecological collapse!"
"See?" I dusted off my white robes, reaching out to give the giant dinosaur a firm, satisfying pat on its scaly snout. "Communication is key. You don't always need to fight; sometimes you just need to fix their diet."
System: "...Host, what are you going to do with a forty-meter pet T-Rex?!"
I looked at the giant, scaly beast nuzzling my hand, then glanced up at Pushpa, who was staring down at the dinosaur like a queen inspecting a new, low-ranking footman.
"Well," I grinned, tapping my chin. "The Great White has a pretty spacious cargo bay, and I'm pretty sure Lu Xiaoran and Roman need a new sparring partner. What do you think, Pushpa?"
Pushpa let out a soft, approving purr, closing her eyes and settling back around my neck.
"Pack your bags, buddy," I chuckled, turning toward the facility exit. "You're joining the circus."