Jakob H. Greif
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Outrage of the Ancients Chapter 88: The Earth Hungers
🕑 Added 2025-09-24 20:46:02 +0000 UTCDietrich
Why was it always helicopters?
Well, they were a useful conveyance with a multitude of potential configurations and uses …it was the single most annoying vehicle he’d ever encountered, almost as though its inventor had been intending to create a sanity-breaking torture machine, rather than a means of getting around.
All that being said, however, there was very little “getting around” occurring at just this moment.
Instead, he was half hanging out of the side door of some manner of military transport, watching the ground and waiting for something, anything, to show itself.
At least he could see in the dark unaided, unlike many of his compatriots.
Because the System consistently summoned its monsters and made all other major changes, at ten in the morning. Ten in the morning, German time, that was, with his current location being five hours behind that, the world was still very much dark at the moment.
Spotlights cut through the night, radiant rays briefly parting the darkness to illuminate the jungle trees below.
Dietrich let out a soft snort of laughter. As if a World Boss were so easy to overlook that one needed to hunt it down with lamps … though a tiny and missable World Boss would be a huge problem, in actuality. Immense destructive potential that wouldn’t be noticed until unleashed could easily annihilate, well, anything. And possibly also everything else.
Yet, while the creature strongly suspected to be Cipcatli was near-guaranteed to only show up in … he checked the simple wristwatch that would have cost half a kingdom in his time … yes, one hour, he also understood the need to be doing something, anything, when the alternative was simply standing and waiting for something to happen.
Dietrich liked to think he’d grown out of the impulse, but if he was honest with himself, all he’d really achieved was internalizing his nervous energy, sticking to mentally running through possibilities, rather than wasting attention, fuel, and stamina doing something actually exhausting.
A giant monster that might be a crocodile, fish, frog, or something else entirely, with far too many mouths, and a seemingly infinite hunger for all of creation … and yet, he actually found himself looking forward to facing the beast.
Even though he knew he’d be wishing to have the anticipation back when the monster began tearing apart the world, right now, it felt as though nothing could be worse than waiting here.
And thus passed the last thirty seconds to potential armageddon.
***
When Cipaclti emerged, it was impossible to overlook, impossible to miss, impossible to mistake for anything save the appearance of a primordial terror as it tore its way into reality.
The world shook, the ground trembled, the very atmosphere itself quaked beneath the influx of power that seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere.
And then, the Earth rent, a vast gash splitting the jungle in half as crimson liquid bubbled out from the depths of the world, not glowing yet somehow self-illuminated all the same, seemingly the only thing of importance, the only thing worth paying attention to, in this entire land, on this entire continent even, the only thing shone upon by an unseen sun.
A bloody stain upon this land … yet also beautiful, in a bizarre way.
Yet before anyone could think too much about that, a pair of dark spots broke the surface. Then another, and another, and another, a long line of knobbly protrusions breaking the surface of the bloody sea until a broad back revealed itself, the tiny part visible already several times the size of an aircraft carrier’s flight deck and growing endlessly, until, almost ten seconds later, the beast’s head finally emerged, a titanic crocodile’s skull filled with sharklike, triangular, fangs that dripped with blood, the red and white stark against the brilliant emerald of its scales, and eyes of purest obsidian that shone with bottomless malice.
Cipactli roared, the shockwave cratering the surrounding ocean, and flattening what little jungle remained within eyeshot and sending helicopters tumbling, while a jet that had already been aiming for a firing run was flattened by the wall of sound like a toy caught beneath a steamroller.
With an expression that could only be described as “self-satisfied,” the World Boss raised itself further out of the rapidly-spreading liquid, revealing its full size, a massive and wide torso that was more frog than crocodile, supported by four legs wider than city blocks, another immense maw sitting at the shoulders, hips, knees, elbows and every finger joint, the latter briefly becoming visible as the beast reared up upon its hind legs and roared yet again, every additional maw joining in, annihilating anything and everything that had failed to get the warning after the last time.
And thus, humanity’s battle against the very first World Boss began.
