On a hot day in the kaijuverse, scouts were on a reconnaissance mission, searching for a city the warriors could destroy. As they traversed the coastal lands, they continued to find ruined cities for which the warriors had not been responsible. As far as the scouts knew, the warriors were the only group capable of bringing such destruction to the human population. The destruction puzzled the scouts; the kaiju had always been the apex predator within the area. Everything creature besides the humans bowed to the jungle kings, knowing that appeasing the kaiju was the only way to evade their wrath. Nothing they had ever encountered before in the kaijuverse could create the level of devastation seen in these cities. Thinking back to their expeditions to the southern mainland, even there, no beast came close to carrying enough power to enact such thorough destruction. Prior scouting groups would log the location and level of destruction within the city, then skirt around the wreckage, sticking to their missions and continuing their search for intact human towns. This group, who stumbled upon the latest city, felt inquisitive, wanting to discover if any signs indicated who or what may have been causing this destruction and chaos.
Upon entering the city, a cool breeze came off the ocean, providing a momentary sense of peace within a firestorm of chaos. Within the city limits, the scouts witnessed a level of devastation never seen before. They were impressed, knowing that whatever caused such devastation was a master at their craft, on par with the warriors. Once they had finished admiring the work of the unknown architect of destruction, they became nervous. The same blood coursed through them as the warriors; however, the scouts had given up their primal ways, progressing towards more peaceful tendencies. If the architect was still within the city, the scouts were uncertain if they could defend themselves in a fight to the death.
Gingerly, the scouts walked through the rubble. It was clear that whatever had destroyed the city had not left long ago as fires still blazed, leaving black clouds of smoke billowing into the air. The occasional human moan could still be heard from collapsed buildings, and the sweet smell of chemicals lingered in the air from destroyed gas pipes. One thing struck the scouts as extremely odd. The city was flattened in a way not unlike the warrior’s system. The city’s primary infrastructure had been flattened or uprooted, and the residential area was destroyed. Some things differed from the system: the gas and water pipes had not been torn up. Instead, gas leaked from some of the destroyed buildings. Along with that, the escape routes had not been destroyed. Both the bridge and airport were still operational, while the dockyard at the water’s edge had been torn to pieces.
Confusion crossed the faces of the scouts once more. What was the cause of the devastation? Once a city was destroyed, the warriors would typically leave the city. They knew their job was thorough enough for them not to consider looking back. The city would fall to dust and ashes within the following weeks, and so few survivors would be left alive that rebuilding was never an option. The warriors’ joy came from causing the destruction, hearing the screams of humans as they begged for mercy, and watching the life drained from their eyes. It was the act that satiated their primal needs. Watching the buildings burn to the ground after they had reached their fill did not bring them any joy.
Knowing what made the warriors tick, the scouts knew that the city they were in was different. It was as if another creature had attacked the humans with the exact fiery vengeance and bloodlust the warriors carried but acted out their devastation differently. It was clear that whatever destroyed the city, their blood boiled at the sight of humans. Their work was clean, leaving nothing to chance and ensuring that everything was flattened before they left the ruins behind. Besides the occasional moan from a dying human, one thing was becoming increasingly noticeable and eerie. A blanket of silence hung over the ruins.
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Usually, when the warriors left a city, it was utterly decimated. However, it was not unreasonable for some humans to remain fatally injured and fated to die. While they waited at death’s door, they would let out screams of pain, agony, and desperation as they tried to free themselves from hopeless situations. Throughout the ruins of the city now, nothing could be heard. It was as if the creature who had invaded the city had somehow dispatched all the humans and the city itself. A flush of nervous energy ran through the scouts at that thought. It was one thing to have the brute force capable of leveling a city, but to have an ability that ends life in such a surgical manner was genuinely terrifying. The scouts agreed that they would quickly finish their city survey and return to the village where they could report their findings and, most importantly, be safe. As they moved through the city, they continued to find shallow craters littering the streets, holes wider than any footprint a warrior could make but not near as deep.
The scouts continued through the city, following the shallow craters, puzzled looks still smeared across their faces. Their latest interest was what the craters could be. The running theory among the scouts was footprints of another predator. They thought the destructive force behind the devastation moved in a linear, circular motion as if rolling on edge throughout the city, delivering some attack as it progressed. In some ways, the city’s wreckage looked like a battleground between a warrior and another beast. The scouts knew that a warrior would gleefully accept when challenged to a fight, no matter the odds. Some of the more primal warriors, still following the old ways, would happily take on unfathomable odds if it meant being able to die in a glorious battle against an immeasurably strong foe. If that were the case, the level of destruction within the city was understandable, the old warriors would use anything at their disposal as a weapon, and bystanders would be considered necessary casualties of war.
The silence broke as the scouts neared the city’s western edge nearest the water. Shallow breathing could be heard coming from a crater just out of view. This crater was deeper than the others, so the scouts could only see what was within once they arrived at its edge. They hesitantly approached, unsure if the breathing was from the beast who destroyed the city or another victim of its massacre. As the scouts neared the edge, they held their breathe in anticipation. Curiously, they looked over the crater’s rim, finding another victim of the beast at the bottom. This one lay in the hole, unconscious. A massive, scaly beast covered in scars and bite marks. Leaking from its mouth was a stream of green ooze. As the liquid hit the dirt at the bottom of the crater, it sizzled quietly, indicating to the scouts that whatever the substance was, it was unsafe to touch. The most perplexing thing of all for the scouts was that the beast in the crater, aside from some minor variations, looked just like them.