Godzilla's Kin

The sky was gray and dim from the continuous eruptions of volcanic ash.

Underground, however, was bright, with half the horizon dyed a brilliant red.

At this point, the entire mountain range and most of the plains could be said to be utterly barren.

The underground had completely become a sea of lava and fire.

Rising into the sky from that sea of fire was a terrifying Giant Beast.

Beneath the Giant Beast, countless small creatures cried out in praise.

Kangqiao was truly dumbfounded.

He had only intended to fire off a blast, yet before he even released it, he had triggered an incredible change.

Of course, although he had not fired the energy gathered in his chest and abdomen, some of it had been released in another form.

That ring of fiery ripples that had spread from his body just now counted as a kind of blast, right?

The spreading fire ripples had turned everything within five kilometers into a sea of lava, while the surrounding areas beyond that radius had been scorched black.

In many of the outer regions, the ground had even crystallized.

In short, Kangqiao's incompletely released ultimate move had indirectly affected an area spanning at least seven or eight kilometers.

Even Kangqiao himself found such an exaggerated scene immensely shocking.

Yet aside from the devastation he had caused, what left Kangqiao most stunned and astonished was that many of the Dinosaur People and their blood relatives caught in those fiery ripples had undergone astonishing changes.

They had gained the ability to control flames and bodies unafraid of lava's scorching heat.

Like Godzilla, whose entire body was now fiery red and covered in countless rune-like patterns, those dinosaurs who had successfully gained flame abilities also bore varying numbers of vivid red runes.

Looking at the dinosaurs that had mutated or evolved once more because of him, Kangqiao finally understood something.

The birth of these Dinosaur People truly had an enormous connection to him.

Something like radiation?

Was he himself a source of radiation?

And were the Dinosaur People the result of being irradiated by him?

At the mere thought of it, Kangqiao felt the understanding he had possessed as an upright ape in his previous life being overturned.

Of course!

This world was not normal to begin with, so what exactly was he?

Perhaps, in the eyes of these tiny Dinosaur People, he truly was their god.

Slightly taken aback, Kangqiao did not know whether to laugh or make some other expression.

In any case, after hesitating briefly, he immediately chose to lie down.

There was no special reason. He was simply too tall while standing, and keeping his pupils focused on the little creatures below was too hard on his eyes.

Since he had not completely fired his blast, Kangqiao's Godzilla body remained in that crimson state, radiating extremely high temperatures from all over.

When he lay down, the lava on the ground was like water, and he was like a Giant Beast half-floating on its surface.

As for the Dinosaur People and their blood relatives?

Compared to Kangqiao, these little creatures were simply too small, and the lava's surface tension was more than enough to support them.

Besides, these Dinosaur People did not dare approach Kangqiao too closely while he was in his peak state. The temperature surrounding his body was simply far too high—if it was not ten thousand degrees, it was surely no lower than three to five thousand.

And that was only his surface temperature. If he fired a blast, who knew how high its temperature would be?

At that kind of heat, getting too close was simply courting death.

Thus, all the Dinosaur People and their blood relatives who had survived gathered beyond one kilometer from Kangqiao's body.

Nature absorbed heat. Although the lava surrounding Kangqiao, the source of the heat, flowed like water, the lava beyond one kilometer had actually begun to cool gradually.

Specks of black appeared across the fiery-red lava, a sign that it was slowly cooling.

Therefore, the Dinosaur People and Primal dinosaurs could stand in those places without sinking.

The Dinosaur Elder at the front was undoubtedly excited as he watched the god merge with the lava and inspect them with his giant eye from a lower posture.

Standing before all his tribesmen, within the lava Giant Beast's gaze, the Dinosaur Elder attempted to approach his god.

Five hundred meters? A little hot, but he could barely endure it.

One hundred meters—very hot, very uncomfortable, but not enough to kill him instantly.

In the end, under his god's silent gaze, the Dinosaur Elder respectfully and carefully stopped about two hundred meters away.

Then the Dinosaur Elder began kneeling before his god and shouting.

"Powerful and benevolent Father God, you are the master of lava, the ruler of the earth, the greatest existence in this world!"

"Thank you for once again granting the Lava Populace strong bodies. What should your people do for you next?"

As he shouted, the Dinosaur Elder pounded his chest and tapped his forehead with his hands.

It was probably some kind of prayer gesture.

But Kangqiao had no idea what it meant.

There was no helping it. Kangqiao could not understand a single word the little fellow before him was saying.

In Kangqiao's eyes, all Dinosaur People even looked alike. He could barely distinguish adults from elders.

They were all miniature, strange-looking Flatheads anyway.

If he could not understand them, so be it. Their levels of life were different; ants were always ants, merely divided into domesticated ones and wild ones.

Kangqiao had always been curious about the Dinosaur People.

Now that he finally had the time to examine these little fellows closely, he naturally would not let the chance pass.

Thus, looking at the little Flathead before him, who was fairly respectful toward him, Kangqiao assumed he would not be frightened by what he was about to do.

Kangqiao extended a forelimb from beneath the fiery-red lava.

Since he was soaking in lava, his forelimb naturally emerged from below its surface, scooping up the Dinosaur Elder in one motion.

The Dinosaur Elder was briefly alarmed when he was lifted up, but he quickly became thrilled and excited.

To him, this was proof that Father God had acknowledged him. Did Father God intend to speak to him at close range? Or deliver a new divine revelation?

Like the Dinosaur Elder, the many Dinosaur People gathered around the outskirts were indescribably excited as they watched their elder being lifted by their god.

Their Father God had finally not slept himself senseless. He had acknowledged them, the people of Lava and Earth.

But while the Dinosaur People rejoiced, they had forgotten that their god's body was currently terrifyingly hot.

So, before the Dinosaur Elder had even been happy for one second, he suddenly became a man of fire.

It hurt, it hurt. The Dinosaur Elder's entire body had turned fiery red like Kangqiao's, and for a moment he believed he was about to melt.

The pain was simply inhuman. In the end, even his nerves went numb.

Thus, the pain lasted only a moment. Soon afterward, the Dinosaur Elder's expression calmed, the entire process taking less than a few seconds.

From panic, to delight, to pain, and finally numbness.

In only a few seconds, the Dinosaur Elder experienced everything others could never experience.

Looking at the little Flathead in his hand turning into a man of fire, Kangqiao was momentarily taken aback as well.

He had briefly forgotten what state he was in.

Because of that slight carelessness, Kangqiao felt somewhat annoyed with himself.

He even thought that his negligence might have directly killed the little Flathead.

But the next moment, Kangqiao discovered that although this little fellow had become a humanoid flame, he had neither melted nor died.

Instead, his eyes were filled with the calmness of a sage-like state? Or perhaps numbness?

"Interesting."

Kangqiao widened his eyes and examined him closely, only to discover that the Dinosaur Elder's flaming body was absorbing energy from the enormous patterns on Kangqiao's forelimb.

The energy was like threads, like wisps of curling smoke winding around the Dinosaur Elder's body.

It was extremely subtle, yet it truly established a connection between Kangqiao and the Dinosaur Elder.

Of course, that connection was merely one of energy, without anything else mystical about it.