Chapter 213: Pyramids?

Laylania pulled herself together, walked towards her people, and tried to get the situation under control.

For one thing, there were far too many shapeshifters who had assumed the form of dinosaurs. This was a problem because a lot of them were banded together near the edge of the lake, where they could risk breaking its bedding.

It would be ironic if the shapeshifters themselves caused such a huge calamity, because the entirety of their work today revolved around protecting the lake itself.

Laylania was aware of the trouble they could cause, even if her people were unaware, so she commanded them to spread apart.

However, since their current dinosaur forms were rather useful in terms of protecting the lake, she had them spread out across the jungle, covering every corner of the wide lake as best as they could.

Under normal circumstances, she wouldn’t want to spread their mana pools thin by having them remain as dinosaurs for hours on end, which in this case was extra difficult for them, because they had assumed the biggest form they could muster at their current, magical shape shifting level, but this was a risk that they had to take.

This was not a normal day. They kept getting attacked, and odds were the lake was not going to be safe from further attacks, so she had to risk them maintaining their form up until dusk, where Jimmy would arrive with the help he promised.

Jimmy was far from completing his promise. He was still here, over six-hundred feet below the surface world.

Laylania was yet to organize her people to get him, and his friends out of here, so he spent the few minutes he had left in this place observing the recent dinosaur who attacked the tribe of shapeshifters.

The dinosaur, who he assumed to be an alternate, or subspecies of Allosaurus Fragilis, was nothing but a huge blob of flesh right now. The shapeshifters really took their anger out on the big guy, so there wasn’t much left of him.

“Odd…” He mumbled. “Even I noticed that its arms were longer than they were supposed to be. What could possibly make them evolve this fucking differently? Hmm… if Anna was here, she’d say jungle dinosaurs need longer arms or some shit like that.”

Jimmy tried to look at the remains of the beast from a scientific standpoint, but it took little time for him to get grossed out.

The carcass was simply too messy to look at, so he was close to throwing up all that fish he recently ate.

Other than that, he couldn’t shake the sort of sickness he felt, because he kept associating this carcass with Gutaxun. The association solely stemmed from the fact that this dinosaur shared the same, or simply similar species with his own pet, and so, he couldn’t even imagine what he’d do if Gutaxun was brought to the same condition.

The shapeshifters weren’t going to attack his pet, obviously, as they had no reason to, but Gutaxun and Rampage were alone up there. If someone from the west hills was to pass by and attack them, they could end up in a similar position.

Rampage was big, and he may be big enough to protect Gutaxun, but there was the issue of Unique Magic, which people from enemy brigades were likely to bear. Size was sometimes not as effective against Unique Magic, as Nechi had well portrayed in the past when she tore through those Giant humans that initially massacred most hunters of her tribe.

With that perspective considered, Jimmy wanted to get out of here as fast as possible, so he anxiously waited for Laylania to be done handling the aftermath of the disaster that her people suffered. Initially he wanted to rush her, but he was aware that she got her hands full already, so he didn’t want to add to her stress.

At last, roughly fifteen minutes later, she got back to Jimmy, and said, “Sorry for keeping you waiting… there’s a lot going on.”

“No worries,” He waved his hand.

At that moment, he noticed something that had gone over his head before. There was something particular about Laylania’s body that he had missed earlier on, when she had been distracting him, by begging him to stay.

“Laylania… am I going nuts, or have you shrunk?” He asked. “You look shorter.”

“Oh… yes.” She said, slightly embarrassed. “That Clawer got me pretty good. Slashed my face… hurt like a bitch.”

“So you shrink if you get hurt?” He added. “That’s pretty interesting, honestly.”

“If we keep getting attacked, I’ll shrink down to nothingness before the night is over.” She sighed, frustrated. “Let me get my girls. We need to get you out of here as fast as possible.”

Laylania then went away, and as she called for a ’ride’ on behalf of her guests, Jimmy couldn’t help thinking about what she said. The parts about shapeshifters shrinking was interesting, sure, but he actually doubled back on another topic.

When she came back, he asked her, “Laylania… even you can tell that there’s something weird going on. You lived happily up here in the lake for years, with little interruption, so let’s cut to the case. What’s your theory? Why do you think your people keep getting attacked today? This damn jungle is huge, so my best guess is that something weird is going on. Do you think a much bigger dinosaur is scaring those bastards this way?”

“Oh?” She pulled her head back, as she tried to process everything he just said. “Sounds like you thought about our troubles more than I did.”

“Yeah,” He nodded, “I’m very interested to come back here once I end the war up in the grasslands.”

“You might as well visit us,” She smiled.

A moment later, she got serious, and added, “I’ve lived down here long enough to know that everytime something weird’s going on, those damned city folk have something to do with it. Dinosaurs are getting spooked, but they’re not being spooked by other, bigger dinosaurs. Someone is probably messing with the pyramids again… damn, when will those city folk ever learn to not mess with what they don’t understand?”

“Pyramids?” He repeated. “Plural?”

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