Chapter 565: Dinosaurs! |
The creatures that could be seen over the hill were enormous in size. The smallest adult version of these beast were nearly twice the size of the bison leader. Considering that the bison leader was around the same size as Lily's beast companion Tank this meant that the smaller adults of these beast were at least ten stories tall. Their height wasn't exactly what made them seem so big either. They walked on four legs and had a massive tail behind them to help balance out their upper body. Their front legs were much smaller than the tree trunks that were there back legs and they had massive heads that once everyone saw them, made it easy to recognize what the creatures were.
"Are those dinosaurs?" Amy asked with a hint of excitement behind her voice. She was the first one to verbally react to what was going on instead of just looking on in complete shock. "They are aren't they?"
The creatures that they were all looking at were definitely dinosaurs. They were a species of dinosaurs that was fairly recognizable as well with their head shape and the way they were able to stand up onto their hind legs to make themselves look bigger in the presence of a predator. Their heads had this large crest that was connected to its nostril and flowed all the way into what looked almost like a long tube that went past the back of its head. Its mouth had what looked like a duck beak on it and it had no problem pulling any of the fruit out of the bush trees using it. The dinosaurs also had somewhat hunched backs that stretched all the way out into its tail that narrowed the further it went out.
"If I'm not mistaking these things were identified as Parasaurolophus by archeologist at some point." Isabella said still looking surprised by the fact that there were real living and breathing dinosaurs right in front of them. "They were better known as parasaurs and are one of the more recognizable herbivores of the Cretaceous period."
"Why in the world are there dinosaurs here?" Vince asked the obvious questions. "I get the world is evolving and all that jazz, but did their bones just come back to life and reform their bodies or something?"
"Please, beast are growing to the size of buildings and having special abilities that would look right at home in a fantasy novel and you find it difficult to believe that dinosaurs could be coming back to life?" Mulan asked teasingly, but Joshua could see that she was excited to see actual dinosaurs.
"Well if there's one kind of dinosaur that's been brought back to the realm of the living then it's likely that others might be around as well." Adrian pointed out as the parasaurs continued to munch on the bush trees as they kept a slight watch on Momo who was at the top of the hill. None of them seemed even slightly threatened by their presence and were casually eating away. "If that's the case then maybe the more dangerous dinosaurs could be back as well."
"It's possible, but I'm certain if that's the case they will be a lot larger than they were in the past. These duck bills alone are far bigger than they were in the past, but that seems to be the case of any beast that's gone through the evolution process." Aito said with a sigh.
While all this was going on there were two people that Joshua noticed were far more excited than anyone else currently looking at the dinosaurs. Those two were of course Lily and Thomas who had the brightest smiles on their faces as they looked at the gigantic creatures. It was clear that they both wished to try to tame the dinosaurs, but Joshua knew that wasn't going to likely happen anytime soon. Although the parasaurs weren't as vigilant as the bison had been they were still ready to defend themselves based on the way the children were at the center of the group with all of the adults keeping an eye on them. Joshua knew that if they were going to try to tame a beast from either group they'd have to be able to tame the entire herd in some way, or at least be able to tame the leader of the group to get the rest to settle down.
"You two can stop drooling over them now, we're not going to try to tame any of them right now." Joshua said with a wry smile as both Lily and Thomas looked at him with pleading looks but he just shook his head in return. "I bet you two haven't even observed how strong they are yet." Joshua's point was proven soon enough when the pair both used the system to observe and see what level the parasaurs were. The weakest adult parasaur was level eighty-seven with four stars next to its name showing just how strong and threatening the beast were. The bobcats that they had fought earlier only had three stars next to their names and the same could be said for the vultures. The only four star beast they had fought so far in the prairie was the snake and that was lower level and on its own.
Joshua switched his attention to what looked like the largest parasaur among the bunch and widen his eyes a bit as he saw that it was level eighty-nine with five stars next to its name. The creature was extremely powerful and had tons of aura coursing throughout its body. It stood at around twelve stories tall and could easily kill a beast the size of Momo just by stepping on it. It was clear that nothing in the prairie was a threat to these creatures and just about all of them outside of the children seemed to be on the verge of growing past the level range of the territory. Joshua didn't understand why such powerful creatures with so much potential would be roaming around such a territory. It felt like they were holding themselves back from stronger territories, but one look at the bush trees and Joshua got a good idea of what was going on.
"I think these beast aren't actually a part of the regular prairie occupants." Joshua said getting everyone's attention. "There just about as strong as the guardian beast in the area and they're traveling around in a large herd. Not to mention the fact that they're so much bigger than any other beast in the prairie. Nothing we've seen around here would even be able to challenge them in a fight."
"So why do you think they're here?" Isabella asked.
"If I had to guess it's because of the fruit." Joshua said while pointing towards a nearby bush tree. "The fruit is one of the best way for the beast of the prairie to grow stronger without even having to go through dangerous fights. If you had the opportunity to grow stronger just by eating then wouldn't you prefer that more than having to fight in territories where you're the prey instead of the alpha creature around?"
"It makes sense, but how did they get into the prairie then? The mountains around the prairie have even higher level beast than the prairie's itself." She replied causing Joshua to pause for a minute.
"I think they're size alone is the main reason they were able to make it through the mountains even if they were a lower level than the beast on the mountains." Henry jumped in. "Just looking at the parasaurs you can see that none of them have any signs of injury. Even with the group of bison that we saw earlier all of the older ones had scars from battles they had been in throughout the past. The parasaurs are literally too big to be threatened by anything in the immediate area."
The group agreed with Henry's sentiment and all just watched as the giant creatures ate without a care. They could easily make it through a higher level territory as long as the beast there didn't want to risk attacking such a large herd of giant creatures. It was likely this was the exact reason they were able to make it into the prairie. If that were the case then that meant these dinosaurs didn't naturally belong to this area, but there had to be an even larger higher level territory out there where these parasaurs had come from in the first place and that was a place Joshua was looking forward to seeing in the future.
The group stayed around and observed the dinosaurs a little while longer before getting on the move once more. One thought that kept coming back to Joshua's mind was the fact that even if the parasaurs were big enough to escape any threats in the current area that wasn't the same case for the bison. There was something in this territory that was powerful enough to take on the bison and they just hadn't run into it yet. That would soon change as day started to turn to night and the group tried to find the perfect spot to rest for the night..
