Sorry I was a bit te this week. Volunteering at a summer camp meant I had to get up early every day, and as a result, I had no energy for the whole week.

  "Why are you so annoyed anyway, cooty coiler?" asked panda as he continued to stare at the egg, with a little unease apparent in his eyes.

  The wyrm huffed, letting Richard go, instead choosing to observe the egg, slithering around, as she observed the rge egg.

  "Because whenever Karkinos feels inclined to share something about the cultivator world, I feel like I heard something out of a nightmare. What was it?" she asked as she snapped her tail, as if trying to recall something.

  "kai-kal,-kir-"

  "Kaiju"

  "Kaiju, yes!" she excimed.

  "According to karkinos, kaiju are humongous monsters that in their youth inherently rival the size of dragon tortoises, with mountains being more like molehills to them. To them, Karkinos at his full might would be considered average in comparison.

  What were the small ones he found called? They were apparently the size of a small castle, or a nobleman's house.

  Mescargo Titanus?"

  What.

  Richard's mind snapped back to something, an egg, the gacha had mentioned.

  An egg belonging to one creature called Mescargo Titanus.

  "Would they happen to live underground?" Richard asked, mildly worried.

  "Hmm? Yes, though I'm surprised you knew. How did you know..."

  She squinted her eyes.

  "No."

  Panda snapped up, as if remembering something.

  "Oh hey, that was that other egg you got, right next to the other one you never opened. Right Krackle?"

  "Yes, Krackle remembers! Very big egg. Very small next to this one though."

  This time both the crab and the snake got real close.

  "Karkinos wishes to see the minor kaiju egg!"

  "Richard..."

  Well, he did kind of screw up by bringing an ancient monster back to life, important enough that even sister Alexandria felt the need to investigate as a potential danger to her territory.

  And he hadn't even been pnning to hatch it anytime soon anyway..

  So, pulling the egg out of his inventory, he couldn't help but be astonished by how much smaller it was now.

  Sure, it was pretty big for an egg, easily eclipsing the size of a human, and perhaps even a minotaur, but to say it was big now would seem silly, and starkly in comparison to the ancient egg over there.

  Was it really going to be huge one day?

  [Mescargo Titanus is considered a minor kaiju race, and could be considered a bottom feeder in the hollow earth, simir to how fire samanders are considered lower level monsters]

  That is... unsettling. Both the system and Karkinos seemed to regard these creatures as bottom feeders, and yet to him, the monster already sounded like a threat.

  Karkinos and sister Alexandria paid him no mind however.

  "Fascinating, look at all these magic circles, they're overying..."

  "Marvelous! Karkinos can sense some arrays as well! They seem to be holding the egg in time, speeding up its development, but stopping it from hatching at just its cusp! Fascinating! What kind of array master has these western gods found!"

  Crack

  "And the way how the two intersect!"

  Crack

  "Fucking hell, those dumb bitches are distracted again!" cursed Panda, as he stared at the much rger, and much more active egg. "Not sure what's special about that egg, but I think we're about to find out what makes this one so special!"

  Crack

  The egg tilted once more as cracks started forming towards the top.

  Pop

  An arm came out, a surprisingly small arm for an egg that rge. Well, thin may be the right answer, since it wasn't small per say, only smaller than his.

  It was scaled in nature, with sharp cws protruding and boney ptes on the outside of the arm.

  The arm filed in the air, before seemingly grasping the edge of its own shell, ripping the shell off opposite of the arm, freeing the other arm,

  Thankfully, the egg bursting managed to get both the wyrm and the crab to focus on the bigger, much more important egg, so Richard could then pocket the kaiju egg, though it still caught the eyes of the 2 watching him.

  Contrary to what Richard had expected, a leg came out first, a thick and powerful leg, that almost seemed reminiscent of his own leg in structure, but it looked far bulkier, with these feet being rger than his as well, having a wider based than his. These legs were in fact a great deal bigger than its forearms, a stark contrast to his own arms and legs.

  In fact, once its hind legs got out, it began standing on those two legs, instead of on all fours, reminiscent of some species of drakes he had seen.

  Was this an ancient drake? It would certainly be rge for one, considering how it was already seemingly his height.

  The egg, now walking on twos, stumbled around for a bit, which Richard and the others steadily avoided when it seemed to near them.

  Eventually, it found itself leaning against the side of a rge boulder.

  Bang!

  Bang!

  Bang!

  The egg smmed itself against the boulder repeatedly as it tried to free itself from the eggshell.

  Crck

  The shell crumbled, as another appendage unfurled itself.

  A giant scaly wing presented itself.

  But it wasn't like his.

  If there was a membrane, then he didn't see it.

  No, these wings were hard to bel as wings.

  They were thick and heavily ridged, the "membrane" was more like thick leather.

  The back of the beast was covered in heavy pting, Rows upon rows of pting lined its back, with spikes emerging from the intersection of ptes, rising above.

  It's tail, like most of its body was rge and muscur, ending in a particurly rge compound of scales and flesh, quite reminiscent of a club.

  On top of its stump of a neck was a pted head, pted so thickly that the eyes could not be seen.

  Its head was shaped oddly, ending in a snout much like that of a mutt, contrasting with Richard's longer, more slender snout.

  The bck scales had a dull luster, rather than the more lustrous scales of the 2 dragon reted beings he had encountered so far.

  The scales also protruded less, being smaller and less expressive. They still shimmered purple through, with the light glowing faintly through the scales.

  It also continued to walk only on its hind legs, and yet occasionally got on four legs, using those smaller forearms to walk.

  The creature gave each of them a curious sniff, before stopping in front of sister Alexandria.

  In the meantime, Richard's had managed to cast appraisal on the creature.

  [Congratutions! Appraisal has reached level 6!]

  [Omen dragon]

  [Omen dragons are often signs of things to come, symbolism of times of change. Being creatures destined for greatness, their birth is an omen, that should they live, they will bring a period of great upheaval.

  Omen dragons are often killed before they can be born or grow, for fear of things changing.

  The one before you for example, is an example of the former.]

  Richard felt his heart soften up a little looking at the creature, which looked so much like a dragon, and was seemingly not. A creature that did not belong, rejected by the world at rge, killed before it could even breath.

  Even if the situation was different, the idea of being rejected was much of the same.

  "Oh hey, look it's doing a mating dance." Panda noted simply.

  Hm?

  Hm!?

  So Richard spent a good few minutes being confused as to why the rest of the group was so calm about this, while he was freaking out over a child committing a mating dance.

  Turns out that for dragons, mating dances could also be seen as submission, something younger male dragons did to appease older female dragons whenever the other was stronger and the dominant in the situation.

  It was meant to signify that the younger recognized the older, like how dogs turn over with their stomach exposed to signify the other's dominance over them.

  And at birth, while cking emotional intelligence, most hatchlings already had adult level comprehension and thinking, so the hatchling already figured the dance as its most practical way of surviving in the territory of the stronger wyrm.

  Sister Alexandria just found it cute and appropriate.

  Was he the weird one here?

  So no afternote today. Instead, I wanted to help construct the image of the omen dragon a bit more clearly and in depth.

  It's general body shape can be imagined like a dragon combined with a dinosaur, in particur, like a skinnier godzil but with a rge pair of wings.

  It's like a weird mix of therapod, ankylosaur, and gore maga, hence the hard to notice eyes. And kind of stands a bit like godzil.

  I know, bit of a weird image, and I have to admit, I'm not quite sure about whether this will be the final design I've come to, since none of this is quite explicit in the story.

  Wait, I'm a few days te, I guess I can do an afternote

  Australia is often called the nd down under, but I wonder how many realize how terrifyingly accurate that is.

  The nd down under... connects to the down under.

  There is a tunnel in Australia that happens to lead down into the hollow earth, where the kaiju reside.

  There are more entrances of course, but none of them are as accessible as this one. Many of them are underwater, or under volcanoes, making it hard for some kaiju to take this route, so Australia happens to be the most avaible route.

  Why do you think so many of the insects there are so huge. A lot of them manage to get a few licks of kaiju blood, and consequently, grow a lot rger than most of their retives. Not all of them, but enough of them.

  There's also a tunnel in japan, but that one is currently being occupied by some sort of alpha water kaiju, so no other ones have used that in... three thousand years I think? Give or take.

  Yeah, kaiju tunnels. Terrifying things they are.

  That's why I opened one up in Manhattan in 2014.

  -Grant