Forbidden Link

31. Five Types of Dinosaurs

Five giant beasts suddenly appeared before Alex and his four companions. The five dinosaurs consisted of five different types of dinosaurs. Four of them are more than twice the height of humans so that people in front of them have to look up to see the faces of the reptile group animals. One of the smallest dinosaurs was about the same height as Zayden and the short dinosaur was the most intimidating because it looked agile.

A shrill voice was mixed with a thunderous roar. The sound of dinosaur paws creaking every time they took a step was audible throughout the room and rattled the wooden floor. Some of the five dinosaurs screeched every once in a while and exposed large canines along the skeleton of their mouths. And one of the dinosaurs that had the widest body that filled half a basketball court brought its face closer to Bianca. With a fairly long neck, the dinosaur could freely turn its face anywhere, including the pink-haired girl who was a dozen meters from its position. Bianca couldn't help but stare at a face that had a long, almost crocodile-like snout only a few tens of centimeters from hers. Even though the dinosaur didn't display any gruesome canines, Bianca fell to the ground from the sudden limp of her legs. His breathing was ragged and his jaw was shaking violently.

Nothing came out of Bianca's mouth even though she wanted to scream right then and there. The pink-haired girl could only sit limply on the floor when the enormous dinosaur's face was no longer in front of her. Ezequiel walked over to Bianca and helped the girl up. But Bianca still flinched with fear. With her right hand on her chest, Bianca seemed to be holding her heart from bursting out at once due to being too shocked.

While everyone's focus was on the five giant creatures that filled half the basketball court, the NPCs were trying to explain the types of dinosaurs that were on the court. Several tools that originally didn't exist suddenly appeared when the NPC pointed at them. Like the scoreboard located in the middle of the grandstand and showing four zeros under the names “Dinosaur” and “Human. A bench on the sidelines with each a mineral bottle and a towel on it. The NPC explained casually as if leveling the two teams from different species.

"They looked real even though they weren't as big as I thought they would be," Lakelynn said to the person beside him.

"They appear in Kaira's nightmare since childhood, it's not strange if Kaira can make it look real."

"The short one has the highest speed. His name is compsognathus. Even though it's a herbivore, the little one has an easier space to attack us."

"You know all the names?"

“Triceratops was a dinosaur that had horns like a rhinoceros. And the brontosaurus was the one which made Bianca freak out. Both are herbivores so they can't possibly eat us. They will only make it difficult for us if they ram and reduce our range of motion.

“The other two are tyrannosaurs and spinosaurs. They are carnivores and will tear us apart very easily.”

“Like Ez said, those dinosaurs wouldn't care about balls. They prefer to approach us to attack than to take the ball."

Alex glanced at Lakelynn only to see the girl's response. Lakelynn nodded without looking at Alex. The girl was observing the movement of every giant creature in front of her.

“I leave them to you. Watch out for the tail,” said Alex, noting the tail of a tyrannosaur that moved at will and its large size could knock people down in one fell swoop.

"You'd better quickly find hints from your sister about her bad dream. It's possible that he actually told you the answer but you didn't take it seriously."

Now it was Alex's turn to nod at Lakelynn's statement. After learning of Lakelynn's previous bullying case, Alex repeatedly tries to remember all the conversations he had with Kaira during high school. Many things made Kaira down at that time, but Alex didn't know exactly what caused it.

Behind the guilt towards his sister, Alex tried to calm down. He closed his eyes for a moment to calm his mind. Not. He was not at all afraid of what he was facing right now. While everyone feels intimidated by the presence of the five terrifying creatures, Alex isn't afraid of dinosaurs. Instead, Alex was afraid of what he didn't see, which was Kaira's fear.

Alex opened his eyes, turned to find Bianca still trying to get up from her seat. Once again Bianca's condition worried him. If he had to think about himself during the game, would he still be able to take care of Bianca? Not only Bianca, this time he also brought Lakelynn to compete. Even though Lakelynn looked brave and had a strong physique, he still couldn't completely let her fight alone.

"Kaira. Where are you actually? What happened to you to create such a dizzying world of forbidden links?”

The five players were already in their respective positions. Ezequiel was in the middle together with compsognathus and the NPC who acted as the referee. Alex, Kayden and Lakelynn stood level in the back court. Meanwhile, Bianca is in the corner of the field, ready to run away if there is an attack in the area. Similar to the brotosaurus on the other end, both Bianca and the brontosaurus have no significant role in this basketball game.

Ezequiel looked at his co-stars carefully. Usually in basketball games, players' hands cannot move as much as they are limited by fouls. But this dinosaur could use its claws to its heart's content. Previously, Ezequiel tried to take the ball during a jump ball but unfortunately he was hit by a claw from a compsognathus so that his body immediately bleeds after five seconds of the match starting.

Sometimes compsognathus opened his mouth and shouted at Ezequiel in his shrill voice. Ezequiel raised her chin in annoyance. He looked at the dinosaur in front of him with disdain.

"What do you want, you ugly beast?"

The ball is thrown into the air by the referee and both faces in the center of the field are directly at the ball. Compsognathus nimbly jumped up and headed the ball with his muzzle. Yes heading. And there's no whistle when the dinosaurs use any body part other than their hands to play basketball.

Instead of trying to take the ball right away, Ezequiel immediately ran away from the middle of the field. He knew full well that the dinosaurs didn't actually play the ball until they got into the ring. They just want to attack the humans who try to take the ball from them. So Ezequiel didn't want to put himself in danger by jumping in at the start. The basketball hit the tyrannosaur's tail and threw it at Alex. Alex managed to take the ball and two dinosaurs immediately ran towards him to grab the ball.

Alex tossed at Zayden and immediately jumped to the side and fell when compsognathus nearly clawed him. The speed of the compsognathus exceeded the speed of an ordinary person so Alex had a hard time avoiding the hands that were ready to claw at him. Alex quickly rose from his position and chased Zayden's steps who had started to dribble the ball into the front court.

When Zayden was almost attacked, the basketball was thrown at Ezequiel who was already in the three-point line of the front court. There were two things that Ezequiel could do at that time. Dribbling the ball close to the basketball hoop, or immediately shooting and getting three points when it comes in. But the position of one of the largest dinosaurs was very detrimental to Ezequiel at that time. Brontosaurus was seen calmly standing under a basketball hoop with a size that filled the width of a basketball court. Seeing that there was no gap to enter the two-point goal area, Ezequiel immediately put his right hand bent with his left hand against the ball in his right hand. He almost jumped to do a three point shoot. But the tail of the compsognathus had hit Ezequiel's stomach until the man fell half a meter back.

Not only the players who shouted at that time but the audience who were usually not interested in what Alex and his friends were doing now looked at the match with tense faces. Especially when Ezequiel was bounced off by the tail of the dinosaur. No whistle blowing means the referee does not consider it a foul. Seeing the unfavorable situation, Alex immediately showed a movement like the letter T to the referee.

“Prii!”

The whistle is blown which means the match is suspended. Alex and Zayden immediately rushed towards Ezequiel who was already trying to move to his feet. With an annoyed smile on his face, Ezequiel took off his T-shirt. There was a fifteen-centimeter red rash on his belly. Ezequiel didn't want to make things tense so he tried to cover up his pain.

"It does not matter. This is just the beginning."