Sobek dived deep, to make sure no one could see him. Even though he was out at sea and there was no ship for miles around, he knew that humans had eyes everywhere: orbiting satellites had no limit to their field of vision. Fortunately, not even orbital satellites could penetrate tens or even hundreds of meters of water.

Once he got deep enough (not deep enough to be completely dark, but not even shallow enough to be visible from the surface) he opened the [Weapons system]. As he had expected, all boxes were now unlocked. But surprisingly, there was more to it.

All the boxes were now connected by some sort of pattern. Weapons that were most similar were grouped together (for example, rifles and pistols) and were connected to each other, while those that were more dissimilar (such as machine guns and bombs) were connected via much longer wires. In the center of that strange web was a single square, on which the wording [Personal weapon] flashed.

Sobek wasted no time in going to see what the fuss was about.

[Personal weapon: This weapon is created exclusively for the host. There is only one and it can only be used by him. Cost: 500,000 bonus money]

Sobek almost drooled when he read the price. Half a million bonus money!? The System was trying to bleed him out!? How come other weapons cost at most a few thousand bonus money, but this one cost so much?

He thought carefully. He didn't want to spend so much hard-earned bonus money. To top it off, his body was already practically a living weapon. However, he knew he needed another kind of weapon. In the face of the humans' long-range weapons, his body was practically useless. In an open battle he would surely be defeated. He could have used any [Weapons system] weapon, sure… but if the System was providing him with a '[Personal weapon]' there had to be a reason, right?

Finally, he made up his mind and bought it. He nearly cried when he saw 500,000 of his bonus money vanish forever.

As soon as the purchase was completed, something happened. Around his right paw the matter seemed to condense and suddenly a strange bracelet wrapped around his forearm. It was a beautiful bracelet, adorned with exquisite and meticulously carved designs showing the figure of a huge spinosaurus. Though it was quite handsome, Sobek was rather confused. 'This is my [Personal weapon]? And how does it work? I would have preferred a pistol..."

It was a moment: the material of which the bracelet was made deformed and reassembled itself into a huge gun inside his hand. Sobek nearly jumped back in surprise. "Damn! Who could expected this? Wait, what if... I want a sword!"

The weapon warped again and reassembled into a giant two-handed sword, so sharp that Sobek was sure he could cut gold with it.

"A grenade launcher!"

"A bow!"

"A flamethrower!"

The [Personal weapon] warped and reassembled into all weapons Sobek requested.In the end, the spinosaurus almost suffocated for joy. That was the weapon for which every general in the world would have killed! A polymorphic weapon that changed according to the user's wishes!

It could have enormous importance on the battlefield. Sobek could easily switch from a weapon suitable for hand-to-hand combat to one suitable for long-range combat in less than a second!

Sobek was satisfied. He should have studied it and trained with it to fully understand its limits and potential, but once he understood how it worked he would have had a legendary weapon to say the least! With it, he would dominate any battlefield that didn't have weapons of mass destruction like napalm or nuclear bombs.

"Anyway, God should stop with these hidden quests. Why are some functions of the System not immediately clear? It almost seems like she's doing it on purpose!" he thought angrily.

Despite being in the depths of the ocean, Sobek thought he heard someone chuckle behind him. "Good, laugh! After all, the one who goes crazy is me, not you, mh!?"

With a snort, he returned his [Personal weapon] to the [Inventory]. While he could have kept it wrapped around his forearm in cuff form, he couldn't risk the humans noticing. He would have explored his functions better than he once back in the forest.

For the moment, the plan didn't change despite that interesting change. So he resumed swimming in search of a new prey.

*************

In the following days and weeks, the world talked of nothing but the infamous spinosaurus.

After that night of terror, Flagard City was slowly recovering from the trauma. The ruined buildings had been quickly repaired and the people whose possessions had been damaged were reimbursed, but these were problems. The real difficulty was living with the deaths.

Even though the dinosaurs had gone into hiding right away and Sobek hadn't really killed every human in his path, the loss of dozens of human lives could not be avoided. Only with the soldiers and policemen killed by Sobek there was talk of hundreds of deaths.

The victims' families had been reimbursed, but clearly cash compensation was in no way capable of undoing the loss of a loved one. Thousands of people across the city were in mourning and many had come from neighboring towns to join them. The mayor had also set up a collective commemoration to honor the victims of that carnage.

That event alone was enough to give Sobek a bad name.

But when the spinosaurus began to threaten ships, many other people began to hate it. Sailors from all over the world, even those on the other side of the continent, were now scared and didn't dare to go out to sea for fear of finding that monster. Obviously dozens of sightings spread and only increased the general panic, although anyone with a minimum of brains would have to understand that many of them were fake since to be all true there had to be at least twenty killer spinosaurs scattered across the ocean.

For weeks the media talked about nothing else. Sobek's fame as a cruel killer of the oceans spread like wildfire throughout the human world, so much so that it could be said that he had become a mythological monster like the Kraken or Moby Dick. Within a very short time, the children and young people of the coastal towns flocked along the seashore hoping to see the spinosaurus' huge sail, while any person who worked in the fishing industry prayed to never see it.

This clearly caused no small regret. Many fishermen saw their earnings dwindle as they not dared to venture out to sea, but that was the lesser evil. The real blow was suffered by the multinationals, who were forced to cancel countless orders and trace new routes to prevent the boats carrying their goods from being torn to pieces. This caused a large decrease in the earnings of large companies, which obviously couldn't wait to see the spinosaurus dead.

Of course, the companies did not hesitate to use all their power over the masses to unleash them against the spinosaurus, clamoring for it to be eliminated as soon as possible. Unfortunately, however, this time even capitalism had no way of stopping that monster. No military or admiral in the world could develop a plan that could actually trap a creature that swam like a torpedo. Therefore, humanity's desire to see the spinosaurus disappear forever was destined to remain just a desire.

Sobek didn't know any of this, but he was smart enough to have an idea. After all, he had foreseen those consequences: even if they thought themselves complex, humans were extremely predictable creatures and it was easy to determine how they would behave in a given situation.

He didn't care how they painted him. They could even speak of him as a giant monster full of tentacles and sharp teeth if they wanted to. Why would Sobek have to worry about what humans thought? They weren't his kind. He never had any qualms about knowing what the thousands of creatures he had hunted, killed and devoured thought, so why did it have to be different this time?

From his point of view, the opinion of humans mattered as much as that of a bacterium in his gut. Indeed, Sobek would probably have been more concerned with the bacterium, given that at least it had an active role, albeit infinitesimal, in his life.

The only thing he cared about humans was the amount of fame points they could provide. Sobek knew that, regardless of whether it was fame or infamy, it would imprint its memory in the minds and hearts of humans, thus fulfilling the condition expressed by the System. For the moment the fame points in his possession had reached 570 million and even if their growth had slowed down, since the news had now reached everyone and therefore also to all those who could imprint it in their memories, Sobek was sure which would have risen by at least another 50 million before stopping completely.

That amount of fame points was more than enough for its next evolution. He only needed 100 million fame points to reach the 'Spinosaurus imperator' stage, so he had many more than he needed. Indeed, he was already halfway to his next goal, which would have cost him 1 billion fame points: the 'Spinosaurus perfectus'.

Sobek could tell that the plan had worked out perfectly. In one fell swoop he had earned a disproportionate amount of fame points, unlocked the entire [Weapon system] and acquired a large number of dinosaurs that would become the basis for his future army. Not only that, but thanks to his long voyage at sea, he had been able to procure an infinite number of prey that had guaranteed him a rapid growth in both experience points and fame points.

Liopleurodon, thalassotitan, globidens, cryptoclidus, plesiosaurus, elasmosaurus, kronosaurus, peloneustes, macroplata, temnodontosaurus, eurhinosaurus, cymbospondylus, ichthyosaurus, ophtalmosaurus, clidastes, platecarpus, squaurus, even more modern animals like tiger sharks, white sharks, sperm whales, giant squid, killer whales: they were all there for him, in that gigantic ocean that for Sobek was the equivalent of a delicious feast. The fauna of the sea fed him continuously, offering him succulent prey as he had never found them. There was nothing he could do about it: even though he had evolved, he was still a piscivorous animal, and consequently there was no food tastier than fish for his taste buds.

Sobek had decided that when he returned to Maakanar he would officially begin forming his army. The time was ripe and there was no point in waiting any longer: it was down the alpha super predator that nothing and no one could defeat and very soon it would evolve again, so it had all the strength any dinosaur would expect from a pack leader. He had also now completed the [Weapons system] and a large part of the [Food system], thus solving both the equipment problem and the logistics problem. And finally he now had a good number of underlings who could spread his call very quickly to every corner of the continent. On top of that, he was pretty sure that once he evolved even more his new skills would make his job even easier.

No, it was the right time. Waiting any longer would have been cowardly and would only restrict the time Sobek had available to prevent the planet's climate from irreversibly changing. If he wanted to stop pollution and the terrible consequences of human activity, it was imperative to start immediately.

While Sobek continued with these thoughts and with his continuous hunting, the rest of the world continued to spread fear towards him, granting him more and more fame points. Many even began to fear that there were others like him and that therefore the colonization of other continents could end in a colossal disaster. This obviously sparked new discussions and new turns of phrase that would lead to nothing but an increase in disorder and fear.

Meanwhile, what were called 'the heroes of Flagard City', even if they hadn't actually done much heroic, namely Ian Malcolm, Alan Grant and Sarah Hardy, had returned to their usual lives. Alan and his pupil Billy had returned to the Mountain, continuing to study the spinosaurus from a distance, while Ian and Sarah had returned to their home with Katy. Sarah, too, had continued to study the spinosaurus, too intrigued by the extraordinary animal. However, one by one they were very soon contacted by the authorities, telling them that the NMWA was asking for their help. Obviously, rejection wasn't an option.

And what about Ludlow? Well, he was finished now.

As Ebert had predicted, all the blame for that event was placed on him. Ludlow might have got away with it if the damage had been confined to Flagard City alone, but after the spinosaurus began destroying ships across the ocean, he had faced the wrath of the entire world. Against it he had no hope.

Ludlow was forced to pay an enormous amount of money, billions of them, to reimburse expenses. Due to this financial disaster and the already bad administration it had shown, Ingen officially went bankrupt. His stock was sold off and Ludlow was stripped of all his assets.

Only a portion of those shares remained in family ownership: in fact, a John Hammond subordinate showed up a few days later on the stock exchange and bought some of those shares. Apparently, the old tycoon was unwilling to see Ingen completely destroyed. The rest of the company's shares and properties were shared between various multinationals.

Ludlow found himself completely in poverty, full of debt and with nothing left of his property. He crawled back to his uncle, hoping for his help, but Hammond slammed the door in his face and left him to his fate.

His life didn't last long. After less than a couple of weeks, his body was found hanged in an alley in Flagard City, dirty and swollen. It was clear that he had been brutally beaten and humiliated before being killed. Those responsible were arrested four days later and were revealed to be a group of boys aged just 14-16 who had lost at least one parent in the Flagard City disaster. Given their situation, the judge was lenient and sentenced them to a short term in juvenile prison, from which many of them were released within less than a year for good behavior. After that, no one talks about the matter anymore. Ludlow was buried in the public cemetery and no one came to cry over his grave: not a relative, not a friend, not even an old drinking buddy. Only after a couple of months Hammond decided to visit his nephew's grave. He took a brief look and then he walked away. In all the years of life that remained to him, he never returned there.

And that was how Peter Ludlow died, the man who prided himself on controlling everything and everyone: alone, poor and forgotten by everyone, in an anonymous lane in Flagard City.