After narrowly dodging the railgun's attack with a leap, Godzilla adjusted its course, heading into the mountainous region deep inland to the east.
It couldn't keep relying on jumps to evade the electromagnetic railgun forever. Even if it could dodge every shot, the effort was too troublesome.
Running? Not an option. A behemoth weighing 1.8 million tons couldn't afford to waste energy sprinting from Shizuoka to Nagoya. The terrain wasn't a straight path either—it was a detour. Why take the long way when there was a more direct option?
A sea route was possible, but it would force Godzilla to constantly resurface and dive, making its advance inefficient. The mountains, however, offered a better alternative.
East Asia was dominated by rugged peaks, with few plains in between. Hills rising over 200 to 300 meters blanketed the landscape, and once inside, the railguns would be useless. If a mountain peak of 500 to 600 meters stood between Godzilla and the enemy, the railguns' trajectory would be obstructed. Even if they were mounted on kilometer-high peaks, the curvature of the Earth limited their reach. At their current range, they had already hit their limit—aiming higher was impossible.
The railguns in Nagoya's Tsu district had proven their long-range capabilities, yet three others remained silent, unable to fire because of the mountains blocking their line of sight. Godzilla, possessing the memories of the natural world's fallen, knew this well. It shifted course and entered the mountain range.
Towering ridges became its cover, nullifying humanity's anti-Godzilla artillery. The cannons could only wait as the monster advanced.
Godzilla moved between valleys, sometimes climbing ridges, sometimes causing them to collapse under its weight. It slid down mountainsides like a titan on a colossal slide, its dorsal fins carving deep scars into the earth. Occasionally, it found a mountain lake, sinking into its depths to bask undisturbed.
A deep roar echoed through the valleys.
For the first time since awakening, it felt at peace. Surrounded by nature, its mind sharpened, its thoughts becoming clearer.
Emerging from the water, Godzilla stood before ancient peaks that had stood for eons—some even older than itself. It gazed at the mountains, images flashing through its mind. A vision from 450 million years ago surfaced—a time when these mountains did not exist, and East Asia was still submerged beneath the ocean.
These were the memories of nature.
It saw the primeval oceans teeming with bizarre life after the Cambrian explosion. It witnessed the slow rise of landmasses that would become East Asia. And then—it saw something unnatural.
A star. Brighter than any celestial body. It turned night into day, radiating an intense yet gentle heat—stronger than moonlight, softer than the sun.
It spread its light across the Earth. Every life form touched by its rays underwent profound genetic change.
Godzilla recognized it.
The Late Ordovician mass extinction.
The first major extinction event after the rise of multicellular life. A catastrophe rivaled only by the Permian-Triassic and Cretaceous-Paleogene extinctions. Scientists had long debated its cause—underwater volcanoes, glaciation, asteroid impacts, gamma-ray bursts.
The memories confirmed the gamma-ray burst theory.
A dying star, not far from Earth, had met its end in a spectacular explosion. Its gamma-ray burst scorched Earth's polar regions, wiping out countless species.
That was the theory. But something was off.
Godzilla focused on the celestial body in its vision.
The size wasn't right. It wasn't a distant supernova. It wasn't a dying star.
It was a planet.
Venus.
A distant voice whispered a name—
King Ghidorah.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Explosions jolted Godzilla back to reality.
Its vision faded. The memories dissolved.
Humanity had resumed its assault.
Incendiary bombs, high-explosive rounds, and the newly developed MOP4 bunker-buster missiles rained down. Unlike the ineffective naval bombardment, the land-based attack had some effect.
The army had deployed massive tunneling bombs—30-ton behemoths with payloads exceeding five tons. When detonated near Godzilla's molten aluminum-like hide, they penetrated one to two meters deep, inflicting minor, but tangible damage.
A deep blue glow flickered in Godzilla's throat.
It unleashed its atomic breath, obliterating the drones swarming its vicinity. Then, it turned its attention to the human artillery.
All the vehicles were unmanned.
His Human Radar confirmed it—no pilots, no crews. Pre-positioned, remote-operated machines continuously fired from behind the mountains. Humanity was using nature's defenses against Godzilla, just as it had used them to shield itself from the railguns.
But these ridges were thin.
His's atomic breath would burn straight through them.
Was this a trap? Were they trying to force it to use its breath here?
The blue light in Godzilla's mouth intensified.
It had no reason to hold back. But it would do so carefully.
No need to destroy nature needlessly.
With that resolve, Godzilla exhaled.
A superheated torrent erupted, striking a ridge several hundred meters thick. The mountain peak turned into a crimson inferno, the intense heat liquefying its core. Superheated gases expanded at thousands of degrees, causing the entire summit to detonate in a fiery explosion. Rocks and charred debris rained from the sky, igniting the dense forest below.
The mountain's peak was vaporized, the ridge sundered.
On the other side, the artillery positions were exposed—mere remnants in the wake of the blast.
Godzilla stood amid the destruction, the mountain reduced to molten slag and burning forests. The battlefield was silent.
For now.