As the soldiers watched the hazy light distortion with bated breath, gripping their weapons tightly to the point that their knuckles turned white, the shimmer of light suddenly cracked.
As the crack spread wider, a sound akin to the noise made by a shattering mirror rang out, eventually consuming the entire length of the distortion.
And from that crack…
A large, grey, webbed hand with long, sharp claws reached out.
The bony hand was far too large to be that of a normal human, not that normal humans possess claws or seven fingers.
Along with that hand, a somewhat oblong grey object poked through the crack.
From a cursory glance, it was apparent that the malformed object was some kind of head, but normal magical creatures had anything so bizarre.
The head had nine round eyes of different sizes littered around it, with no care for symmetry or order. Each eye had between two and three pupils.
The creature seemed to lack any protrusion for a nose, but instead, two small slits about halfway down its face along with possessed countless gill-like structures that littered the sides of its neck.
It possessed long bat-like ears and a mouth full of numerous rows of razor-sharp teeth that ran from one ear to the next.
Instead of simply cutting the poor souls that ended up as the creature's meal, the sharp, bony teeth appeared to serve a different purpose.
They were designed to ruthlessly shred and mangle flesh as if trying to inflict the highest levels of agony possible on their owner's victims.
As the creature pulled its head through the Tear in reality, its many eyes darted around its surroundings, as if eyeing the multitude of humans standing nearby with morbid curiosity.
Feeling a chill go down their spines, they couldn't help but feel dread and a fundamental sense of rejection for the creature before them.
It was as if every fibre of their being wished to denounce such a creature and pretend it wasn't real.
However, thankfully, not everyone among them was as faint of heart.
A fairly young woman, seemingly in her early twenties, was wearing a military blazer with a series of golden badges fastened on it. These badges obviously made her a high-ranking officer, at least compared to the people around her.
A name tag on her right breast pocket read 'Whitaker.' At the same time, her blazer's shoulders had two silver rectangular marks on each side, announcing her status as a Captain of the army.
Internally cursing that the monsters weren't dropping dead from asphyxiation, she eyed the nightmarish abomination with eyes full of resentment.
Inhaling deeply, she pulled a microphone to her mouth.
"FIRE!"
Pulled out of their reverie by her commanding voice, the roughly eighty soldiers all pulled the trigger on their gun-like weapons, filling the air with a cacophony of violence.
If the soldiers around her could be compared to musicians in this deranged orchestra, then Captain Linda Whitaker would have been its conductor.
The gun-like weapons that the soldiers were using were undoubtedly far more potent than a typical gun that shot cartridges full of metal and gunpowder.
Instead, they fired beams of light, the sheer heat of which seemed to warp the air around them as they flew through the air.
Barraged by the torrent of searing light, the creature, still in the midst of climbing through the Tear, opened its mouth wide, wide enough that it looked like the creature's head was split in half. This revealed a long, sharp tongue surrounded by an army of teeth.
"SCREEEEEEEEEE!"
Letting out a high-pitched shriek, the creature's body convulsed under the force of the blasts.
The noise caused a few of the less-experienced soldiers to freeze in panic.
While the creature looked to be on the losing side in this confrontation, all of the soldiers knew the fiend wasn't something that would die that easily.
As if validating their thoughts, the nine-eyed abomination continued clawing its way out of the Tear, revealing three more lanky grey arms. The two attached to its long, bony stomach were considerably smaller than the two at its shoulders.
The beams of light lightly scratched and burned the abomination's grey skin. However, they didn't seem to hurt the creature that much.
Slowly, the abomination pulled its lanky body through the Tear, revealing itself to the world in all its grotesque glory.
The creature possessed a large, razor-sharp dorsal fin on its back, along with smaller fin-like protrusions near its multitude of elbows and knees.
Its hind legs were just as lanky as its upper two arms, each ending in two large, seven-toed, webbed feet, with each toe sharp enough to cut through steel.
Standing upright, the creature reached a height of 10 feet, towering above the human soldiers desperately shooting at it.
As soon as the creature managed to pull its way through, another set of similar bony arms clawed through the Tear behind it.
Apparently, the creature didn't come alone.
The first creature's eyes darted around before singling out a nearby soldier.
Letting out another harrowing screech, the creature fell onto its front hands and kicked off the ground.
Running with all four of its long appendages, the creature started a bestial sprint, shrugging off the storm of light, and barrelled its way to the soldier, smashing straight into one of the surrounding SUVs.
The destructive crash caused the white vehicle to be sent flying backwards, hitting two nearby soldiers on its course.
From the force of the hit, they most likely were already dead.
After leaving the circular barricade, the number of light blasts hitting the creature considerably lessened. The soldiers were unable to properly shoot it due to the risk of friendly fire.
Moreover, they already had their work cut out for them, so they began bombarding the next creature climbing out of the Tear.
On the other hand, the first creature made sure to thoroughly use its newfound freedom to its fullest.
Standing back on its hind legs, it overlooked the nearby soldiers before quickly swinging out its arm and grabbing the human it had eyed earlier.
Pulled from the turret he was operating before he could react, the soldier's face went pale as the creature slowly pulled him up to its sharp maw.
"No… Gods, please… I… I don't want to die…"
If there were gods in this world, they were evidently unable to hear the man's desperate pleas, much less save him from the abomination before him.
The creature lifted the soldier's head into its mouth before dropping it and snapping its jaws shut with a horrifying crunch.
The soldier's body convulsed one last time before eventually falling limp.
Opening its mouth again, the abomination ravenously finished off the rest of its it's prey.
Clearly hungry for more, the beast turned around, looking for its next unlucky victim.