Charcoal Shell Beach was once known for two things.

The first is a black sand beach.

Despite the name, Charcoal Shell Beach wasn't actually made of charcoal. Well, not raw charcoal at least.

Dozing Salamander's coastline was once filled with volcanoes from top to bottom, but they were all eroded by the wind and tide over thousands of years until they were nothing more than piles upon piles of black sand that was rich in carbon and countless other minerals.

Charcoal Shell Beach was the richest of these volcanic beaches, as seen by the sand's deep black color.

The second thing Charcoal Shell Beach was known for was the "shell" part of its name.

It's a common fact that mollusks and crustacean-type aether beasts, aka shellfish, extract minerals from their surroundings to reinforce and grow their shells.

As such, the shellfish found on Charcoal Shell Beach are known to not only have brilliant black shells made of rare mineral composites but also have unique flavors due to said minerals being absorbed through their diets.

These two factors attracted just enough people to create a small resort town in the area, where one could enjoy the unique seafood and brilliant black beaches, all from the comfort of a tropical hotel balcony.

Of course, this lovely tourist destination and its equally lovely accommodations were established long before a certain war broke out between an ambitious emperor desperate for a cure and a theocratic nation still trying to redeem themselves from a great sin.

...

[Alright, my bitches and bros, place your bets. Do we think that the maestro will end up picking a fight with the Erupting Dawn Empire or the Sacred Flame Theocracy soon?] Hurricroak asked.

[Shouldn't this bet be pertaining to whether or not we think Charcoal Shell Town will still be intact when we arrive?] Razorstella added.

[With this much ambient aether in the air? Fuck no,] Hurricroak answered. [Pretty sure whomever or whatever lived here was now deader than a doornail. At least, judging from the smoke floating about.]

[Are we sure that's not like...a feature of this beach?] Nepherage asked. [I mean, this place is called Charcoal Shell Beach...]

[Not with...that smell...in the air,] Frosttusk rumbled.

...

"Why are you still hanging on to that poker?"

"I don't know, Rianna," Zhen Liu admitted as he swung around the bronze stick with a wooden handle. "Just feels right to wield at the moment."

"Hmmm."

It had been a few days since Zhen Liu and his allies had that lovely barbecue picnic, and other than that weird fire poker that the former acquired from a buried temple, nothing of note had happened since then.

When Zhen Liu informed the others of the origins of the fire poker, a good chunk of them had assumed that Zhen Liu had acquired yet another cursed object and were just waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Not that they were waiting for the curse to affect Zhen Liu, since the man seemed to be basically immune and even relished the opportunity to get his hands on cursed equipment, but for the follow-up from some terrible third party or something tangentially related to the poker he just acquired.

However, once a few days passed and they realized that nothing was going to happen, the group began to relax over the idea that nothing was actually going to happen for once.

That is, until they finally arrived at Charcoal Shell Beach.

At that moment, they dismissed any concerns about Zhen Liu's hypothetical curse. After all, an entire ruined battlefield was now there to grab their attention.

"Huh… This battlefield is oddly melancholic to look at," Zhen Xing commented as he looked over the ruined beach, which was marred and scarred by crevices of glass, scavenged corpses, and the ruined remnants of tents and other fortifications that had long been looted. "Which is weird, given how many battles we've participated in."

"It's because you're now an observer rather than a participant," Olstenna said as he walked over to the corpse of a fallen soldier and took their helmet for himself. "Many rookie mercenaries make that exact same comment. The degree of separation makes things a lot sadder for some reason."

"That makes sense." Zhen Xing nodded before realizing that Olstenna had gathered a piece of armor from a different fallen soldier. "What are you doing?"

"I collect the armor of fallen soldiers whenever I get the chance," Olstenna answered as he weighed a pair of leg guards in his hands to determine which one was in better condition. "They make for lovely souvenirs."

"I…see…"

"That sounds like a surefire way to get cursed," Antonio commented before he realized that Zhen Liu was standing right behind him with an expression looking like: (.3.).

"..."

"..."

"Have you ever—"

"Not from a battlefield where I wasn't an active participant, no."

"Makes sense."

As for the seaside town itself, the hub that once served tourists and merchants alike with a variety of delicious local dishes and activities that would melt away one's troubles, like seafoam, was nothing more than a pile of burning cinders.

At least, that's what the group noticed from a distance.

Once they had entered the ruins of this once pristine seaside town, they noticed something odd.

There wasn't a single corpse in the street, nor was there a single boat in the ports.

For all intents and purposes, it was as if they had arrived at a ghost town.

"Okay…," Zhen Liu trailed off as he used his newly acquired fire poker to poke around some of the destroyed buildings and see if he could find any signs of life. "This either means that all of the people were killed during the battle that happened here, they all managed to escape before anything happened, or they were all used as components for some fucked-up ritual. So far, I'm leaning towards the evac option."

Before answering herself, Rianna had stooped down to the ground to see if she could find proof of Zhen Liu's guess. Evidently, there were.

"There are tracks leading from the town toward the docks over there," Rianna commented as she noted the presence of several dozen dried footprints leading in that direction. "But that could also mean that they met their deaths at sea."

"Nah, not in waters this shallow," Jinju Ren commented as she used aether-enhanced vision to gaze outwards. "The waters around here are mostly home to shellfish, right? That means any boats meant to fish around here would be designed for shallow waters and not anything deeper. If they got wrecked, then we would've seen their remains floating in the water or washed onto shore."

"Is that why I'm seeing a flotilla of fishing vessels floating way over there?" Lythero asked.

"What?"

"Over there."

Following Lythero's directions, the group saw that there was indeed a collection of fishing vessels floating together several dozen meters away from the shoreline. Not only that, but they could see that there were people milling about on those same vessels.

"Huh…"

However, they also noticed that the aforementioned flotilla didn't appear to be moving in their direction or even away.

It just floated there, like a buoy attached to a crab trap.

"Okay…new set of theories," Zhen Liu declared as he looked out towards the flotilla. "Either they have found a new purpose in their floating town of shrimping boats..."

"Which seems doubtful given the general look of misery on their faces," Rianna added."

"...there is something lingering near or inside of the town that is actively preventing them from entering these ruins and fixing everything up…"

"Judging from the bodies being only picked at by low-tiered scavengers, that seems highly unlikely," Antonio stated as he watched a pair of Giant Lizards tear apart a skeleton.

"...or there is something in the water that is actively keeping them imprisoned on their boats."

"Which seems pretty likely," Rianna stated as she leveraged her hunting knowledge to investigate the flotilla's situation. "I've been reading books about hunting in other biomes, and one of the books mentioned that those kind of flying scavengers up there, they only appear when an apex predator is present."

Circling over the waters, Zhen Liu could indeed see a flock of creatures that he recognized as being known as Blood Drinker Gulls.

This type of first-tier, seagull-like aether beast only drank blood and would follow the trails of predatory oceanic aether beasts. Preferably the ones with razor-sharp teeth and terrible attitudes…as well as a taste for flesh.

The fact that so many of these little freaks were flying around the waters between the flotilla and the seaside ruins indicated that something enormous was lurking around that area.

The question now, though, was whether that hypothetical giant sea monster was anything they had to worry about.

"Alright, I'm probably going to go down there so I can get the kaijin out without anyone seeing," Zhen Liu declared as he pre-emptively removed his shirt. "Who wants to come along?"