Chapter 380: Daitentamono, the Ancient Divine Beast

"Alright... kill it," Benjamin said without any visible emotion in his voice, walking steadily across the bloodied sand until he reached where Tensei was standing.

Now both men stood only a few feet from the looming, wounded mountain of a creature, the orange sunlight bathing the scene in a dramatic, almost surreal glow as the wind carried the heavy scents of battle and sea.

"Uhm... about that..." Tensei began hesitantly, his golden eyes drifting back toward the wounded, wailing creature slumped in the shallow waves.

His wolf ears twitched with uncertainty as he lowered the glowing katana slightly, the alternating silver and golden blade catching the orange afternoon light.

"Have we not already sent our point across quite clearly by now? My appraisal skill judges this monster to be a rather rare type called a Tentamono. I think it would be far more beneficial for us to study its behavior and biology instead of—"

BEEAAAM!!

A sudden, blinding yellow beam of concentrated energy erupted from the wounded creature, cutting Tensei off mid-sentence.

The monster had desperately gathered its remaining tentacles together in front of its humanoid torso, channeling raw power into its palm before unleashing the attack.

The blast shot forward with a deafening crackle, superheating the air around it and leaving a trail of distorted light in its wake.

Due to the beast’s clear exhaustion, the beam missed Tensei by mere inches, passing so close that the intense heat singed the edges of his feathers and made his skin prickle.

Instead, the beam slammed directly into the large boulder Benjamin had summoned earlier, instantly transforming the solid rock into bubbling, molten magma that glowed a vicious red-orange.

The superheated path continued for several meters across the sand, turning the pale grains into a glassy, boiling streak that hissed and popped violently as seawater from the waves touched it and evaporated in angry bursts of steam.

Tensei stumbled back a step, instinctively raising one arm to shield his face as residual heat waves washed over him.

He wiped at his eyes repeatedly, blinking hard against the afterimage burned into his vision, his breath coming in short, sharp bursts.

His wolf tail flicked nervously behind him while he readied the katana once more, gripping the hilt tighter despite the tremble in his arms.

"Seriously...that blast could have put you in a lot of trouble," Benjamin remarked, placing one hand firmly on his waist as he observed the destruction with a raised eyebrow.

His light brown hair shifted in the warm sea breeze, and he tilted his head slightly, blue eyes flicking between the monster and the glowing crater.

"Monsters are different from regular animals, you know. Except with brutal magical interference, a monster’s species will always respawn eventually, right?" Benjamin asked.

Tensei shook his head slowly, still squinting from the lingering heat as he turned his full attention back to the injured beast.

His wings rustled restlessly behind him, feathers slightly singed at the tips.

"That is true for monsters which are old and well-established in the ecosystem," he explained carefully, his voice steady but laced with caution.

He took a measured step closer to the creature, katana raised in a guarded stance. "However, new species like this one will completely disappear when killed. But I suppose we have no choice if it is too intelligent and territorial like this. That it cannot speak means it is, by the standard of its race, still essentially a child. I wonder how dangerous it would become... when it is... all.. grown up... !?"

As Tensei spoke those last words, something unbelievable began unfolding before both their eyes.

The shadow that had gradually been stretching across the beach suddenly expanded at an impossible rate, swallowing hundreds of feet of sand and sea in mere seconds.

The air grew noticeably heavier, thicker, as if the very atmosphere was being pressed down by an unimaginable weight.

The orange sunlight dimmed dramatically, plunging the entire area into an eerie twilight from the new presence.

Tensei’s arms went weak, the legendary katana slipping from his grasp and embedding itself point-first into the sand with a soft thud.

His golden eyes widened not purely with fear, but with a profound sense of wonder mixed with growing dread, his mouth slightly agape as he stared upward.

Standing before them in the vast sea was what appeared to be the same sea monster they had been fighting — except it was not.

The original wounded Tentamono still lay wailing pitifully to one side, its cries bubbling weakly like a distressed whale.

This new entity dwarfed everything, towering over a thousand feet tall, its colossal form rising from the deep waters like a living mountain.

It was no mere Tentamono. This was its parent — and far from pleased at seeing its child on the verge of death, crying out in pain.

The ancient beast possessed long, powerful legs shaped like those of a giant humanoid, covered in deep grey, armored flesh that gleamed wetly under the filtered light.

Its overall silhouette mimicked a towering person, yet massive scales covered vast portions of its body like dark volcanic rock.

Seaweed-like hair cascaded from its enormous head, swaying in the high winds and disappearing into the clouds far above.

Bird-like monsters flew past its shoulders, appearing as tiny, insignificant motes of light in comparison.

Two enormous glowing yellow eyes with horizontal slits stared down upon the two mortals with cold, ancient intelligence, radiating a pressure that made the air itself feel oppressive.

From unseen points along its body, dozens of train-thick tentacles swirled and coiled slowly, each one capable of leveling entire sections of coastline with a single lazy swipe.

This was Daitentamono — an ancient-beast-class monster of terrifying magnitude.

"...How wonderful..." Tensei breathed out softly, his gaze locked upward toward the clouds where the creature’s head pierced the sky, blocking out the sun and casting the entire beach into shadow.

His wolf ears lay flat against his head, and his wings trembled slightly at his sides. "Benjamin, I think this is going to be very bad... But why haven’t the Amazons noticed that something is very wrong by now? A being of this size should have caused alarms across the entire region."

Benjamin stood a short distance away, equally enthralled as he stared up at the colossal entity, his usual smug expression replaced by genuine awe mixed with calculation.

The wind howled louder around them now, carrying the heavy scent of brine, blood, and ancient power. 𝗳𝐫𝚎𝗲𝚠𝚎𝗯𝕟𝐨𝘃𝚎𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝗺

"I set up a barrier when the... smaller monster first showed up," he answered calmly, his voice carrying clearly despite the oppressive atmosphere.

He gestured vaguely with one hand toward the invisible perimeter surrounding them. "They don’t know what’s happening within a few miles of this point. We’re completely isolated for now."

The giant Daitentamono shifted slightly, sending massive ripples across the ocean that grew into waves tall enough to threaten the shoreline.

Its child’s weak cries seemed to fuel its anger, causing several of its train-thick tentacles to slam down into the water with thunderous booms, creating explosions of white spray that reached high into the air.

Tensei’s fallen katana vibrated in the sand from the tremors, while Benjamin’s feet sank deeper as the ground shook beneath them.

The air grew colder under the massive shadow, and distant thunder rumbled ominously as if the sky itself protested the beast’s presence.

Tensei swallowed hard, forcing his trembling hands to retrieve the katana from the sand.

The weapon’s golden and silver energies flickered uncertainly in response to the overwhelming aura pressing down on them.

His mind raced with possibilities and escape routes, but the sheer scale of the parent monster made every plan feel insignificant.

Benjamin, meanwhile, cracked his knuckles slowly, a dangerous glint returning to his blue eyes as he assessed the new threat.

Clearly already calculating how to turn this dire situation into something far more interesting.

The once peaceful beach, now transformed into a battlefield of gods and ancient horrors, waited tensely under the colossal shadow as the orange sky continued to darken around the impossible silhouette.