Ch.184184. Space Whale

‘It’ extended its tentacles first towards the shrine attendants who had been mutated by its influence after it began to move.

Perhaps judging that these tentacles were absolutely not beneficial to them, despite their low intelligence, they instinctively sensed the danger in an instant and attempted to flee.

However, the bizarre body structure of these monstrous creatures inevitably made it impossible for them to move quickly, and additionally, though the tentacles appeared slow, their actual movement speed was extremely fast due to their size.

Thus, the tentacles that reached the strange creatures in an instant were lightly swung toward them as if caressing, and with that, the creatures vanished without a trace.

No, to be precise—they were absorbed so quickly that they seemed to disappear the moment they were touched.

It absorbed the monsters that were born from those shrine attendants, making them unable to offer any resistance—monsters counted among the top psychic users in the Dolphinman nation.

The tentacle, which proved itself to be quite far removed from the common sense of this world just by that feat alone, repeatedly folded and unfolded the tentacle that had absorbed the Dolphinman shrine attendant.

As if savoring the texture, as if confused by an unfamiliar sensation, the moving tentacle soon stopped.

At that very moment, ‘It,’ composed of countless tentacles, began to expand wildly in all directions like a balloon being inflated—

BOOM—OOOOM—!!!

Like a ripened fruit bursting as it tears through its skin, like a flower blooming between buds, like a reptile hatching from an egg—the expanded mass burst open, revealing its contents.

Although there might not be anyone in their right mind to witness it at this moment, if someone were to see it directly, they would think:

What on earth is that?

That being, covered in slime dyed with colors that seemed not of this world, had a form difficult to describe in human language.

If one were to attempt to describe it, its appearance was that of limbs similar to human arms and legs extending from a massive lump of flesh, standing on the ground in a form closer to an insect than a four-legged beast.

On one side of the body—the flesh mass—from which five arms and four legs protruded at different angles and structures, there grew bone spikes that gradually decreased in size, similar to the bony plates on dinosaurs like Stegosaurus.

In addition, it had a total of three heads: one resembling an alligator, another with a bony beak like a bird, and a third that looked like a distorted human head without a nose. Various body parts of different shapes and sizes grew all over its body.

And decisively, these parts continuously moved fluidly, appearing and disappearing repeatedly. This thing, whose transformation into such a form raised questions, suddenly began to show explosive movement.

It began by moving its giant limbs that grew from what was presumed to be its torso like a spider, absorbing the beings around it.

Usually, when something is large, it appears slow no matter how fast it actually moves, but this thing moved so quickly that it seemed very fast despite being comparable in size to a modest mountain.

In an instant, within less than 20 seconds, it absorbed all the living beings in the central plaza of the city where the summoning ritual had been held, then left the plaza and began absorbing everything in its path.

Whether living or non-living, anything that touched its body was swallowed whole and absorbed.

And the objects it absorbed included even the ground beneath and the water filling the space, with no exceptions. Moreover, this being gradually grew larger the more it absorbed.

With just the lightest touch, it absorbed things so quickly they seemed to disappear instantly, and it grew in size exactly proportional to the mass it absorbed.

The combination of these two simple but maximally effective characteristics ultimately caused this being to grow exponentially in size—

Eventually, this mass of flesh, which had grown to about the size of a medium-sized asteroid, swallowed the Dolphinman mothership whole, then was covered by an egg-like sphere formed of psychic structures, becoming an egg the size of a planet.

And after some time had passed.

By the time the confused Dolphinman nation had barely calmed down and sent exploration vessels to the egg.

Crack!

The surface of that massive egg made of psychic structures began to crack, and these cracks expanded to encompass the entire egg—

—CRASH!

Like glass shattering, the egg broke into pieces in an instant, and from within, a huge streamlined object emerged.

※ ※ ※

Compared to the previous planet-sized mass of flesh, the being born from this egg was definitely smaller.

Its length was barely comparable to the diameter of a planet, and its height and width were less than 1/4 of that diameter.

The form of this thing, which by merely existing was rejected by the world and had to consume an enormous amount of mass as resources to maintain itself, resembled an Earth native creature, a whale.

With its streamlined body and massive mouth, tentacle-fins with strands of tentacles spread at the ends, approximately 200 pairs of eyes of various sizes embedded throughout its body, and elegant movements reminiscent of jellyfish or octopuses.

This thing, with an appearance that humans would typically associate with a “space whale,” turned its eyes toward the surrounding exploration vessels as if observing them.

CRASH!

Using the fact that its essence was not of this world and thus barely affected by the physical laws of reality, it teleported in an instant, devoured the ships, and then—began to eat everything in sight one by one.

First, this whale began its predation in the planetary system where the Dolphinmen lived.

Starting with smaller objects like asteroids and satellites, then the Dolphinman fleet that approached to subjugate it, and with the size it gained from these consumptions, it absorbed Earth-like planets.

These attacks, where it rammed into planets with its body and absorbed them, swallowed even any resistance or attacks that merely touched it.

An absolute offense and absolute defense, unity of attack and defense, where attack is defense and defense is attack—if one were to make a comparison, it would be like a self-aware, moving black hole. It went around madly devouring anything with mass.

No matter how massive the temporary body it formed based on psychic night as a shell for its manifestation, the essence of this whale-formed monster was still a psychic being.

Since the temporary body was literally temporary, it required unimaginable energy to maintain itself while being attacked by the world’s homeostasis. This monster, contradictorily for a being that defied the principles of this world, moved according to the most fundamental behavioral principle.

Survival instinct. That was the principle by which this planet-sized tentacled whale moved.

To survive after being separated from its source, to remain in this world—the real world—for as long as possible, and to do so, it needed to obtain an enormous amount of energy.

Fleeing from that terrifying main body, for that reason, the tentacled whale swam through space, devouring numerous things.

It attacked and annihilated psychic beings possessing divine status who appeared with fleets to stop it, and in the process, it devoured psychic beings temporarily manifested in reality, becoming even more powerful.

And with the power gained through this process, the monster became able to prey on stars, finally obtaining a physical body in the real world, allowing it to remain.

It lost various special abilities based on the instability it had as a psychic being, but in exchange, the monster became a being possessing stellar-level mass and power.

However, despite becoming what could be called a cosmic entity, this monster still moved and sought to build power due to its survival instinct.

In this way, it destroyed 25 interstellar civilizations and devoured as many as 41 stars as it roamed the universe.

Cosmic Horror, the sensation felt when intelligent beings encounter a transcendent entity they can never oppose.

Politely speaking, this monster, which could be described as awe itself—

One day, was neutralized by a mysterious being that suddenly appeared.

If one were to describe this mysterious being, it resembled a female figure—or female mannequin—wearing a skintight bodysuit that covered even the head.

On its head part was a helmet with a hole in the center of the face, and through that hole was an amber-colored, chilling eye. The skin was predominantly white, gradually glowing purple toward the extremities.

Additionally, milky-white tentacles similar to those previously attached grew like hair from the back of the helmet, and these tentacles became purple toward the ends, like the torso.

Moreover, in the center of the almost pure white chest was a tattoo that looked like tentacles extending from a huge mouth, and in its hands, it held a staff with irregularly attached hexahedrons at the end and an elegant sword with a blade made of energy.

When this being pointed its staff at the monster, with a vast energy reaction, all the energy sources inside the monster were instantly annihilated—

With this simple action alone, the monster that had been moving with the momentum to devour the entire galaxy became a whale-shaped, ultra-massive mineral mass.

It was an end that was too empty, too absurd.