At that moment, they finally reached the bottom of the ten-thousand-meter abyss.
The sight before them left both men too stunned to speak.
The Thousand-Tentacled Monster's true body was actually an ancient colossal beast sleeping on the seafloor. Its body was as massive as a mountain range, at least dozens of kilometers long. Its appearance lay somewhere between an octopus and a Dragon, its surface covered in rock-hard scales, every one of them glimmering with an eerie blackish-purple light.
The enormous tentacles that had ravaged the surface were merely a small part of this monster's body. Thousands of thinner tentacles coiled around it as well, densely spread across the seafloor like a forest.
Most shocking of all, a vast graveyard of wreckage had formed around the colossal beast. Countless ancient warships, buildings, and skeletal remains of living creatures were piled into mountains, some stacked several layers high. This was clearly the burial ground of every challenger from the past thousand years.
"Just how long has this thing... been alive?" Zoro's voice trembled slightly, not from fear, but from shock.
"At least several thousand years," Jinbe said as he carefully studied the colossal beast's form. "Judging by the age of these wrecks, it may have witnessed this world's entire history."
Although the colossal beast was asleep, the pressure emanating from it remained utterly terrifying. Simply approaching it filled Zoro and Jinbe with an unprecedented sense of oppression, as if they were facing not a living creature, but the will of the entire deep sea.
"Since we're here, there's no reason to back down." Zoro slowly drew his three Divine Blades. "Jinbe, let's join forces and create a new move capable of dealing with this monster!"
"What do you have in mind?" Jinbe began drawing upon the Power of the Sea God,