Fortunately, this wasteland was far from any city. Otherwise, the explosion could have easily caused hundreds of millions of casualties.
Shinji and Tatsumaki were both within the blast zone.
Tatsumaki blocked the impact with her psychic barrier, and instead of being alarmed, the destructive force of that massive Tailed Beast Bomb only made her even more excited.
Shinji, meanwhile, stayed seated, cracking sunflower seeds as if nothing had happened. His "intangibility" allowed him to completely ignore the explosion, and naturally, the seeds in his hand were intangible along with him.
[Alert! Host has controlled the Ten-Tails to defeat a "Demon-level monster." Reward: 40 points!]
[Alert! Host has controlled the Ten-Tails to defeat a "B-class wanted criminal." Reward: 10 points!]
[…]
A string of system notifications rang in Shinji's mind.
Apparently, that nation-destroying Tailed Beast Bomb had coincidentally wiped out several monsters and wanted criminals hiding in the uninhabited area.
By his estimate, he had just gained another two or three hundred points.
At that moment, the Ten-Tails fired again, this time unleashing a beam-like Tailed Beast Bomb, slicing toward Tatsumaki like a laser.
This was much faster than the previous massive blast, and the lingering smoke from the explosion obscured her vision, so she failed to dodge immediately.
Her barrier took the full brunt of the beam, and cracks quickly began to spread across its surface.
"!"
Seeing her shield about to shatter, Tatsumaki shot upward to evade the beam.
"Out of all the monsters I've faced, your destructive power is the greatest," she admitted, then smirked. "So… can you withstand my attack?"
With that, Tatsumaki spread her arms wide, no longer holding back her strength.
But just then, she remembered a certain someone was still below.
"Hurry up and get out of the way! Don't say I didn't warn you!" she shouted to Shinji.
"Hmm? Hmm hmm, mm mm mm. (What? No, just do your thing.)" Shinji mumbled before stuffing his mouth with a handful of seeds.
"Hmph! Fine, don't say I didn't warn you!"
With a cold snort, Tatsumaki unleashed her psychic power against the Ten-Tails.
On both sides of the monster, the ground erupted as two massive kilometer-high rock walls tore free and pressed inward to crush it.
The Ten-Tails' body warped under the pressure, letting out a pained roar.
The next second, it fired a barrage of Tailed Beast Bombs, blowing the rock walls apart. The remaining blasts shot upward like machine gun fire toward Tatsumaki.
She darted through the air at high speed, dodging them all.
"Not bad…" she admitted, surprised by its resilience and defense.
If it had been any ordinary dragon-level monster, it would already be pulp from that crushing strike.
She then poured even more power into her next move. Rarely encountering a worthy opponent, Tatsumaki was starting to get carried away. She twisted her hands as if wringing out an invisible cloth, aiming directly at the Ten-Tails.
In an instant, the air itself became a crushing vice, wringing the monster with invisible force. It was almost her full power, tearing apart the surface of the earth as the Ten-Tails screamed in pain.
"Hm~!" Tatsumaki let out a cold hum, unwilling to believe that this move still wouldn't be enough to bring him down. The massive body of the Ten-Tails twisted under the violent turbulence, warping like a wet towel being wrung out.
However, she had underestimated the monster's vitality. The Ten-Tails held on stubbornly, staying active even after enduring the crushing force for a long while.
For Tatsumaki, manipulating such a vast mass of air and trying to grind the Ten-Tails apart was draining. Her stamina was already more than halfway gone, but her fighting spirit had completely taken over. She no longer cared how long her body could keep up and pushed her psychic power to the limit, determined to finish the beast off.
A few minutes later
After a while, Tatsumaki was panting for breath. The furious winds began to subside, the air growing still again. Across from her, the Ten-Tails looked battered and twisted but showed no sign of being close to death. When the dust cleared and her view sharpened, Tatsumaki's brows knit together, a trace of disbelief flickering in her eyes.
"Tch…" she clicked her tongue. "What a troublesome creature. Its life force is ridiculously strong."
She had just used one of her deadliest moves, yet it still wasn't enough to finish off this monster.
With all her focus locked on the Ten-Tails, she momentarily forgot that Shinji was also there. Raising her arm and opening her palm, she used her psychic power to drag down a meteor from the edge of space. It wasn't particularly large, only a few dozen meters across. Anything bigger, she couldn't guarantee she could force down.
The Ten-Tails immediately formed a Tailed Beast Bomb and fired at the meteor, shattering it with ease.
"As I thought, that won't work on you. Then next…"
Tatsumaki was about to unleash another large-scale attack, unaware that her stamina was quickly running dry. She might collapse from exhaustion before she could kill the Ten-Tails. More importantly, the Ten-Tails could not be killed. Wasting her energy like this would only wear her down to death.
"Ten-Tails, go all out. No need to hold back," Shinji ordered silently.
With his permission, the Ten-Tails went full power, roaring before unleashing Cataclysm once more. Earlier, it had held back because Shinji was present, but this time… Oh boy.
The scale of the attack was several times greater than before, instantly darkening the skies. Thick clouds rolled in, lightning bolts rained down in endless streams, most of them striking toward Tatsumaki, while countless tornadoes spun toward her from every direction. The ground quaked violently, and floodwaters roared down from the mountains. It was the image of the apocalypse.
On the other hand, Shinji stood unfazed, using Intangibility to completely avoid the destruction. The only one truly in danger was Tatsumaki.
Her expression shifted. She hadn't expected her opponent to have been holding back before. This was clearly the monster's full strength. She could have escaped in the first moments, but her pride refused to allow such a humiliating retreat.
Instead, she chose to face the Ten-Tails head-on. She had her pride, and now she was far too furious to back down.
She poured the last of her strength into manipulating the elements to clash against the Cataclysm, shielding herself with psychic barriers for defense. But matching stamina with the Ten-Tails was without question a disastrous choice.