(Bang)
A sword cried out as it blocked a vicious blow, aiming to smash its wielder into a bloody pulp.
Blaine eyed the creature before him with his usual look of perfect calm.
The creature looked like a horrible mutant frog.
It possessed four long tentacles in the place of arms, as its pudgy green body stood on stuby four-toed feet.
The abomination's large toothed mouth opened, revealing a long tentacle-like tongue.
Unlike the Rank-2 Unknown Blaine had fought with Captain Linda Whitaker, this creature only seemed to possess one row of teeth, albeit each size of Blaine's arm.
The creature towered above Blaine, with its head almost touching the tunnel's ceiling.
If only it was a little taller… It would have been easier to fight it in the enclosed space.
One of the frog's tentacles was pushing against Blaine's glowing white sword, while two of the tentacles were perfectly severed, leaving only ash-grey stumps that writhed in agony.
The ash-grey blood attested to the fact that the monster was an Unknown instead of a normal Magical Creature.
The remaining fourth tentacle, however, was hovering above Blaine's head, getting ready to strike the auburn-haired youth while the latter was too busy defending its earlier attack.
As he prepared to use the tentacle pushing against his sword to propel himself back to dodge the incoming attack, Blaine felt another considerably smaller tentacle coil his right leg, preventing him from moving.
Moving his eyes, he quickly noticed that none other than the creature's sizeable pink tongue was to blame for his current predicament.
He looked all but finished, with no feasible way to avoid the attack aimed at him.
However, just as the attack threatened to hit him, a large transparent green wall materialized above Blaine, blocking the blow in his place.
As that happened, Blaine lifted his left foot in the air, and large green spikes formed on the underside of his boot.
Bringing it down on the creature's extended tongue binding his other foot, he horribly mangled the tongue's pink flesh, causing several streams of ash-grey blood to pool out of them.
Feeling the sudden attack all too clearly, the frog-like monster lessened its grip around Blaine's foot, allowing him to jump back and put some space between the two.
"Screeeh!!!'"
Letting out an agonizing scream, the abomination smashed its face into the ground.
...Right above where Blaine was standing.
However, just before it crushed him under its many pounds of fat and flesh, it suddenly convulsed.
Its body falling towards the ground split into two almost-perfectly symmetrical cross-sections, separating the creature at the nose.
Falling down on either side of Blaine, a puddle of blood was the only thing that ended up hitting him.
In front of him, another person stood with her back to him.
It was none other than Lyn.
Her onyx-coloured dual daggers dripped with ash-grey blood as she looked over her shoulder at Blaine.
"I finished off the other one. This should be it for now."
Blaine nodded his head before wiping some of the dark liquid from his face.
It was too bad his hair was drenched as well.
The sticky liquid would soon harden and clump his hair together.
But that was a problem for later.
Now, he had something else to do.
A slight glow lit up inside one of the creature's bisected remnants as a small black coloured orb seemingly materialized from thin air.
It had two circular black dots in it, the same black colour as their surroundings.
Though that was the case, the black dots appeared to be an even darker shade of black, allowing them to contrast against the background.
Blaine wasn't too surprised by the mana core's stats, as Cecelia had already used her invention to gauge both Unknowns.
Bending over next to it, Blaine picked it up and crushed it.
Greedily absorbing the mana inside, he looked a look at the other frog-like monster that Lyn had fought moments prior.
Unlike the one Blaine fought, the other one looked far more mangled, like it had been thrown into a food processor.
Just as he was studying it, he sensed something fly towards him.
Lifting his hand, Blaine instinctively caught the object with his hand even before he turned around to look at it.
It was another similar-looking mana core.
Blaine crushed the orb without thinking twice, absorbing a second portion of mana for himself.
Looking up, he saw Lyn give him a nod before she turned her way and began walking farther down the tunnel.
Blaine followed suit moments later.
It had been roughly two days since they encountered the Rock Crabs swarm.
With their originally intended pace, they would have been about 75% of the way to the exit by now.
However, their little hiccup on the first day had sent them back a full day's worth of progress.
However, luckily, they haven't had any other problems since then.
The tunnel was fundamentally incapable of supporting an ecosystem large enough for several other populations as large as the Rock Crabs.
If it wasn't for the crab monster's ability to hibernate for long periods of time, they wouldn't have been able to support their population either.
Though somehow, Blaine had already passed the 99% mark for filling for his mana core.
It wouldn't be long now until he fully saturated his core.
Sadly, however, it wouldn't be before they entered the Kelon Coalition's territory.
Watching the pair from inside the slowly moving van, the four captains couldn't help but converse among themselves.
"Those two don't really talk much, do they? It's like they have some kind of silent communication thing going on between them," Ginny muttered.
Lorie raised an eyebrow.
"Isn't that usually done between lovers? Like those two idiots."
Rick sighed and shook his head, "the only silent communication we have… Is that look Delsie gives me when she's incredibly pissed."
Delsie turned and threw her boyfriend a glare.
Rick awkwardly laughed as he hastily looked away.
"See… That exact one."
Delsie shook her head before redirecting her gaze at the pair outside.
"By the way… I've heard Lyn speak once or twice, but have any of you actually heard Blaine speak?"