Rubble and silt slowly sank through the murky seawater.
Several Many-Armed Folk shamans dragged away the body of one of their own.
The corpse's Symbiotic Carapace was intact, but the shock wave had pulverized its internal organs.
Dark green blood seeped through the gaps in the carapace, trailing long threads through the water.
Unas stood before the collapsed entrance, surveying the devastation.
A Centurion swam up to him and lowered his head.
"Chief, the entrance has been blasted shut. They used alchemical explosives. We lost twenty warriors clearing rubble, five beast tamers, and five sea beasts."
Unas said nothing and flicked a tentacle.
Behind him, the seawater stirred in the shadows as a creature slowly advanced.
It was nowhere near as large as a Siege Crab, measuring only five meters long, but it looked far more ferocious.
Its shrimp-like body was covered in a thick carapace that looked as though it had been polished from obsidian, its surface covered in strange spiral patterns.
Most striking were the pair of foreclaws folded against its chest, disproportionately thick compared with its body. Each ended in an enormous, hard, hammer-shaped bone club.
A Level-Four Magical Beast, an Armor-Crushing Shrimp.
The Centurion bowed his head even lower.
"Chief, are you sure you want to use it? The Armor-Crushing Shrimp consumes too much. Keeping it working for a day requires half a barrel of primordial blood crystal, plus... the meat of an entire adult Sea Cow."
"We can't afford to drag this out." Unas's tone remained flat. "If we keep digging by ordinary means, the land dwellers will use alchemy to destroy our progress again and again. Time is on their side now."
His tentacle pointed toward the collapsed rubble.
"Continue."
At the Beast Tamer's urging, the Armor-Crushing Shrimp crawled toward the pile of boulders