The flashlight's beam cut straight through the darkness ahead. What awaited them at the end was unknown to anyone.
The traces of tunnel's excavation were relatively smooth. Fortunately, the downward slope wasn't too steep, making it manageable to walk without slipping.
It wasn't exactly like walking on flat ground, but it was easier.
"Come out."
Law raised his right hand, summoning Kuro.
Kuro appeared, landing on the ground ahead of the group.
"Scout ahead." Law commanded, looking at Kuro.
By now, the transactional relationship between Kuro and Law had deepened, so Kuro was no longer as defiant as before and was less resistant to cooperation.
Hearing Law's words, Kuro transformed into a wisp of black smoke and darted forward through the tunnel, vanishing from sight in an instant.
When the cockroaches emerged, they had used multiple tunnels, so the deeper sections might be like a labyrinth. Tonpa's detection abilities would be weakened in such terrain.
Under these circumstances, sending a Nen Beast like Kuro to scout was the best choice.
They couldn't predict what dangers lay ahead. Even small decisions, like whether to use luminous algae or a flashlight, had to be considered as thoroughly as possible.
This was, after all, the Dark Continent. The series of events since landing had already given them a taste of its characteristics.
The group advanced in silence, each with their own thoughts.
Tonpa was terrified and wanted to go home, but he could only stick close to Law for survival.
Biscuit, while amazed by the Dark Continent's uniqueness, remained calm and experienced.
For this underground journey, she hoped to encounter some rare raw gems. Finding gems left behind by ancient humans or naturally polished by nature would be ideal.
Bruna's knowledge was inherently limited to places like the Rock Island Crab. After encountering several terrifying creature swarms, her fear was accompanied by genuine eye-opening experiences.
Law might not have Biscuit's rock-solid composure, but he felt a sense of longing, eagerly reaching out to lift the veils and see what lay beneath for himself.
Whether it was breathtakingly beautiful or utterly ugly didn't matter.
As they ventured deeper into the tunnel, Kuro sent no warnings. The journey remained calm and uneventful.
The tunnel twisted and turned, with numerous branches along the way. The slope grew steeper, almost reaching a forty-five-degree angle.
At points, sitting down and pushing off would allow them to slide a considerable distance.
The change in slope was noticeable, but the end remained unknown. How many meters deep would it go?
Thirty minutes, sixty minutes, ninety minutes...
Down, always down.
After ninety minutes of silent travel, they encountered no dangers and saw no sign of the previously active cockroaches.
'Where had those fierce cockroaches come from?'
They had expected to encounter many on the way down, but the tunnel was eerily quiet.
Their pace wasn't slow. After two hours, they had covered nearly thirty kilometers of tunnel. Though not straight down, the depth must have been significant.
Darkness, narrowness, and deathly silence were factors that could negatively affect humans, but they didn't faze Law or Biscuit.
Even Tonpa, after several baptisms, showed improved resilience under pressure.
Presumably, if Tonpa could continue walking safely, he might not be affected in the slightest by the terrifying Aura of the Chimera Ant King.
Two hours and fifteen minutes later, Kuro, who had been scouting ahead, returned.
"Five hundred meters ahead, the tunnel ends. It opens into an underground space of unknown size." Kuro reported.
'An underground space?'
Law asked, "Are there any branching paths?"
"No." Kuro replied.
"Understood."
Law nodded, and the group continued.
Their directionless journey was finally nearing its end.
They quickly covered the five hundred meters and reached the tunnel exit, about two meters above the ground. As they approached the exit, a faint breeze brushed against them.
Law raised his flashlight, sweeping its beam through the darkness. The light revealed a vast underground space. When he pointed the flashlight upward, the beam couldn't reach the ceiling.
However, looking up, they could see a tiny silver pinprick of light… perhaps an opening leading to this underground abyss, left behind on the surface.
Tonpa's Nen Ability detected no dangers. The group jumped to the ground, each using their flashlights to scan the surroundings, where they could see all kinds of strange-shaped rocks.
There are pointed stone formations like needle forests, flat stone groups with several hollow holes, and stone forests shaped like dead trees. However, there were no signs of any living creatures or plants. Upon closer inspection, they found subtle traces of biological activity.
The team took a brief rest to replenish their energy and hydration before choosing a direction to continue.
'This place seemed to be an underground space as vast as the surface.'
After walking for another ten minutes, Law and Biscuit stopped almost simultaneously.
"There's the smell of blood."
A faint scent of blood was carried by a breeze from an unknown source.
Law and Biscuit caught the scent, but Tonpa's Nen Ability hadn't picked up anything.
This meant the blood scent was coming from at least three kilometers away.
The smell of blood indicated a struggle.
With the terrain now expansive and considering the potential threat of the cockroach swarm, whether to investigate the source of the blood scent required careful discussion.
However, both Law and Biscuit were skilled and daring. They didn't hesitate long before deciding to check it out.
Five minutes later, they reached the area near the blood scent. The surroundings were silent, and Tonpa detected no active creatures.
Under the flashlight beams, they found a pile of chaotically scattered corpses.
The first corpse they saw was a creature the size of a crocodile, covered in white bones on its back, with a lizard-like head. Its eyes were blocked by thick skin, seemingly without visible pupils.
The Bone Lizard's body was largely intact, but there was a deep concavity in the middle of its face, likely caused by a powerful blunt force impact that killed it.
What caught Law and Biscuit's attention was the charred mark at the location of the blunt injury.
It felt as if the Bone Lizard had been struck by a red-hot hammer and died instantly.
After moving around for a while, they found more Bone Lizard's corpses, each killed by a heavy blow to the head or face.
'Based on the degeneration of their eyes, the Bone Lizards were likely purely subterranean creatures.'
'The corpses died from blunt force, but the blood scent came from further inside.'
Law's group didn't linger. With Tonpa maintaining his Nen Ability, they pressed onward.
There were more and more corpses on the ground, not only Bone Lizards, but also two other types of corpses.
One resembled a silkworm in shape, and the other lay face-up, surprisingly humanoid.
At a glance, the humanoid corpse was less than 1.5 meters tall, with legs disproportionately large for its size, making them exceptionally conspicuous.