Krune immediately moved his hand over his hip as his fingers dangled in the air, touching each knife once as he counted them. 'I have eight knives in total. That should be enough for now, I think.'
He pulled out two knives, holding one in each hand as he moved into a battle stance. His body glowed with the Neon Radiance, illuminating his surroundings enough for him to move about without any problems. He watched the creatures scurry over the floor at tremendous speeds.
At the very moment they were close to him, their twenty legs slammed on the flesh floor, causing them to spring towards him. Krune hurriedly dodged and swiped his knife on the creature's back, cursing when he noticed that the attack was shallow.
The spherical creatures were protected by a tough carapace. So, he couldn't wound them with normal swipes. After all, his bone knives weren't sharp enough. With that, Krune had to plunge the knives into them to make sure their lives were gone.
Nevertheless, it was easier said than done. Each sphere was around 30 centimeters in length. It was tough and had the ability to jump almost two meters. With such properties, it created a lot of variables while fighting that he had to guard against.
His heart thumped as his field of vision widened. He began to sweat. The tension of the atmosphere made him feel alive once again. Slowly, as he looked around, he became alert while his mind began to work.
What felt like the sluggishness of the drifting ocean wore off as Little Krune also woke up, beginning to think up a plan of action to help him. It used their shared thoughts to create a way for him to survive while Krune fully focused on fighting.
This way, they optimized their abilities, achieving more with less effort. Krune stepped back, kicking a fish as he jumped. The fish slammed into one of the spherical creatures, sending it flying a bit. It then wriggled on the floor a bit as its twenty legs flailed. It then reoriented itself and began to scurry towards Krune once again.
Krune didn't do the mistake of fighting against them all out in the open. That would be suicidal. He would surely be swarmed to death. After all, he could see around 20 of those spherical creatures. It wasn't a number he could simply fight against.
With that in mind, Krune kept running, picking up a twitching fish as he threw it towards the tentacles emerging from the throat. It seemed the whale-like fish didn't wish to swallow anything alive. So, the tentacles in its throat immediately swatted away the alive fish.
This action caused all the spherical creatures to pause as they simultaneously looked at the swatted fish. Two of them immediately moved towards it, clamping on it using their exaggerated mouths to kill it.
It seemed they had thought of it as an invader for a moment, prioritizing on killing it. Krune took this chance when they had stopped to lunge at the one closest to him, slamming down his hands on it with all his might.
He plunged the knife right into its back, piercing it all the way until the tip of the knife emerged on the other side. Though, it seemed that the spherical creature wouldn't die by one attack. Krune immediately plunged another knife using his left hand, watching in shock when he only managed to pierce halfway.
"Damn it! The knife doesn't have much weight. I need more strength to kill them," he cursed but had no other choice other than to attack the spherical creature. The first knife constructed its movements.
With that, he left it as is, using two other knives to jab it three to four times before evading immediately. A couple of spherical creatures had jumped at him. Krune dodged and rolled on the floor, using the fishes' bodies to defend himself from their attacks.
The attacks of the spherical fishes consisted of clamping using their exaggerated mouths. Upon seeing their attack pattern, Krune sheathed one of his knives, picking up the carcass of a fish. In his left, he held the fish. In his right, he held the knife.
Krune awaited as he watched a spherical creature jump at him. The moment it jumped, his body emitted blinding radiance for a moment, causing it pain in the eyes as it had evolved to look in the dark. So, the blinding light hurt it the most.
Using the chance when its reaction time was reduced, he thrust the fish forward, watching the fish reflexively clamp its mouth shut. For a moment, it had swallowed a huge chunk of the fish. So, it wasn't able to open its mouth as easily anymore.
They weren't the type with a stomach. After all, when they clamped on the other alive fishes, they spat out the bitten pieces immediately. With that, Krune used that to his advantage, which is why he thrust the fish forward. This way, when the spherical creature clamped on it, it swallowed a piece beyond what it was capable of biting into, becoming suffocated.
Krune immediately jabbed on its back with a knife. This time though, he didn't follow up with a flurry of attacks, noticing that he would run out of strength if he continued to do that. The number of enemies this time around was too much. So instead, he threw the spherical creature's body with all his might.
Throwing consumed less energy. On top of that, he had aimed it at the row of teeth of the whale-like fish. The spherical creature slammed into the sharp teeth, suffering from major cuts. It was unable to move for a short period, twitching on the spot.
Krune continued with this tactic of first blinding the spherical creatures momentarily, stuffing their mouths with the fish, plunging an attack on their backs with the knife, and using it to throw them towards the row of teeth with greater speeds.
A couple of the spherical creatures slammed right dead center into the whale-like fish's sharp teeth, getting impaled there as their bodies twitched. They were unable to free themselves while their blood continued to drip out.
Krune didn't relent on his attacks. All he did was look around in a hurry to react. In the meantime, Little Krune processed everything he saw and thought of ideas to use. Thanks to their shared thoughts, Krune was able to implement it instantly.
It was basically two minds working at once. As long as his body was able to move, he was able to execute whatever he thought without any errors. This was because as their thoughts clashed, they came up with new ideas and methods to make use of their advantage.
The prime advantage was the fact Krune was able to radiate with light when needed. The spherical creatures, on the other hand, were those that had evolved to work in the dark since they only operated in the whale-like creature's mouth.
With that, their sight had regressed accordingly, unable to tolerate bright light. Just that was enough for Krune to abuse, taking advantage of this fact to kill them off one by one.
It seemed that the whale-like fish had sensed his actions as the tentacles in its throat flashed, lashing out on him like whips. Some of them attacked while others tried to constrict his movements and capture him.
While dodging one of their attacks, Krune swiped with his knife, noticing that the muscle mass forming each tentacle was ridiculously tough. He immediately attributed it to the whale-like creature's humongous body.
With a body of such size, its muscles had to be accordingly tough to withstand the sheer pressure and weight active within it. Unsurprisingly, they were tremendously tough. Krune had to hack them at least 15-20 times before he managed to sever one tentacle. And this was just one of the many that lashed out.
It seemed to be a nigh-impossible feat to escape from when Little Krune finished analyzing the scene. When a spherical creature jumped at him, Krune decided to attack using the knives from the side, piercing into it.
This way, he prevented it from biting him. Krune immediately twisted one of the knives a little, causing the spherical fish to open its mouth wide. He faced it towards a lashing tentacle, twisting the knife back to normal, watching the spherical fish clamp its mouth shut with its usual force.
He smiled upon seeing his plan work, watching the tentacle get severed into two. When he had attacked the spherical creatures till now, Little Krune had collated all their reactions, thus determining the place to attack that would cause them to behave in such a manner.
Using this, he obtained a tool to use against the tentacles. Just like how the saying went, the antidote grew right next to the poison. The creatures the tentacles produced were able to injure them.
When another tentacle lashed out, Krune used the spherical fish to sever it as well. But as it had tanked two impacts, the spherical fish died. The piercing wound he had created on its sides at the start had now turned into long gashes.
Without feeling any regret, Krune did the same to another spherical creature, using it to attack the tentacles. All along, he was constantly flashing about, using everything as his shield. The moment he came across a live fish, he threw it towards the throat, causing the tentacles to move and swat it away.
The attention of the spherical creatures was also diverted to the alive fish for a moment. It seemed like they didn't have a brain to operate but acted like reflex muscles. It also seemed like they communicated through pheromones.
As they weren't intelligent, Krune made use of it to save himself during moments of crisis. Moreover, at times when the tentacles lashed out on him, he dodged, watching them be impaled on the row of teeth.
Thanks to the force behind their lash and the sharpness of the teeth, they were fully pierced through, most of the time, getting severed. Moreover, he cunningly placed himself before the teeth where the spherical creatures were stuck during his earlier attacks. And when he dodged, the tentacles lashed onto the spherical creatures, severing their bodies into two using the teeth as a wedge.
This way, he used his two opponents against one another, easily dwindling their numbers, changing an impossible-to-win situation to something manageable. Though, it was all thanks to Little Krune.
If Krune was all on his own, he wouldn't have been able to think and plan so much. There was a good chance he would commit mistakes. Moreover, he wouldn't even be able to enact such an elaborate scheme.
"Phew." Krune let out a breath in relief upon killing the last of the spherical creatures, wiping off his sweat.