Engineers entered the ship’s engine room to repair the engine damaged by the plesiosaur. Soon, the ship restarted and headed toward the nearest Aphid Dock to escort the fishermen on board ashore.
Lan Bo sat on the railing of the PBB Mad Shark Unit’s ship, holding a can of beer handed to him by a crew member, gazing out at the distant horizon. The ship’s stern trailed far behind it. Wei Lan also took a can of beer and leaned against the railing, tapping Lan Bo’s can with his own: “Thanks for the help, big brother.”
Lan Bo tilted his head slightly to look at him. “Where’s the kid I tossed to you?”
Wei Lan raised his beer can and pointed to the cooler nearby, where the little mermaid baby was happily splashing around amidst a pile of beer cans, its tiny mouth—with just a single baby tooth—wide open.
The injured merfolk were all resting on the deck at the moment. When the supply soldiers handed out meal boxes to the civilians, they gave each of them a portion as well. The merfolk’s wariness melted away as they carefully accepted the foil boxes with both hands, and the sound of slurping filled the deck.
The fishermen, having narrowly escaped death, held their meal boxes with lingering fear. After just a few bites, they couldn’t help but choke back sobs, wiping their tears with their salty, fishy sleeves. The twilight cast its glow on their dark, glossy skin, and salt crystals left by the dried seawater covered their arms and rain boots.
An elderly man wiped the tears from his face with both hands, gazing at the wreckage of the shattered fishing boat floating on the sea. Aphid City is not only a port city with thriving transportation and trade, but also a major producer of premium seafood. Its annual seafood import and export volume is staggering, and many hard-to-catch species rely on these fishermen venturing into the open sea. Many have made their living from fishing for generations; for them, a well-equipped fishing boat is an asset as valuable as a house.
Recently, when the Aphid Sea was closed off, the IOA allocated a large sum as subsidies for coastal fishermen. Yet they cannot survive on these meager handouts alone; looking ahead, the bleak prospects fill them with dread.
Though they had saved their lives, the fishermen could not bring themselves to celebrate; every one of them wore a look of deep worry.
The old man was still fretting over his daughter’s upcoming wedding. The elderly couple had planned to give her a nice car as part of her dowry, but now they had no idea how to explain things to her family. Just then, a wet, icy, sharp finger gently brushed against him.
The old man looked up to meet the mermaid’s dazed and confused face. The mermaid braced herself against the deck with both hands, tilted her head to look at him, and pointed at the lunch box in his hand, her emerald-green tail gently slapping against the deck.
“Kimo, jijimuajeo? (Do you want to eat?)”
The old man blankly handed him the lunch box, which the mermaid swallowed whole, foil and all.
The mermaid burped and asked him, “Kimo, glarbowei? (Why are you sad?)”
The old man didn’t understand either and shook his head helplessly.
The mermaid pointed at his eyes: “Kimo, splash splash.”
The old man was even more confused.
After half an hour of fruitless communication, the old man smiled helplessly and ruffled the mermaid’s hair: “I’m such a fool, chatting with an animal.”
The mermaid finally felt she understood what he meant. She climbed onto the railing, called out a few times over her shoulder, and plunged into the sea. Her companions, hearing the call, jumped in one after another, their colorful tails slapping the water’s surface and sending up sprays of water.
Fifteen minutes later, the green-tailed mermaid was the first to surface, a clump of seaweed clenched in its mouth. Clinging to the hull with its fins, it scrambled back onto the deck, dripping wet, and spat the filthy seaweed at the old man’s feet.
The old man pushed aside the murky, slippery seaweed with trembling hands, his eyes widening in shock as he revealed the gold and碎宝石 hidden within.
The mermaids continued to bring up bundles of seaweed wrapped around treasures, spitting them out before the military doctor and the fisherman who had once treated their wounds. Everyone was stunned.
Wei Lan’s mouth fell open in surprise. He picked up the walkie-talkie and instructed the medics not to accept any valuable gifts, then turned to ask Lan Bo, “Is it okay for them to bring up so many things?”
“It’s just junk scavenged from the wreck. Take it.” ”Lan Bo paid no mind to the items. He casually drew the pistol from Wei Lan’s waist, removed the silencer, and fired a shot into the air.
The fishermen covered their heads and screamed, and the mermaids were startled as well. Lan Bo fired five more shots in quick succession, and the frightened mermaids leaped from the deck back into the sea, swimming off in all directions.
“Do this whenever you see mermaids from now on.” Lan Bo tossed the pistol back to Wei Lan. “They’re stupid—they can’t tell good people from bad. So don’t give them the false impression that humans are easy to get along with. Got it?”
Wei Lan took his gun, pursed his lips, and nodded. Leaning back against the railing, he took a swig of beer: “ “Don’t worry. If they run into trouble again in the future, feel free to ask our Maritime Patrol Team for help.”
After sailing for nearly two hours, the city’s outline came into view. During that time, they encountered a squadron of rescue boats that had come to provide support. Since the crisis on their end had been resolved, the rescue boats headed off to search for stranded fishermen in other waters.
It was late in the evening. The tranquil sea reflected the pitch-black night sky. Lan Bo was extremely sleepy; the chill of the sea breeze only made him want to doze off even more. As exhaustion washed over him, Lan Bo wrapped the tip of his tail around the railing, lowered his head, and took a short nap.
Suddenly, a dark current surged beneath the calm waters. Lan Bo sensed something amiss in the sea and snapped his eyes open.
The water beneath the ship seemed to freeze over, spreading instantly into a smooth, mirror-like surface as if swept by a cold current, reflecting the starlight above.
A pitch-black ghostly hand burst from the surface, grabbing the tip of Lan Bo’s tail and yanking it downward. Lan Bo startled and violently thrashed his tail to break free from the slender, ghostly grasp.
The ghostly hand, as if electrocuted, quickly retracted.
But there was more than one ghostly hand. Drifting upward like rampant seaweed, they clawed deep grooves into the ship’s steel hull, emitting a piercing, scraping sound that made one’s teeth chatter.
“Eternal spirits.” Lan Bo stared intently at the mirror-like sea, searching for any sign of the spirits.
Alarms blared throughout the ship. Crew members resting on deck were suddenly jolted awake. They quickly donned their gear, grabbed their rifles, and formed neat ranks. Under the command of Wei Lan and Feng Lang, they established a tight perimeter around the ship, keeping the civilians in the center, while medics and supply personnel remained in the ship’s holds to tend to the immobile wounded.
Suddenly, a fully armed soldier let out a blood-curdling scream as a ghostly hand lunged at him, gripping his collar and dragging him violently overboard. The soldier fell from the top deck, but instead of landing in the water, he crashed heavily onto the mirror-like surface formed by the seawater. His skull shattered, blood spattering across the surface, and his body was enveloped and devoured by countless ghostly hands, dragged into the mirror.
The seawater solidified, hindering the ship’s progress; its speed slowed visibly. Unable to channel the water into a weapon, Wei Lan moved cautiously closer to him and handed him an SCAR-L rifle.
“Don’t fight it—run!” Lan Bo snatched the rifle and used his fishtail to violently fling the soldier beside him toward the center of the deck. “He’s not someone you can stand up to.”
Wei Lan watched as Lan Bo’s expression suddenly darkened; his previously cold and indifferent face turned grim, as if facing a formidable enemy. An opponent capable of striking fear into such a powerful Omega was clearly terrifying beyond measure. Their understanding of the immortal undead test subjects remained purely theoretical; no one had ever faced a specimen in such a deteriorated and uncontrolled state.
Lan Bo looked down at his reflection in the mirror. The pristine surface revealed his image: that cold, handsome face was slowly rotting, the decaying flesh melting away from the white bones at a terrifying speed.
This trick alone was not enough to instill even a shred of fear in Lan Bo.
However, looking deep into the mirror, Lan Bo saw that many of the swimming fish had turned into skeletons; the fish near this area had all become wandering skeletal spectres, moving eerily within the mirror.
This immediately enraged Lan Bo. He pushed off the railing with one hand and leaped from the ship; an electromagnetic hum cushioned his landing. As he touched the mirror’s surface, thousands of ghostly hands reaching upward scrambled away from him like ants.
Lan Bo raised his fishtail high and slammed it down with dazzling lightning. Amid a chaotic clap of thunder, the mirror shattered, a crack splitting the sturdy surface.
Seawater surged from the crack. Lan Bo channeled the water, forming a water-steel light machine gun. Deafening gunfire chased the black shadow drifting within the mirror; bullets sliced through the surface, and the surging seawater sent a massive wave crashing upward.
The seawater poured down like a torrential rain. As the dense mist dispersed, a ghost draped in white cloth appeared in the air. The ghost wore a smile and emitted a trippy, shrill cackle.
Lan Bo, submerged in the water, tilted his head back to gaze at it and asked softly, “What exactly are you trying to do?”
The specter flickered in and out of view, wavering in the air, its shrill voice sounding like a mocking chuckle: “What orders did you give those stupid fish? The moment I get near the sea, they go on a killing spree against me.”
“It was my order,” said Lan Bo.
“Then I’ll have to deal with you first before I can continue on my way.”
“If you’ve got the guts, go ahead and try,” said Lan Bo. Though he was looking up, his eyes held nothing but contempt.
The specter suddenly burst into loud laughter. “I’m not going to fight you. Someone else will subdue you.”
He raised a hand, its palm clenching a pure, lustrous pearl, then hurled it forcefully into the sea. Grabbing the white cloth draped over his body, he tore it off and tossed it in after the pearl.
The pearl was covered by the white cloth. The moment it hit the water, a pure white fishtail unfurled, and a pair of deep blue eyes shone brightly in the dead of night.
Under the control of the Spirit of the Summoned Object’s cloak, the pearl manifested as a fully anthropomorphic summoned entity, and upon entering the water, it reverted to the form of a young albino manta ray—half of its true form.
A single bright scale, symbolizing the siren, grew on the boy’s tail, flickering in and out of view in the darkness.
Lan Bo looked at him and shook his head gently: “Kimonowa (You cannot).”
The boy stared back blankly, standing frozen in place. His lips trembled as he opened them, then he retreated helplessly.
The specter relished this spectacle. A sudden surge of energy welled up within him, sending ripples of vibration crashing into the pearl-skinned youth. The boy’s eyes instantly lost their focus, and a water-steel rocket launcher materialized in his hands, firing a transparent projectile at Ranpo.
As an M2 ability, his hydro-steel power had a broader range than Lan Bo’s innate hydro-steel ability. The hydro-steel fragments could inflict widespread damage, and his weapon forms shifted with blinding speed. After firing two rocket rounds, he instantly transformed it into a transparent Gatling gun.
Lan Bo couldn’t get close to him and could only look for an opening between dodging the rockets and bullets. The Gatling gun fired at an extremely high rate, unleashing a dense barrage of bullets—all made of hydro-steel—in an endless stream. Lan Bo felt increasingly exhausted and overwhelmed, and his swimming speed began to slow.
He dove beneath the surface and saw the child’s pure, lustrous fishtail shimmering faintly. The siren scales on his body drew nearby aquatic creatures closer, but any fish that came within a certain distance of the child would have their flesh and flesh fall away from their skeletons, turning them into swimming skeletal fish.
More and more fish skeletons gathered around the boy; all were bewitched by the siren’s shimmering scales, only to die silently in the boy’s presence.
The boy turned his head and saw the towering warship beside him, then looked at his own hands.
Thanks to his genetic modifications as a test subject, the combat chip had given him complete mastery over the core blueprints of military weaponry. He cupped a handful of seawater and flung it skyward; the water responded to his will, gathering and rising.
The seawater formed a massive vortex, and the water level actually began to drop momentarily. The ship shook violently, and the soldiers on deck were thrown about. Before their eyes, a transparent hydro-steel warship slowly rose from the sea. Its internal engine room was clearly visible, and the skeletal fish bones that had been drawn into the hydro-steel by the seawater were likewise cast into the ship’s structure, swimming slowly within the transparent steel hull.
The undead sat upon the ghost ship, occasionally letting out a few chuckles.
Lan Bo stared blankly as a transparent vessel rose from the depths, its hull cast with a dense network of skeletal frames, resembling a ghostly coffin.
He clutched his left chest, feeling a sharp pain in his heart.
The relentless battles had drained his energy to the point of exhaustion. He wanted to unleash his A3 ability, but his glands were already burning hot—he couldn’t push himself any further. Facing both an immortal specter and a manipulated Siren heir at the same time, Lan Bo closed his eyes.
Too many fish had died; their souls coalesced into a mass of Dead Sea Heartstone, flowing into the boy’s hand and elongating into a black blade.
The cry of an infant broke the stalemate of the standoff. The golden mermaid baby wriggled its plump little body out of the beer cooler, babbling and cooing as it crawled toward the Pearl Boy.
The mermaid infant was drawn to the boy because he bore the scales of a Siren. Sirens are the mothers of the sea, guardians of all aquatic life; aquatic creatures possess an instinctive reliance on them.
Wei Lan had already lunged toward the infant, but he was a split second too late. His grasp missed, and the infant fell straight through the gap in the railing.
Lan Bo transformed into a streak of blue lightning in the water, vanishing from where he stood. In the blink of an eye, he appeared beneath the ship, leaping out of the water to catch the infant in both hands before plunging back into the depths.
“It’s all right,” Lan Bo murmured, looking down to comfort the child as he released a soothing pheromone to calm the frightened infant.
The infant stopped crying and struggling; its short, golden fishtail ceased to sway, and it lay still, surprisingly docile.
Lan Bo’s gaze shifted downward, only to be met by a sea of crimson. A pitch-black blade had pierced the infant’s tender body, and blood gushed forth.
His heart lurched. He pressed his fingertips against the infant’s soft back, but even that faint pulse had vanished.
Lan Bo stood frozen for a long moment before realizing that the black knife had pierced his body from behind, emerging through his chest and shattering his ribs.
I’ll let everyone run 39 meters first