Chapter3

As Zhou Lingxin had her eyes closed, waiting for her death, she reminisced her earlier days.

She was born in a happy home, and received no end of love. Her parents were crazy about each other, and her life was great. Her mother wasn't as addicted to alcohol as she was in recent years, and her biological father had actually been around. Things like going outside to enjoy, which now seemed like a chore, were really fun back then, especially when done together with others.

But then, when she was only around 5-years-old, things took a turn for the worse and her father had made a mistake. Her mother had trusted her father a lot, but when she found him with another woman, her shock was so great that she nearly killed the man.

After getting into some serious arguments that little Zhou Lingxin was simply too young to understand, the two parties were divorced, and her father left the village, never to return again. He didn't even bother contacting the two of them to ask how they were doing. He just… disappeared.

After her father's departure, her mother's mental condition wasn't too great.

Her mother was actually from a well-off family in the village, so she had quite a few properties to her name. So while the mother-and-daughter pair didn't suffer from any financial difficulties, they were both very lonely. To cope with this loneliness, the young and needy Zhou Lingxin had tried to find comfort in her mother. After all, without her father around in such a critical period in her life, her mother was her last pillar of support that she had thought she could fall back on to.

As for her mother, she seemed to have no time for her daughter. She had only cared about herself, and rarely spent her time at home, leaving Zhou Lingxin to her own devices.

Eventually, her mother had spent much of their fortune on lavish, mortal pleasures, and she had even brought home a new husband, who had eyes for nothing other than money. In other words, he was a man that gave no love to either of them, but just nodded at everything her mother said to get into her wallet.

Zhou Lingxin found such a household repulsive. It was a stark contrast from what she was used to when her father was still around. As a result, some sort of biological defensive mechanism kicked in, and to prevent herself from getting hurt in a similar manner in the future, she just abstained from social interaction.

She had placed her trust in her parents, and they had let her down, so she did not want to place her trust in anyone else once again. This was why she was known as a shut-in, loner with no friends.

While others had spent their youths frolicking out in the fields and climbing trees, she was in a dark and desolate environment, staring blankly into space, wondering where exactly everything had started to go wrong in her life.

And on another such day in this endless abyss of darkness that was her life, disaster struck. Her world which was once painted only in black, was now tinged in her mother's red. The fish creatures appeared and took away the last few things she had in this world to call her own.

Perhaps, they were now doing her a great mercy by taking her life, and in some way, rescuing her from the darkness that was her soul. By freeing her from this mortal coil, this approaching fish man would be doing her a great service. Being fish food sounded a little better than being a prisoner for life in one's own torturous cage.

Though she thought these things, there was still a part of her that was unwilling.

Why should she be the one to die? Why should she be the one to suffer? Had her father not enjoyed his life with another woman, not caring in the slightest about her suffering? What about her mother? She had so much money to spend, yet how much did she actually spend on her daughter? Did she still even recognize her as her daughter?

If even people like that could be happy, why couldn't she? Why should she die without ever experiencing a period of prolonged happiness.

It was just so… unfair.

Slice!

In the middle of her thoughts, the fish figure's head was finally on her. The only weird part was that the rest of its body wasn't. In other words, it had been decapitated.

The bearded youth who was wiping off some blue blood from his axe was no doubt the one that was responsible for this. He had saved her life by killing the fish.

"Thank you," Zhou Lingxin murmured, still unable to believe that she was still alive.

"If you're not hurt then get off the ground and continue moving," the bearded youth grunted, then turned and left to regroup with the old man and the woman.

Zhou Lingxin wasn't the least bit offended by his response. After all, he had saved her, and it was indeed true that she was holding them all back, unable to pull her own weight in the team.

Crawling to her feet, she inspected the bite mark on her arm. It wasn't as serious as she thought it was, and was only a flesh wound. For a person not used to getting hurt though, this wound hurt very, very much.

Still, perhaps because of her recent dance with death, she seemed to ignore the pain for a while. She spotted her pan, which was forced off of her a little earlier, a few paces to her right. She quickly picked it up and walked towards the group.

As soon as she approached, she saw a nasty-looking home on the woman's lower torso. It was perhaps much worse than her own wound. There was a massive puddle of blood beneath her, and her face was as pale as a ghost's.

The group decided to head back to headquarters, as there were no survivors in sight and the woman was viciously injured. They quickly and quietly began the journey back, as the sun began to rise. The sunrise was beautiful yet no one spared it a glance, save for the old man who the woman was leaning on.

As they were slightly over halfway to their destination, the mayor's house, they heard a shriek.

"Gliiiikkkk"

They froze. It was exceptionally loud, and as the old man opened his lips to say something, more shrieks rang out from multiple, if not all, directions.

"Gliiiikkkk"

"Gliiiiiiiiik"

"Gluuuuiiiiik"

As they looked behind them, what they saw was an absolute nightmare in the making. Dozens upon dozens of the grotesque fish-like creatures were running in the same direction that they had been moving in earlier. However, the fish creatures were not going for them. They seemed to be running back to the lake.

The group of four momentarily stopped moving, and watched the flood of creatures, coming from both close and far, run past them. They stood like this, for a good 10 seconds or so, before something else caught their attention.

"Gliiiikkkk"

"Gliiiiiiikkkk"

Two cries came out from the creatures that stopped right in front of them. These two were clearly different. They were a slightly darker blue, bigger in mass, and more muscular in appearance . They were also holding onto thick wooden sticks in their meaty claws. These monsters radiated a completely different aura from the other fish monsters. Even the lesser fish creatures noticed this and acted cautious in front of them.

Everyone in the group realized that these creatures were a step above the rest—some sort of higher beings amongst the fish race. The old man quickly told everyone to back up slowly, and he stood in front of the wounded lady, shielding her protectively. As they began to slowly retreat, they kept eye contact with the creatures.

They barely got more than 20 feet away, before the creatures suddenly rushed them shrieking at full volume. One of them leaped like usual while the other one stuck to the ground.

The three that were capable of doing battle braced themselves and unleashed their own attacks. The old man stepped to the side and quickly rushed the one on the ground, clearly seeking a 1 on 1 situation and leaving the other to the man and Zhou Lingxin.

Zhou Lingxin, thinking that this current creature was pretty similar to the old one, did what had worked best in her past fights and swung her pan as hard as she could against the airborne creature.

Contrary to her expectations, however, the pan did not connect with the head of the creature, but instead the stick that the creature had swung down. The pan and the stick hit with a loud Clang!

Zhou Lingxin stumbled back from the force, her arm recoiling from the impact. As the creature landed, it didn't have the same reaction as her, and instead had the power to rush at her. The bearded man stepped in and cleaved the ground, forcing the creature back.

Zhou Lingxin fell, her right hand stinging as the bearded man engaged the creature. However, with his prior wounds and the accumulated fatigue, it was unclear as to whether he could be victorious.

*****

The old man furiously bombarded the other creature with blows, his staff moving incredibly quickly and landing constant blows. These attacks were to no avail however. The old man's staff wasn't an ideal weapon against the thicker and sturdier wooden stick held by the fish monster. It would let out a small cracking sound each time it clashed against it. Not only that, the body of the creature seemed to be adept at taking the damage as well. It was essentially like throwing an egg against a wall, attempting to break the wall with the egg.

The old man panted as sweat cascaded down his old body. His age was catching up to him and his staff was not effective. With a sigh, he gently cast the staff aside before taking a low stance.

The creature he had been facing off against saw this as an opportunity and not a threat. It shrieked once again with a "Glliiiikkk" before leaping at the old man at insane speeds and attacking him with his stick.

This was the chance that the old man had been waiting for. Without a second's hesitation, he lunged forward, grabbing the stick with his left hand before planting his right leg into the ground and throwing the strongest right uppercut he could.

It was a perfect hit! The creature was sent flying behind the old man, hitting its head onto a pole.

However, this action undertaken by the old man didn't come without a price. The old man was a seasoned martial artist and knew exactly what the pain in his hands signified. His left hand was nearly shattered from taking the force of the blow directly, and his right hand's index and middle fingers were broken and bent in unnatural angles. The creatures scales were much harder than his skin, resulting in him being hurt even though it was him who had launched the attack. His staff was also chipped in many places. All-in-all, these higher fish creatures were indeed very troublesome opponents to deal with. It was practically impossible for an ordinary person to slay them.

As the old man turned around, the sight that welcomed him wasn't exactly pleasant. The bearded man's axe had been smashed in two from the handle, and the weapon's owner also wasn't doing very well.

In addition to his previous wounds, many more bruises were now covering his body. And to top it all off, Zhou Lingxin was sitting on the ground in a daze. The old man quickly began to rush over, but it was already too late.

With a cry, the bearded man sunk to his knees before getting smacked across the head with the stick. Just like that, he was out for the count; it was unknown whether he was dead or alive.

As the creature headed for Zhou Lingxin, the stick was kicked out of its arms by the old man and it fell towards Lingxin's direction. It landed to her right, four feet away. The creature was alarmed by the sudden attack and turned to confront the old man.

The old man, knowing that he was already exhausted and hurt, knew that an extended battle wouldn't do him any good. He could already feel his senses fading and his mind was also in a bit of a mess. Even if he beat this fish now, he needed to save enough strength for fighting other monsters later on the way back. It would be bad if he overpent himself now.

The old man brandished what was left of his broken staff and gave a roundhouse kick to the incoming monster. The creature, though strong, wasn't as flexible as the old man, so it couldn't dodge the old man's swift attack. All it could do was counter.

The two parties both suffered from this chain of events, perhaps the already-injured old man even more so, but he had long since calculated this outcome. Because of his actions, the fish creature was temporarily off balance, and it had it's maw open.

The old man, without caring about his wounds, thrust his long staff into the creature's mouth. The combination of the staff and the creature's sharp incisors caused for the broken staff to completely splinter off into tiny pieces, deeply embedding themselves in the fish creature's throat.

Hurt and in rage, the fish creature charges the old man, rapidly swinging its arms. If the old man were still in peak condition, perhaps he would be able to dodge all of the fish's clumsy strikes. But now, with an injured leg, he was as good as a free target.

He thought himself to be on the verge of death, when out of the corner of his eye he saw something that gave him hope. Quickly trying to kindle this hope into something more tangible, such as their survival, he directed the fish creature's attention completely onto himself by performing very wild and flashy movements.

Eventually, he sacrificed quite a bit to manage to get the creature in a headlock, positioning it in place. The old man couldn't maintain this hold for more than 3 seconds without having his limbs torn off. But this three seconds was enough.

Bam!

The fish creature's stick which was kicked aside earlier by the old man was now returned to its owner. Except…

It was in the hands of another, and it was being used as a weapon against its former owner. The wielder was precisely the girl who had lost her wits a few minutes ago. In her eyes was the determination to survive. After clobbering the fish for long enough to turn its head into a deep cerulean paste, the old man and Zhou Lingxin finally collapsed onto the floor.