MASG chapter 99

 

Tension was at its peak. The hybrid mermaid had never seen this type before.

The hybrid leader held a weapon similar to a spear. She pointed the spearhead at the unfamiliar mermaid. “This has nothing to do with you! When an adult leader is speaking, a newly adult male mermaid is not allowed to interrupt!”

“Gulynas, wait!” Another hybrid mermaid swam up behind her. “Nas, we can’t start a war. We can’t beat them.”

Gulynas hesitated and lowered her spear. In terms of combat strength, they really couldn’t defeat the Deep Ghosts. The Deep Ghosts were larger. They used blood-red fish tails and had semi-transparent double back fins for support, allowing them to soar freely in the sea. They were also extremely capable, with echolocation abilities that could detect any slight movement in the sea.

By comparison, the hybrid mermaids were far inferior.

They had no innate abilities. Their only advantages were division of labor and the use of weapons. They possessed human underwater weapons but would not use them against their own kind, only for hunting.

“What Nixida said is all true. I swear in the name of the Black Sirens! Everyone, don’t fight! Don’t fight!” Aituoda also swam over. This was the first time he had been caught up in a conflict between family members, and he was extremely nervous that they might hurt each other by mistake. “I, Aituoda, hope you can reconsider. Don’t fall into a trap.”

Qiuman’s double back fins showed no sign of folding. “Don’t take the hybrids’ side. They are full of schemes.”

“No, I’m not taking the hybrids’ side. We just want to remind you not to be used by humans,” said Nixida.

The tip of Aituoda’s tail had been curled the entire time. It was their hand, wrapped around half of a human skull. Nixida took the skull and quickly swam in front of Qiuman. “I, Nixida, Kuni by your side, and Aibaoyin’s younger brother Aituoda swear that everything we say next is true. On our way here, we encountered a human. Kuni shattered him with ultrasonic waves, and he turned into high-temperature bubbles.”

“Qiuman, it’s true.” At that moment, Kuni was the only one who could calm the violent Qiuman. She swam over—her body was only one-third the size of Qiuman’s—yet she bravely held Qiuman’s hands. “Even if you don’t believe them, you have to believe me.”

Qiuman looked at Kuni. Even though she could barely see, she could still sense the outline of her Nini. After a long moment, Qiuman’s double back fins finally folded softly. As she called a truce, the other Deep Ghosts also retracted their double back fins.

“All right. Tell me what’s going on,” Qiuman said, nodding.

Nixida seized the opportunity and explained everything that had happened from beginning to end. The skull was the best evidence. “At first, I also thought he was a hybrid, but when I got closer, I realized he had two real legs, not two fish tails.”

As soon as he finished speaking, all the hybrids looked down at their own twin fishtails, including Gulynas.

The hybrids’ body shapes were not much different from humans’, ranging from 1.5 to 2 meters. Their twin tails were single fish tails split into two: romantic, large, double-layered tail fins. They were indeed two fish tails, like human legs, but with a single-layered tail fin that was relatively short and more like two feet.

Compared to the ear, back, and elbow fins of other branches, they had none of those. The hybrids’ upper bodies were purely human. Their narrow gill slits and thin tear membranes made it difficult for them to find a sense of belonging. However, this also defined the hybrids’ communal nature. Their settlements were similar to the division of labor seen in human society.

“Explain in more detail,” Gulynas said as he swam in front of Nixida. “Let me see the skull.”

Nixida handed the skull to her and turned back to face Qiuman. “You said you saw a hybrid kill Yanbo. Did you find any human bones?”

“No, I searched very carefully and found nothing,” Qiuman said, looking at the skull. “This is human. I believe it.”

Whether you believe it or not, mermaids can’t leave behind corpses anyway. Gulü Nas returned the skull to Nixida. “I can confirm this is human. I understand humans better than any of you.”

“No, there’s still a lot you don’t understand. I’m the mermaid who understands humans the most,” said Nixida.

After he said this, both sides cast astonished looks at him. Especially from the hybrids—logically, no other group should understand humans better than they do, yet this male sea demon dared to declare otherwise.

“Because I am a mermaid raised by humans, I’ve forgotten many things.” Ni Xida tried to mediate between the two sides. He couldn’t let his kin fight each other to the death. “I believe I still have a human partner whom I loved deeply… but in the eyes of most humans, we are just fish in the sea—to be enslaved, driven away, or exterminated. They want to see us slaughter each other and be pushed into desperate situations. We’ve already seen the silver devices and the fragments. They’ve already begun to act.”

The mermaid was overwhelmed by the key information. For a moment, the seawater itself seemed to solidify around them. Each individual thought carefully. There had been occasional conflicts between branches in the past, but never total annihilation. If humans took action against them, it could easily escalate into genocide.

“Qiuman.” Kuni looked at her again.

Qiuman nodded helplessly. “All right. If that’s the case, I declare that Lurxior and Aman[mfn]This wording follows the raw text, so it may sound a little unusual (possibly mermaid language).[/mfn] will temporarily cease hostilities.”

“All right, I declare a ceasefire as well.” Gulynas nodded. Her twin tails swayed as she swam in front of Nixida. “Is there any more information? We need more.”

“There are fungal filaments inside the skull,” said Nixida, letting out a breath. Finally, the fighting had stopped. He held up the skull. “This is all that’s left of the body. When I picked it up, there were dead fungi inside. I suspect that humans used fungi to control them. I just can’t figure out why their bodies would react with seawater.”

“Nas, do you have any thoughts?” Kuni asked her.

Gulynas had red hair and very typical East Asian skin tone. She thought for a moment. “I once made a sailor fall in love with me. He said he used to work for a research institute…”

Just as she said this, Nixida suddenly felt a sharp pain in his head.

The pain was so intense that he briefly lost consciousness, as if there were spiral blades twisting endlessly inside his skull. He clearly reacted to that sentence, but he couldn’t determine which word had caused him such pain.

“Are you okay?” Aibaoyin immediately supported him.

“I’m fine. Maybe I’ve dealt with sailors and research institutes before,” Nixida shook his head. “Gulynas, please continue.”

“Alright.” Gulynas only continued speaking after feeling respected. “Inside research institutes, they do keep some strange things. Animals, plants, fungi—even aberrant species and parasites—exist there. Humans fear these things, yet they also study them. So, I believe what Nixida said. The one who killed Yanbo was most likely a corpse controlled by anaerobic fungi. A human corpse. It does not belong to a mermaid, nor is it a hybrid.”

“Go on,” Qiuman said, listening while thinking.

“As for those bubbles…” Gulynas was also puzzled. “It could be an acidic or alkaline reaction.”

“What does that mean?” Now it was Qiuman who was completely confused.

“Acidic or alkaline blood—strong acids or strong alkalis—don’t exist on the seabed. These liquids are relatively stable when they are not in contact with water. But once a wound forms and they come into contact with seawater, a series of intense reactions is triggered. Of course, this is just my speculation. I can’t judge whether it’s true or not.”

Nixida turned the skull over and over. “If what you said is correct, then this kind of fungal living corpse that can walk on the seabed is an ecological weapon.”

“The purpose of weapons is slaughter.”
Aituoda felt the danger. His tail suddenly felt cold from a sense of crisis.

“If it’s for slaughter, then there can’t be only two living corpses. Then where are the rest of the ecological weapons hidden?” Aibaoyin said what Nixida was thinking. The fear brought by these words was real.

It would be impossible to go to such lengths just to send down two living corpses. Where were the others? How many were there? Mermaids knew that fighting depended on force suppression and winning by numbers. Humans couldn’t possibly not understand this. They couldn’t dive to fifteen thousand meters, but their ecological weapons had already arrived.

Amid their speculation, a sound came from beneath their feet.

Nixida was the first to sense that something was wrong. His ear fins vibrated wildly as he quickly looked toward the fissure. “Not good! Could they be hiding inside the fissure?!”

The seawater surging out of the fissure was warmer than usual—this was terrain found nowhere else on the seabed. Gulynas slapped her forehead and said, “Could this fungus like warm places? Yanbo’s tragedy happened right at the fissure entrance!”

The movement below seemed to confirm her words. In the blink of an eye, rolling bubbles surged out. Nixida circled the fissure to inspect it. At first, he couldn’t see what was happening below clearly, but when the bubbles passed, he saw the most bizarre and terrifying scene on the seabed.

Countless humans were climbing upward.

They might already be dead, or they might still have a little residual consciousness left. With smiles on their faces, they climbed with their bare hands. No matter how steep the fissure was, it could not be a dead end. Their hands clung tightly to the rocks as they silently approached. Those bubbles came from someone who had been injured by accident—perhaps his finger was cut by a sharp rock. Exactly as Gulynas had guessed,

—his blood reacted with the seawater.

“Everyone, pay attention—protect the territory!” Qiuman’s double back fins, which she had just folded away, spread out again.

At that moment, the mermaids on both sides were in agreement, yet they also felt helpless. These ecological weapons were like ghosts. No one knew how long they had been lurking, moving quietly right under their noses. Now, they were all active. A rough estimate suggested there were thousands of them.

If they were thousands of people, that would be manageable. But what should they do about thousands of exploding corpses?

Nixida continued to patrol, trying to find a way to deal with them. The sirenn’s combat power seemed to be nullified now. He couldn’t rush over and tear them apart. This was an ecological weapon that couldn’t be touched. No matter which branch it was, none could escape the scalding seawater surge once they got close.

“Don’t let them come up!” Gulynas was the first to throw her spear.

Her spear was accurate and powerful, piercing straight through a person’s chest cavity. The person immediately exploded, turning into a mass of white bubbles within the hundreds-meter fissure. More and more spears were thrown. The hybrids’ weapons were the first to be used, but they had minimal effect. There were only a limited number of spears.

Kuni patrolled with Nixida, occasionally using sound waves to defeat a few. This was a long-distance battle. The mermaids’ every step seemed calculated. More and more bubbles were produced, filling the fissure. But when the bubbles dispersed, it seemed there were tens of thousands more below, climbing relentlessly upward.

Did they really have to retreat? Abandon this territory?

Inside the research institute’s ventilation ducts, Mi Dou had just crawled to a spot above the kitchen.

He hadn’t expected this route to lead him to the kitchen. Now, he was extremely close to the fungal mother body. The panels below did not completely block the view. Through the gaps, Mi Dou could see more details of the fungus beneath.

Yan Xia was clearing the way ahead. Red map markers were projected onto the duct walls. Squelching sounds came from below—the fungus seemed to be feeding.

Go, hurry! Yan Xia turned back and signaled to Mi Dou.

Okay. Mi Dou returned the signal, slowly moving his legs and softening his breathing. But the next moment, he saw that the person below had stood up as if having received some kind of command.

The person, still wearing a researcher’s uniform, stopped directly beneath the ventilation duct after standing up.

No way. Had they been discovered? Could the fungus actually hear? Mi Dou thought this, still clinging to a sliver of hope. But his hope was always so fragile and never realized.

The person below raised his head and smiled at him.

It’s over. Mi Dou closed his eyes in despair.