Chapter 50

Chapter 50: Fishman

“Feng Ling!!!” Zhou Zhou hurled himself forward, arm outstretched—snatching nothing but empty air.

Dark, syrupy blood welled up across the river’s surface, rolled with the chop, then thinned and vanished into the black. By the time the patrol boat steadied, they couldn’t even guess where Feng Ling had gone.

The three team members stopped firing at once and swept their guns across the water, jaws clenched. A blind shot was the last thing they needed—Feng Ling was still down there.

Zhou Zhou spun in place, scanning the waves like he could stare her back to the surface. He saw nothing. Heat rushed up his spine. He seized Huang Fu Miao Miao by the collar and roared, “What were you doing?! The aberrant showed up and you didn’t warn us once?!”

Huang Fu Miao Miao stared at him like her mind had shorted out. Then tears spilled down her cheeks. “I—I didn’t know… The player’s in the water. I can’t see…”

Zhou Zhou shoved her away so hard she stumbled. He yanked out his phone and snapped, “We’re under attack on the west side of Qing Jiang No. 1 Bridge. Enemy submerged. We need support—now!”

“Movement!” Qin Liang barked. “On the surface!”

“Don’t shoot!” Xiao Li shrieked, voice cracking. “That’s Feng Ling!”

A familiar shape broke the water—and a needle-black spike punched straight through it before anyone could blink.

Zhou Zhou’s heart kicked into his throat. For one brutal second, he was sure she was dead. Then spray fell away and he saw the truth: it was only a set of clothes, skewered and drifting.

Where was Feng Ling?

His hands curled into fists. Every instinct screamed at him to dive in and rip the river apart with his bare claws. But swimming and fighting weren’t the same thing, and his beast claws—thick with fur and weight—would drag him down like chains.

And if he jumped in and died, who would keep the riverbank from turning into a slaughterhouse?

His jaw locked as he stared at the water—black, bottomless, swallowing everything. Maybe Feng Ling was already gone.

If he couldn’t save her, he couldn’t waste lives. As an inspector, citizens came first.

“To the shore,” Zhou Zhou ordered, voice like gravel. “We wait for backup. Then we sweep the bank and clear the aberrants out!”

Huang Fu Miao Miao collapsed into ugly sobs.

Zhou Zhou shot her a cold look. “Why are you crying? It’s not your teammate who died.”

“…I don’t know.” Huang Fu Miao Miao wiped her face with shaking hands. Feng Ling had never been kind to her—always ordering her around, never trusting her, always springing little scares out of nowhere. But now that she might be dead, something in Huang Fu Miao Miao’s chest felt wrong, heavy, aching in a way she couldn’t explain.

Under the river, Feng Ling sank.

Silt churned up in clouds. Blood leaked out of her in slow, dark ribbons. Between the mud and the red, the aberrants’ vision blurred—just enough to buy her a thin edge.

Her body clawed at itself, forcing repairs. Muscles tightened. Skin knitted. Pain dulled into a distant throb.

But the river didn’t care. Water pressed in from every side, crushing her lungs, squeezing the air out of her like a fist. Suffocation came for her with patient, unstoppable certainty.

She remembered the forum posts—people joking, arguing, warning. This wasn’t random. These aberrants had come for her.

To smother Mother Nest’s healing, they’d chosen the water. Even if she healed, she would drown again. And again. And again.

The smart move was to rocket to the surface and gulp air until her chest stopped screaming.

Instead, Feng Ling stayed still and watched.

One… two… three…

She counted them as they prowled, frantic in the deep.

For her, the riverbed was bright as day. The mud blurred her sight now and then, but most of the time she could see perfectly.

Three monsters circled her—fishmen, at a glance.

Their faces still held a human shape, but gills split the flesh from cheek to neck. Where arms should have been, two long, razor-stiff fins jutted out like spears. Those were what had punched through her body. Their lower halves were all muscle and tail, built to surge, batter, and drag prey under.

Once she understood what they were, the panic eased. Anatomy was honest. Anatomy was predictable.

She waited.

And in the dead pressure of the deep, she wondered who was more afraid—her, facing three monsters, or them, hunting a hidden Boss they couldn’t even see?

The fishmen tightened into a tense, twitching knot. Losing their target made them skittish. They searched in circles, then widened their sweep, unwilling to let a “meal” this valuable slip away.

Feng Ling held her breath and let the river swallow her presence.

Transparent. Motionless. Nothing.

One fishman drifted close.

It didn’t notice her until it was too late.

The bone blade hidden by Concealment snapped out—clean and fast—and sliced across its throat.

The fishman convulsed. In the instant it lost control, Feng Ling surged forward. She clamped both hands onto its head, planted a foot against its back, and kicked off hard—using its dying body like a springboard.

She burst into the air for half a heartbeat.

Cold night. River stink. Fresh oxygen slamming into her lungs.

No time.

She dove back down into the spilling blood, straight into the red haze, and saw the other two fishmen arrowing toward her.

Underwater, she couldn’t match their speed.

Four spear-fins drove at her. She didn’t dodge. She brought her hardened bone blade up and took the strike head-on.

The impact rang through her arm. She angled the blade and rode the current, forcing the spears aside so they stabbed into emptiness.

The fishmen whipped their tails, trying to correct—trying to stab again—

Feng Ling’s four fang claws shot out.

They latched onto both of their shoulders.

Crack.

The spear-fins snapped off at the base, bitten clean through. The two fishmen jerked and writhed, suddenly wrong in the water—like insects with their wings torn away, all length and panic and useless thrashing.

Feng Ling held on.

The river clouded further as they rolled and bucked. Their gills flared and snapped. Their tails slammed. They tried to shake her off, but their balance was shot, their movements sloppy and spiraling.

She didn’t let go.

Not while there was air left in her lungs. Not while the prize was still warm.

She had two bone blades.

One scythe-like blade slid out. She hooked it under a fishman’s gill and cut.

Silt flooded its mouth. Its face twisted—ugly, helpless.

She cut again, taking the pelvic fin.

Then the tail fin.

Piece by piece, she dismantled it until it could no longer swim, until it could only twitch and drift.

Then she scraped.

Scales, stripped layer by layer, until pale flesh showed beneath—until the river around them turned into a thick, dark red blur.

The second fishman—armless, wounded—was trembling so hard its whole body shook. It opened its mouth wide and tried to scream, but the sound died in the water.

Feng Ling couldn’t hear a word.

Still, she loosened her grip.

Not out of mercy. Out of calculation—because if it managed to spit out “logout,” she’d lose the trail.

The instant her fang claws eased, the fishman fled, thrashing away into the dark like something chased by fire.

Feng Ling turned to what was left in her hands.

The one she’d worked over was barely alive, shredded and limp. Her fang claws were still buried in its shoulders, its body rocking weakly with the river’s pull.

Feng Ling studied it for a long moment.

Then, as if granting a favor, she opened her claws and let it drift free.