Chapter 306

Seong-Hwi landed on the rooftop of a building beside the grocery store where blood was rising from. He withdrew the Wings of Evolution and observed the ensuing chaos underneath. A hammerhead shark merfolk was rampaging in the area as the guards were doing their best to restrain him with their Do Sangas.

“Gahaha! Die!”

“Stop him!”

“Dammit! He’s a Front Tooth soldier! He’s strong!”

“Gaaahh!”

“Don’t give him any space!”

“Easier said than done!”

One swing of the hammerhead shark merfolk’s fist tore the hard, diamond-shaped ganoid scales like tofu.

“Look, you pathetic ganoid scales! This shows that we placoid scales have the right to rule!” the hammerhead shark merfolk shouted, raising his Shark Skin Teeth even more. “Sir Carcharocles should have become the Ocean King! Not the cowardly Natantes!”

He began to spin, becoming a rapidly moving storm of blades due to Stream Force.

“Urgh!”

“Stop him!”

“We can’t! Take cover!”

They were sure that one touch from the hammerhead shark merfolk’s charge would turn them into blended fish. Seong-Hwi had unsheathed half of his Knox Stiletto at his waist when he saw something.

“Hm?”

A red silhouette raced through the water, colliding with the hammerhead shark merfolk’s blade storm.

“GURGHHH!” The merfolk was blown back, vomiting blood.

A man with red scales, red hair, and red eyes landed in front of the hammerhead shark merfolk.

“He’s...” Seong-Hwi trailed off, staring at the familiar merfolk.

He had seen him at the Ocean King’s Castle. The man was one of Natantes’s children.

“Raud, was it?”

***

“I-Illhveli!”

“It’s Sir Raud!”

“We’re saved!”

The soldiers cheered as they stared at the back of the man who was red all over. The man covered in red ganoid scales was Raudkembingur. Natantes’s ten children were known as the Illhveli by the merfolk of Pontus. Although it meant evil whales, it was meant to send fear down their enemies' spines and bring relief to their allies. Among them, Raudkembingur, Natantes’s fifth son and the eighth child, was the most aggressive.

“YOU BASTARD!” Raud roared in anger as his red hair fluttered.

He saw the blood as red as his eyes filling the grocery store, and the cold bodies of the residents who had come for groceries, ripped apart by shark teeth. The ones in more pain than the ones who experienced the irrational deaths were their families.

“Waaaaahhh! Mommy!”

“No! Nooooo!”

“Open your eyes!”

A young merfolk was crying while holding a corpse, and a man was holding his wife’s cold corpse with lifeless eyes. These scenes acted as firewood for Raud’s red eyes to blaze ferociously.

“How could a member of the Front Tooth brutally murder merfolk civilians?!” he screamed as red flames ignited from his body, evaporating the water around him.

“G-gehehe! That’s my line! You bastards are no different! My brothers didn’t even have the chance for an honorable death!” The hammerhead shark merfolk stood up as he wiped the blood off his mouth. “They were killed by a cowardly ganoid scale tribesman’s suicide bombing!”

“Silence! You shall be executed at once!” Raud shouted, stomping his foot and charging at the hammerhead shark merfolk.

His hand emitted intense heat as he gathered water around it with Stream Force, boiling it and emitting a red light.

[Activating Unique Skill: Red Boil.]

“I sentence you to death by boiling!”

“Die!!!”

Raud and the hammerhead shark merfolk exchanged blows. The hammerhead shark merfolk’s Shark Skin Teeth couldn’t penetrate Raud’s red ganoid scales, but Raud’s Red Boil inflicted pain on the hammerhead shark merfolk equivalent to being boiled alive.

“GAAAAAHHH!” the hammerhead shark merfolk screamed.

The water temperature rapidly rose, and the guards quickly retreated.

“Get away!’

“Sir Raud is running wild!”

“Evacuate the citizens to a safe distance!!”

The faster Raud’s punches became, the more of the hammerhead shark merfolk’s Shark Skin Teeth were destroyed, cooking and bursting the skin underneath.

“Pay for the sin of killing innocent citizens with your life!” Raud shouted, pointing his fingers to make a spear and aiming it at the man’s heart, knowing the weakened hammerhead shark merfolk’s placoid scales couldn’t block this attack.

“Innocent... my... ass!” the merfolk shouted.

A darkness momentarily flickered in his eyes, realizing he was about to die. He drew out his mana to the last drop to create a Pressurized Water Bomb and pointed it at the fleeing civilians.

“Bastard!” Raud shouted, quickly thrusting his hand at the merfolk’s heart.

However, the merfolk fired the Pressurized Water Bomb first.

“Geheh!” the hammerhead shark merfolk cackled at the face of death, having fulfilled his objective.

However, a hand much smaller than Raud’s grabbed Raud by the hand while Red Boil was still active, and a silver-grey lifeform resembling an elephant was floating in the way of the Pressurized Water Bomb.

Pwoo? Bulgasal said, opening his eyes and noticing a blue orb floating toward him.

The Pressurized Water Bomb exploded once it touched Bulgasal’s forehead, but Bulgasal was completely unscathed.

Pwaaahh! That startled me! What was that? Where’s Daddy?

“You!” Raud shouted, glaring at the man with black hair and eyes, grabbing his hand. “Release me, envoy of the Sēmen!”

“You cannot kill him,” Seong-Hwi said as he stared intently at the hammerhead shark merfolk.

“What did you say?”

“I will take him.”

“Nonsense!” Raud screamed ragefully. “This man is an elite warrior of the Front Tooth Corps, led by Carcharocles! Despite that, he slaughtered innocent and powerless merfolk civilians!”

“So?”

“What... did you say?”

“What does that have to do with me?” Seong-Hwi asked, shifting his gaze from the hammerhead shark merfolk to Raud.

His emotionless, black, and boundless pupils felt like they were sucking in Raud’s red eyes.

How can someone have eyes like this?! Raud thought, feeling as if he were abandoned in a deep, dark abyss.

The man with eyes like those of a serene, black ocean, filled with violent madness, continued, “It doesn’t matter to me whether this merfolk killed a hundred, or even a thousand people.”

“Bastard!”

“All that matters is that he may be a clue.”

Seong-Hwi grabbed a silver badge from his pocket. It had the symbol of the Sēmen—two shaking hands with intersecting swords on top. It was the Inspector’s Badge, which he had received with the mission scroll.

[Inspector’s Badge (Item)

Rank: F(0)

Description: A badge given to Cheon Seong-Hwi, an inspector of the Sēmen. It proves that he has the right to investigate and expel.

Skill: Connexio]

“I exercise my right to investigate. From this moment, whether this merfolk lives or dies depends entirely on me. Any complaints?”

“U-urgh!” Raud grunted, grinding his teeth as he glared at the silver badge.

No matter how temperamental Raud was, not even he could act rashly before the Sēmen. Seong-Hwi turned back to the hammerhead shark merfolk, panting heavily as he looked up at him in confusion.

Seong-Hwi slowly smiled and said, “Hello, familiar fish friend.”

***

“Shit! Dammit!” Raud shouted as he punched the wall, causing the shell ornaments of various colors to fall on the floor. “Any complaints? How dare a barnacle like him say that to me, in Gurzes?!”

‘Hehe, sounds like you have a lot of complaints,” said a short female merfolk with brown scales, giggling with her mouth covered.[1]

“I’m not in the mood for jokes, Sister Katt!” Raud shouted with a grimace.

“Kyaaahh!” yelled Katthveli, Natantes second daughter and the fourth child, as she hid behind her older sister Taumafiskur’s white dress.

“Huuu, Katt is your older sister, Raud. Watch your attitude,” Tauma said.

Raud scoffed, but stopped yelling because Taumafiskur was strong and had a brutal temper, unlike Katthveli.

“Can you tell me what Cheon Seong-Hwi said again, Raud?” asked a male merfolk who resembled a rat, staring at Raud with his shining yellow eyes.

He was smaller than the other Illhveli, but no one disrespected him. He was Mushveli, the eldest son and the eldest of Natantes’s children. He was also a man of great talent, enough for their father to entrust him with important matters.

“Brother Mus, that insolent barnacle took out his stupid badge and—”

“Not that. After,” Mushveli interjected.

“After that?” Raud thought momentarily and mumbled, “Familiar fish friend? Hah, that’s right! What does he think we merfolk are?”

“Nom, nom. Food?” mumbled Skeljungur, the sixth son and the ninth child of Natantes, as he munched on seaweed.

“Hmm. That’s something we have in common. I want to know what a human tastes like, too,” said Hrosshvalur, the fourth daughter and the tenth and youngest child of Natantes, as she licked her lips and rolled her giant eyes.

“Familiar... That can’t be ignored,” Mushveli mumbled as he tapped his chin. “Could he have some sort of connection to the placoid scales?”

“What? What do you mean, Brother Mus?” Tauma asked, her pink stripes bending as she frowned.

“I am just saying we should consider the possibility. We, the Illhveli, are the fortress of Gurzes. We must be prepared for everything.”

“So? How can the envoy of the Sēmen be in cahoots with the placoid scales?”

“The placoid scales attacked the artificial island and closed the water gate. What if they confronted Cheon Seong-Hwi? Couldn’t those shrewd bastards have made a deal with him?”

The faces of the other Illhveli hardened after understanding what Mushveli was trying to say.

“If Cheon Seong-Hwi made a deal with Carcharocles, things would progress toward the worst-case scenario,” Mushveli said.

“The right to expel!”

“Exactly. He would be our greatest weapon if he were on our side, but our worst nightmare if in the hands of our enemies.”

“Then what do we do?”

“We must prepare a deterrent. We need a way to eliminate him if in an emergency,” Mushveli said, turning around.

Behind him was a giant grey whale merfolk. His eyes were covered by the droopy skin on his face, and there were countless scars on his forehead.

“Could you kill him, Stokkull?” Mushveli asked.

“Mmm. Not by myself, Bro Mus,” answered Stokkull, the second son and the third child of Natantes.

Although he was powerful, he was a little slow-witted. He was well-known for only following whatever Mushveli told him.

“What about you, Tauma?” Mushveli asked.

Tauma stroked her pink hair and shrugged.

“Lyngbakur?” Mushveli called.

“I’m... not... moving,” slowly answered Lyngbakur, the fourth son and the sixth child of Natantes, who was even bigger than Stokkull.

Just then, a male merfolk who had been leaning on the wall in silence said, “I’ll do it.”

”Sverd,” Mushveli called.

He was Sverdvalur, the third son and fifth child of Natantes. He had brown and grey scales in a wave pattern, a sharp bony fin, and a rapier at his waist.

“Are you sure you can do this? He is an envoy of the Sēmen,” Mushveli asked.

“We are in Gurzes, ten thousand meters underwater. I won’t lose to a human who can’t even breathe without an item,” Sverd answered, seemingly on edge. “I would win if I used Ancient Transformation.”

“Okay. You’ll be in charge of monitoring him, then,” Mushveli said

Sverd nodded and asked, “Where is he right now?”

“In the Ocean Prison. He claims he will interrogate the Front Tooth soldier, but... who knows? They could be secretly conspiring against us.”

***

The Ocean Prison was located in the Bottomless Deep, directly under the Ocean King’s Castle. It was a place for imprisoning criminals, filled with water pressure so enormous that even the merfolk could barely endure it, completely sealing their movements.

The hammerhead shark merfolk groaned, frozen in place on his knees. The man with black hair and eyes stood before him, as if free from the water pressure.

“Now, tell me. No one is here. I even sent away the guards for you,” Seong-Hwi said softly.

“Tell you... what?” the merfolk asked, barely squeezing out his voice.

He did not understand what the human wanted from him.

Seong-Hwi looked into the confused merfolk’s eyes and whispered in his ear, “Are you going to keep acting like this? We’re the same race, aren’t we?”

The hammerhead shark merfolk was dumbfounded.

The same race? Is he playing around? he wondered.

That was impossible. He was a merfolk, and the man before him was a human.

Seong-Hwi stared at his confused face and said, “We’re fellow Chaos, aren’t we?”

1. This is supposed to be a pun, but it doesn’t translate at all into English. It was supposed to be about the words, any complaints, which could be interpreted as any fire, and Katthveli saying there was only water here. ☜