Chapter 128: Little fish

Chapter 128: 128: Little fish

A blinding flash of spatial light tore through the silence of the dimly lit apartment. The portal collapsed instantly, violently expelling Naomi. She crashed heavily onto the hard floor, the brutal impact driving the air from her lungs.

​She violently retched, vomiting a mouthful of dark blood that soaked her ruined clothes. "I... I can’t do this... I can’t," she gasped repeatedly. Tears streamed down her pale cheeks, solidifying into iridescent pearls the moment they struck the floor with a series of soft, hollow clinks.

​"If I hadn’t burned the last of my life force to escape just now, I would have died at her hands," she murmured, her vision blurring with tears.

​Her limbs felt like lead. Unable to stand, she dragged her broken body across the floor, her blood leaving a gruesome, smeared trail as she clawed her way toward the bed. Reaching the edge, she tugged desperately at the hanging bedsheet. The sudden movement dislodged her phone from the mattress, sending it clattering onto the floor right in front of her.

​"Please don’t be broken," she whispered, snatching it up with trembling, blood-stained fingers.

​The screen flickered to life. She immediately dialed Trison’s number. The agonizing ringing seemed to stretch into eternity before the line finally clicked open.

​"Did you succeed?" Trison’s voice echoed through the speaker, chillingly detached.

​Naomi coughed violently, her throat rattling as she struggled for breath. "Tri... Trison, please save me. I... I am dying," she pleaded, vomiting another mouthful of crimson onto the floor.

​A suffocating silence hung on the line. Then, his freezing voice returned. "Did you succeed?"

​"I... I didn’t," Naomi sobbed, more tears escaping her eyes to harden into pearls. "I’m severely injured. Please, save me."

​"You couldn’t even handle a single, simple task, and now you are begging me to save you? How useless you are," Trison snarled, his voice dripping with disgust.

​Naomi wept bitterly, desperately trying to stifle the agonizing sounds of her cries. "Fine... can you... can you please just return my essence? It... it can still save my life," she choked out, fighting the blood pooling in her lungs.

​"Return your essence? What a joke. Just go ahead and die since you are so useless. As for your essence, I will auction it off soon. It should fetch a staggering price," Trison replied with ruthless indifference.

​"Don’t... please don’t do this... I’m begging you!" she sobbed, but the line abruptly went dead.

​Naomi’s grip failed, and the phone slipped from her fingers. "Sure enough... humans only involve themselves in things that benefit them," she murmured, coughing up another pool of blood.

​"You are entirely correct, my dear mermaid," a smooth, echoing voice resonated through the room.

​The air in the apartment instantly dropped to a freezing temperature. Naomi froze. Her bloody body began to violently shiver, every instinct in her screaming of approaching danger.

​Anah materialized directly in front of Naomi out of thin air, her arms elegantly folded across her chest. She looked down at the broken creature with cold amusement. "But you should blame yourself more for being so painfully naive. After all, humans only know how to use the brainless ones as their disposable chess pieces," Anah mocked, a cruel smile playing on her lips.

​Naomi scrambled backward in terror, her bloody hands slipping on the floorboards until her back slammed against the wooden frame of the bed. "No... Nova, please... please let me go this once! I promise I will never cross your path again!" she cried.

​Anah laughed softly, a melodic yet terrifying sound. "Tell me, what are you willing to trade for your miserable life? If it holds enough value, I might actually consider letting you live."

​With a wave of her hand, a lavish, high-backed chair materialized behind her. Anah sat down gracefully, crossing one leg over the other, her mismatched crimson and blue eyes pinning Naomi to the spot.

​"Trade my life..." Naomi murmured. Desperation fueled her. She forced herself up onto her unsteady feet, slipping in her own blood. Stumbling toward her wooden wardrobe, she pulled open the door and retrieved a small, ancient wooden lockbox. She dragged herself back to Anah, collapsing to her knees, and offered the box up with violently trembling hands.

​Anah took the box and flicked it open. For a fleeting second, a rare expression of genuine surprise crossed her face. Inside rested a softly glowing stone, intricately carved with strange, chaotic, yet mesmerizing patterns.

​"A Mermaid Stone. It seems I didn’t miscalculate after all." Anah plucked the glowing stone from its casing and casually tossed the wooden box aside.

​Seeing Anah accept the tribute, Naomi immediately pressed her forehead to the bloody floor in a deep bow. "Please... please spare me," she wept.

"I have experienced enough betrayal in this human world," she thought, her heart breaking. "I just want to go back home and live peacefully, but I ended up destroying my own life. I just pray she lets me go." She thought.

​Anah stared down at the weeping Naomi. "I am very satisfied with what you have used to buy your life. Therefore, I will give you two options. You may only choose one." Anah leaned forward, her gaze piercing.

​"First, I can give you the chance to avenge yourself. However, you will be entirely on your own. I will not offer a single hand of help to fight your battles; all I will do is heal your current wounds," Anah said, a cunning, predatory smile spreading across her face. "Second, I can send you back to your home planet. You have the opportunity to escape this world right now. The choice is entirely up to you."

​The glowing stone vanished from Anah’s palm, and she casually returned to inspecting her manicured nails.

​Naomi clenched her fists tightly against the floor. "I want to avenge myself so badly. I want to tear him apart with my bare hands. But without her direct help, if I go back there blindly, I will definitely be captured again. And since my essence is still with him, he will make my life worse than hell." She reasoned, her knuckles turning white as she gripped her bloodstained clothes.

​She looked up, staring into Anah’s terrifying, mismatched eyes with sudden determination. "I... I want to go back home."

​Anah slowly raised an elegant eyebrow, the air in the room thickening with dark temptation.

​"Think it through carefully, little fish. If you return to your ocean without your core essence, you will be absolutely nothing. Your own people will look down on you with pure disgust," Anah whispered, her voice a velvety, seductive poison straight from the devil’s tongue. "Don’t you think... you should fight him, and take back what is rightfully yours?"