Chapter 61
Several members of Brad Guild are taking their final rest. After their magic power and physical strength are fully restored, they will officially start looking for Atlantis.
There are not only gravel and trees on the island, but also many monsters that appear in the jungle dungeon. They have cleared all the monsters on the island, so their magic power is not sufficient until now.
"We entered the secret realm from the underground city, and now, the setting on the island still looks like an underground city." White speculated: "Perhaps, the lost city of Atlantis is in the deepest part of one underground city after another."
Brent said, "Be prepared for a protracted war."
At this time, Joey came to them and said cautiously: "Ms. White, President... I always feel that the mermaid is a bit like a hunter."
When White heard this, he subconsciously turned around and looked at the mermaid who was a little further away from them.
The mermaid boy's long black hair and the shark fin gauze on his body almost filled the entire fish tank surrounded by the moving wall. He looked dreamy and soft in the water. He didn't pay any attention to what they were saying. He just lay on the transparent moving wall and stared at a bunch of flowers blooming on the ground.
White smiled. "So you think the mermaid's cub is the scheming guy who became the fourth S-level hunter in less than half a month in Country C, who kept a neutral attitude and kept himself out of trouble, who knew the pass to the secret realm, and who took it away?"
When she said "deeply scheming", her tone was filled with murderous intent, and it was obvious that she was very unhappy about someone taking advantage of her.
The mermaid boy seemed to sense that they were discussing him and glanced over, blinking innocently.
White's expression softened involuntarily.
She looked at Joey and smiled. "They just have black hair and green eyes. What do you think, Brent?"
"I've looked at it," Brent said quietly, "and it's fine for now."
With Brent's final conclusion, everyone else felt relieved.
Brent's eyes had been blessed with a miracle and he was able to see the approximate effects of other hunters' abilities. He confirmed the identity of the mermaid boy, which meant that the mermaid was not a hunter impersonating someone else using his abilities.
What's more, according to Haimen's description, "As long as you see it, you can understand that it comes from Atlantis." Apart from mermaids, what else can make people understand at a glance that it comes from that underwater city?
When Joey heard Brent say this, he suppressed the doubts in his heart.
He sat next to the mermaid, checking the number of potions he had on him, while complaining in his mind - mermaids have appeared countless times in cartoons and movies since childhood, why is it that the usually cold and rational bosses act like they have lost their minds when they see them?
Is it really that attractive?
...Well, maybe a little. If it is necessary to kill it, no one will hold back. But we don't have to kill it now, so what's wrong with giving it a little bit of love?
With this in mind, he raised his eyes and confidently wanted to see this beautiful mermaid who wanted to be possessed by others. He even felt that he understood the feelings of those collectors a little bit.
etc.
Why was the fish looking at him?
The mermaid floating in the sea pressed the moving wall with one hand, lowered her head, and looked at him with a smile.
Unlike the ignorant and innocent expression of the mermaid cub before, its eyes were slightly curved, and the light-colored scales under its eyes were flashing with sparkling light, which was reflected in its pupils, making its smile seem a little different.
…How long had it been looking at him?
For some reason, a chill suddenly appeared on Joey's back, deep into his bones.
*
Su Xingyuan stayed in the "fish tank" created by White's ability, watching the people in front of him busying themselves.
By now, he could tell that there were a total of seven people from Brad's Guild coming this time, of which Brent and White had the highest status, as they were blood-related siblings; Derek was second, and the other people in the team seemed to have a high tolerance for him.
The most eye-catching thing is undoubtedly the yellow names on their heads.
Looking at the yellow names above these people's heads, Su Xingyuan was very eager to try.
I wonder if the person with the yellow name will lose blood if he hits him? Can you use heavy hands to kill him directly?
The player never lets himself down, so he saved the game directly, and his eyes fell precisely on Joey, the person closest to him besides White.
The positions in the game have always been clearly visible. He has not seen many people with yellow names on their heads. According to their conversation, the reason for the yellow names is most likely that they have murderous intentions towards the existence of "Suxingyuan", but are still relatively friendly to themselves at this stage.
Joey looked up.
Su Xingyuan smiled at the man, and then without any warning, he instantly rolled his long fish tail over!
“Crash——”
Almost at the same time as the sound of water, there was a man's cry of pain.
That beautiful fish tail, shimmering in the light, was not as fragile as people speculated. Instead, it was covered with muscles. With a slight flick, it could send a 200-pound adult man flying several meters away!
The man crashed directly into the tree trunk behind him, spitting out blood and almost having his internal organs shattered.
"Joey!"
As his consciousness gradually blurred, Joey raised his head and saw the face of the black-haired mermaid in the scarlet.
It hung quietly in the water, its deep green eyes devoid of any human emotion. Only when it saw him dying and spitting blood did its lifeless expression gradually change.
It is laughing.
——It was like a hunter who had great confidence in his own strength, and when he saw the prey that he had been playing with struggling to death, he felt as if he had found a new toy...
A smile of joy.
[Joey]
The yellow nickname turns bright red.
Ignoring the various attacks coming towards him, Su Xingyuan pressed the [Load File] button.
Everything returned to the peaceful moment at the beginning.
Su Xingyuan also came up with the answer - Yellow Names can be hurt, and after being hurt, they will be transformed from Yellow Names to Red Names, which means they will have murderous intentions towards themselves.
The reason why ordinary green names are difficult to become red names is that it is difficult for Su Xingyuan to kill among them. Once they can hurt each other, it becomes much easier to hate each other.
It was getting dark and Brent was ready to set out early tomorrow morning.
White roasted a few more pieces of monster meat, came to Su Xingyuan, and asked, "Do you want to eat?"
Su Xingyuan blinked his eyes, knowing very well that the best disguise was to play dumb and stupid, the more he spoke the more mistakes he made, and act as if he didn't understand what people were saying.
Players don't need to eat anyway.
White misunderstood what he meant, and instead patiently cut off two pieces of bloody raw meat and controlled them to pass to Xiuxingyuantou.
Then White discovered that the mermaid boy turned his back and ignored her.
White: “…”
Are you so disgusted with it?
What do you mermaids usually eat?
Seeing that the other party was not hungry, she simply took the things back to the place where she came from. Before going back, her peripheral vision seemed to catch a glimpse of the mermaid wearing a sea-blue pearl earring on her left ear, and underneath that were layers of shark gauze.
This pair of earrings really suits the mermaid boy very well. She can even exclaim "How beautiful". It doesn't look like something that can be produced on this island. It makes people intuitively feel that it comes from the mysterious undersea country.
In fact, the earring is the only thing from Atlantis on the mermaid.
When White discovered Suxingyuan, he had been here for a while.
Perhaps because of the [Assimilated Fish Tail] he was wearing, Xingyuan's landing site was in the sea, but it was relatively close to the island.
He noticed that there seemed to be traces of hunters on the island, so he did not act rashly and remained lurking in the sea. He then heard Joey and John's complaints, including the "Listening to the Sea Gate" they were looking for.
Su Xingyuan thought about it, put on the title of [Legendary Fisherman], and took out a fishing rod.
[Title: Legendary Fisherman]
[When you wear this title, your chances of catching rare items will increase]
One minute later.
A beautiful pearl shell earring floated along with the sea water and landed precisely on his fishing hook, even hanging very firmly.
Su Xingyuan, who witnessed this process: "..."
Is this a new type of willing take the bait?
【Name：Listening to the Sea Earrings】
[Description: This ornament is worn by the royal family of Atlantis. It has the ability to guide the way. The sea water passes through its gaps, and it will tell the wearer the direction to return home.]
[Note: Only Atlanteans can wear it; if a human wears it and enters the waters of Atlantis with it, he will be sentenced to death immediately]
Seeing that "humans wearing it will be sentenced to death", countless vicious ideas flashed through the player's mind in an instant, but at this stage, why not let those hunters think that he is the "Tinghaimen" that can guide the direction to Atlantis?
So he put on the earrings and exposed himself to White's sight.
——What could be more like something from Atlantis than a living mermaid?
*
The night passed quickly.
When the sun just rose, Brad's team woke up and nodded to the last shift on night watch.
Since they had sorted out the things in the space props yesterday, they prepared to set off immediately after waking up. White came to the small pool they had dug yesterday and found the little mermaid huddled in the corner, looking unhappy.
She felt helpless.
As expected, the mermaid boy who didn't even want to eat their food would definitely not be in a good mood staying in such a cramped and dirty place.
White wanted to maintain the fish tank made of the moving wall, but she needed to rest in order to have enough magic power to carry out today's actions, so she had no choice but to resort to this last resort.
She used her telekinesis to lift up the mermaid again, put it into the mind-moving wall, and then walked towards the sea first.
The mermaid boy escaped from the dirty environment and happily turned around inside the moving wall, looking nothing like a human. And as it got closer to the seaside, it became noticeably happier.
"John," Brent reminded.
The thin man named John took a deep breath, put his hands in a strange posture, and the magic power in his body began to surge, and soon turned into several streams of light, which were injected into the other six people.
Su Xingyuan observed his abilities calmly.
The ability that allows humans to enter the sea without any harm... cannot be just to provide oxygen. This outrageous ability cannot even be ranked A.
So it's a support ability? Maintain the status or adapt to the environment?
Looking back, Su Xingyuan found that he had been put into the sea.
He didn't need to deliberately perform mermaid movements. He was not just wearing a tail cover. Breathing and swimming in the sea was like an innate instinct for him.
A tiny voice came from the earring.
The black-haired mermaid didn't show any clues on her face. She just swayed her tail slightly, and the blue figure swam away several meters away in an instant.
"!"
The people following him were suddenly shocked, and had a new understanding of the speed of mermaids in the sea. They tried their best to speed up, trying to catch up with the mermaid. Derek opened his hands slightly, as if he wanted to use his ability when he was completely unable to catch up.
They chased the black-haired mermaid so hard that they had to focus almost entirely on swimming and increasing their speed, and had no time to think about other things. However, the mermaid's speed was not so fast that they could not catch up with her. As long as they tried hard, they could keep a distance of not too big or too small and keep close to her.
There doesn't seem to be any need to use abilities unnecessarily.
So when the merpeople finally stopped and they arrived, everyone felt extremely tired, far more tired than they had expected from the journey.
The blue-haired boy squinted his eyes and gritted his teeth. He always felt like a donkey that had a carrot fall in front of it and had to pull the mill without sleep or food.
Others also had this subtle feeling, but when they looked ahead—
The beautiful little mermaid doesn't know yet that she is about to bring a group of humans with ill intentions into her home. She has no defense against their following her and even casts a puzzled look at her out of curiosity.
Poor, weak and stupid, it makes people feel sorry for him.
...Maybe it's just a coincidence. How could a mermaid baby who has been so spoiled have any bad intentions?
Even if he has half a human body, he is ultimately just one of the monsters in the sect, so it is normal for him to be silly.
They looked at the ruins on the seabed.
Several stone pillars that were obviously not naturally formed formed a circle, and were engraved with patterns and words that they could not understand.
And in the center of the circle is a stone of irregular shape.
The little mermaid poked at the stone and seemed to find it very amusing.
Only Su Xingyuan could see a line of words:
[Name: Atlantis's Simple Mechanism]
[Description: Inject magic power, and perhaps something unexpected will happen]
White came in front of him, but did not act rashly. He looked at the formation vigilantly, waiting for Su Xingyuan's action.
The human mind is so strange, if they think Ting Haimen is just a dead object, they will try it themselves at this time.
But when they thought that Ting Haimen was a mermaid with independent will, they would first assume that this formation could only be opened by mermaids.
However, he would naturally not refuse anything that could consolidate Yushe.
Su Xingyuan activated his magic power without hesitation and opened the mechanism.
The next moment, a flash of light appeared, and several stone pillars suddenly lit up!
In the area surrounded by the stone pillars, the sea water was stirring wildly like a whirlpool. Even these high-level hunters could not keep their bodies stable in such violent stirring. The output of magic power was forced to be interrupted, and the shells used to isolate the sea water and provide oxygen were instantly shattered.
For a moment, the world was spinning.
White only felt that she was suddenly falling from a high altitude at a high speed. The feeling of weightlessness stimulated her adrenaline, but when she opened her eyes, she found that she was falling from under the sea, "falling" onto the stone slabs on the sea surface.
Seawater was overflowing from her mouth and nose. She coughed uncomfortably, and at the same time, she did not want to waste a single minute looking down. She discovered that these were not stone slabs, but stone pillars that extended directly from the bottom of the sea and reached the surface of the sea.
The rest of the Brad Guild also landed on nearby stone pillars. White found Brent, and the two looked at each other and confirmed their guesses.
It turned out that Atlantis was not that easy to enter. Before entering, they had to pass through another underground city.
and……
Needle-like gazes came from all directions, and the chilling murderous intent contained in them made White reflexively assume a fighting posture.
She slowly raised her head and saw that on every stone pillar in this sea area, there was a hunter standing. Some were unknown and looked weak, but most of them were ruthless people they had heard of.
Being stared at by so many people, Derek's smile faded: "It looks like we have a tough battle to fight, President."
After saying this, he raised his eyes, his expression was full of hostility, and his right arm began to break apart inch by inch, but it seemed as if it was forcibly connected together by some force.
The resentment of being taken advantage of by the mermaid finally found a channel to vent.
"If you stare at me like that... you'll want me to dig your eyes out."
A young man standing on the nearest stone pillar scratched his ears and said nonchalantly:
"We are just curious about who the last few dawdling hunters are. You know, the game won't start if there aren't enough people."
"So, since you guys have delayed us for so long, shouldn't you give us some compensation?"
Everyone could understand the hidden meaning of these words. A hidden malice began to stir, and the gazes revealed by dozens of pairs of eyes suddenly became more hostile.
"Those who get the pass are not good people, I'll be frank. The compensation is simple."
"for example--"
One after another, the hunters, whether strange or familiar, looked past the members of the Brad Guild and came to the circular platform behind them, which was located in the center of all the stone pillars.
It's like a hunter seeing a very desirable prey.
"—let go of that mermaid."
At the edge of the platform, a blue fish tail hangs down, with the tail quietly resting in the water.
The young mermaid boy was sitting alone in the middle of all the stone pillars, his long black hair still dripping with water, his body covered with layers of scales and shark fins, even under his eyes, there were almost colorless scales growing, covering his fragile skin.
The mermaid, who was being fought over by humans as prey in this round of game, had no idea what she was about to face. She even tilted her head and revealed a pure smile.
Almost instantly, a black figure rushed to the central stone pillar and grabbed the mermaid boy's fragile neck!
"Bang!!"
Just when he was about to touch the mermaid boy, he was blocked by the air wall in the game and slammed hard into the transparent wall, unable to move forward any further.
【Motion Wall】
The brown-haired woman stretched out her hand, spread her fingers, and then closed them without any hesitation.
“Squeak——”
The man realized that something was wrong at the first moment and tried to use magic power to protect himself, but he was still a step too late. In the blink of an eye, he turned into a sticky mass of flesh and blood like a squeezed meat paste.
The brown-haired woman loosened her hand again, and the ball of flesh and blood fell into the sea. Immediately, many small fish with sharp teeth appeared under the sea and ate up the ball of flesh and blood in a flash.
The bloody smell continued to spread and began to irritate the nerves of everyone here.
The brown-haired woman's cold eyes swept over the hunters who showed some vigilance: "If you want to die, you can give it a try."
The other hunters looked at each other, their vigilance was eventually replaced by greed and desire. They laughed and said, "Don't be so arrogant. Get rid of them first, and then each of you will rely on your own ability to grab the fish!"
As soon as he finished speaking, almost all the remaining hunters launched an attack on the seven people protecting the mermaid boy!
When faced with a being stronger than themselves, these people who were originally hostile to each other immediately turned their spearheads towards the Brad Guild!
The red-haired woman closest to Derek was the first to jump high. A huge sickle appeared in her hand and she chopped straight at the blue-haired boy at a speed that could not be captured by the naked eye!
The blue-haired boy did not dodge, but instead grinned and revealed a weird smile.
The woman's heart skipped a beat, but it was too late to stop.
At the moment when the sickle was about to touch his body, he instantly broke into tiny pieces, and at the same time, quickly reassembled without giving people any time to react, and appeared directly behind the woman!
“Squeak!”
The sharp claws made of blood and flesh pierced into the woman's body, took out her heart, and crushed it.
The whole process took less than three seconds. The blue-haired boy's movements were vicious and decisive. His body kept breaking and reassembling, and a terrifying smile formed on his face.
The woman's body sank to the bottom of the sea. Piranhas smelling the blood swam over quickly, not even sparing the bones.
And such scenes continued to be played out around the mermaid.
The sea was dyed red with blood and the scenery was like hell. Piranhas surrounded it, picking up human bodies that fell into the sea, just like the stars guarding the moon.
But there was no noise around the mermaid boy sitting quietly here. It did nothing but watched everything with a smile. No matter how the situation changed, its expression was exactly the same as at the beginning.
Like a sculpture without emotion.
A hunter who was at the outermost edge and wanted to join the melee accidentally saw this smile and couldn't help but be stunned for a moment.
What followed was a biting chill that went straight to the top of the head.
On the round platform, the bloodless mermaid boy looked clean and sacred.
But it is precisely because the surrounding scene is too chaotic and bloody that the mermaid boy sitting here appears so sacred, so sacred that it makes people feel weird.
And the weirdness also extends to a terrifying feeling that makes your scalp tingle.
——Does it really not know that it is being treated as prey and reward by humans?
It knows, but it doesn't care.
It is happy to put itself in the position of "bait", happy to watch humans kill each other for it, and enjoys this farce with pleasure and ease.
His intuition gave him a warning, and the hunter, who had not yet had time to get involved in the melee, involuntarily took a step back.
He suddenly remembered the sirens in ancient legends.
Perhaps sirens do not need sharp teeth or powerful tails, because they know that as long as they appear among humans, blood and rain will follow, just as crew members and sailors are willing to give up their lives for them.
As for being looked down upon or treated as a prey, it doesn't matter at all. That is something that only the weak with low self-esteem would consider. It doesn't care at all.
From its perspective, it is the only hunter.
…
He seemed to be staring a little too long.
The mermaid noticed his gaze.
It looked over, its eyes fixed on him with incredible precision, then it slightly curved its lips and gave him a smile that had no discernible meaning.
The next moment, a blue-haired boy with bloodshot eyes appeared in front of him.
"Want a mermaid?"
A hand was placed around his neck. "Go to hell and dream on."
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