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Chapter 142. Mermaids and Fish-Men

Jiang Jianxin was slightly taken aback when he saw the surroundings.

Jumping into a river and ending up in an underwater subway is strange enough for anyone to see.

She knew they might have entered an underwater contaminated area, and this might be the scene inside the contaminated area.

She glanced at the subway ceiling again, and through the transparent roof, the murky water reflected in a distorted way—it was the first time she had seen the outside world from underwater, and the perspective was quite novel.

The surrounding passengers' gazes hadn't left him yet, and the prolonged stares made Jiang Jianxin, who was looking up at the sky, feel like he had thorns in his back.

She grabbed the steel handrail next to her, then lowered her head and subtly scanned the passengers in the carriage.

I didn't notice anything unusual just by looking at their faces, but now that I've looked closely at their whole bodies, I feel a strong sense of eeriness.

Those "people" were staring at her with dead fish eyes. Their upper bodies were no different from ordinary people, but their lower bodies were abruptly connected to silvery-white fish tails—not the elegant fan-shaped tail fins of fairy tales, but short, fat tails like those of grass carp in the market, with a sticky sheen between the scales.

The "mermaid" in the front row suddenly grinned, revealing two rows of fine, sharp teeth.

Jiang Jianxin then noticed that the gill slits on their necks were slightly moving with their breathing.

She subconsciously reached for her neck as well.

The moment her fingertips touched her neck, the sticky, cold sensation made her stiffen.

—Where there should have been smooth skin, but now there was a slightly opening and closing gill slit, and the newly grown soft flesh felt cool.

Her pupils suddenly contracted, and a chill crept up her spine like a venomous snake.

The surrounding "mermaids" stared at her, their mouths slowly parting to reveal sharp, white teeth, their scarlet tongues licking between their teeth, making a sticky, watery sound.

Just then, a mechanical and cold electronic voice sounded in the carriage:
"Cemetery Station - We have arrived. Please open the left door and disembark promptly if you wish to do so."

"Om——"

The moment the car door slid open, more than a dozen mouths full of sharp teeth lunged at her.

Jiang Jianxin's knuckles tightened, and he instinctively activated his sword technique.

However, the Tangguang Sword in his pocket was soaked through and was now as soft as real waste paper. The sword energy was also as if it were sealed by some kind of viscous medium, stagnating into a ball in his dantian.

Jiang Jianxin couldn't unleash sword energy or use sword techniques, but fortunately, he still had the ability to react.

The foul breath had already reached her neck. She suddenly pushed off the ground, using the water pressure inside the carriage to lift herself up, her hair drawing messy arcs in the water.

The fish-man's sharp teeth grazed his ankle, but missed, sending up a string of tiny bubbles.

"Wow..."

Jiang Jianxin was floating in mid-air, and before she could catch her breath, she suddenly felt a huge force coming from her side. With a "splashing" sound of surging water, she was pushed directly out of the subway door.

"Drip-drip-"

The warning lights flashed blindingly, and the metal door slammed shut behind her.

Through the glass, the mermaid's distorted face was frantically slamming against the water film, its sharp teeth scraping against the transparent barrier with a teeth-grinding sound.

Jiang Jianxin slumped onto the damp floor tiles of the platform, water droplets dripping from her hair forming small puddles at her feet.

She wiped the water off her face, trying to see the real culprit who had pushed her, but the light and shadow in the carriage were intertwined, and there was only the swaying shadow of the mermaid.

From the platform, the entire subway train appears to be enveloped in a flowing film of water, resembling a long, narrow water tank.

After the gates closed, the water tank subway glided through the tunnel. As the humming gradually subsided, the red warning lights at the rear of the train eventually disappeared into the darkness, leaving only the damp, rusty smell in the air.

"Cough cough..."

Jiang Jianxin coughed twice and slowly rose from the platform, supporting himself on his knees.

The dim overhead lights cast dappled halos of light on the platform, illuminating the shimmering silver light on the ground.

Jiang Jianxin squinted and looked closely, only to find that they were dozens of shriveled fish tails, their scales long since dried out and curled up like dried snakeskin. Each tail section had jagged bite marks on its broken surface, and large patches of dark red scabs spread across the tiles, emitting a pungent odor of rotting flesh mixed with the smell of the sea.

She instinctively took a half step back, but her shoes touched something sticky.

Looking down, half of a human arm, gnawed and stuck in the crack of the drain, was visible, with pale fingertips still in a grasping position.

"His upper body...was eaten?"

Jiang Jianxin murmured to himself.

The sound echoed in circles on the empty platform.

"pat-"

A sticky, wet sound came from the end of the platform, as if something was crawling out of the darkness.

Jiang Jianxin turned his head sharply and saw several twisted figures slowly emerging from the shadows.

They have human lower limbs, but are topped with huge fish heads. Their bulging eyes gleam with a dead white turbid light, and their gill covers open and close with each breath.

The monster in the front row suddenly grinned, revealing two rows of fine, sharp teeth, and made a strange "gurgling" sound from its throat.

These monsters are constructed in stark contrast to the "mermaids" in the subway, as if someone had maliciously grafted fish heads onto human torsos.

They staggered toward her, their fish lips opening and closing, dripping foul-smelling slime that left long, wet streaks on the tiles.

Jiang Jianxin instinctively stepped back, but his back bumped into the cold wall.

She then realized that she was standing in a blind spot on a T-shaped platform, and that she had no weapons to defend herself.

With the Sword Master's abilities sealed, Jiang Jianxin watched the approaching merman, took a deep breath, and quickly racked his brains for a solution.

She slightly raised her eyes, as if remembering something, and took out the small, wet paper sword from her pocket, and took out the white diary she had unlocked earlier from her sword intent space.

Because she was a foreigner who didn't speak the language, she couldn't read the contents of this book, but the power it contained was infectious and penetrating.

Even without taking out the Tangguang sword to look at it, Jiang Jianxin could imagine that a continuous stream of green light should be flowing out of the diary.

These green lights have healing properties and can also enhance her physical strength.

Jiang Jianxin found a long rope from his spatial storage and tied the white diary to his right forearm.

The moment the diary was bound to his arm, Jiang Jianxin felt a warm current explode in his arm, rushing along the meridians to the fingertips of his right hand.

A surge of power coursed through her body. She let out a long breath, took a few steps forward, and launched an attack, swinging her fist fiercely at the fish head.

"boom----"

Jiang Jianxin's right fist, carrying a fierce wind, slammed into the face of the leading fish-headed monster.

Thick bodily fluids mixed with bone fragments splattered everywhere, and the swollen fish head exploded like a ripe watermelon.

Before the foul-smelling slime could even hit the ground, she spun around and delivered an elbow strike, piercing the chest of the merman who had attacked from behind.

"Pfft-"

The moment her arm emerged from the other person's back, she clearly felt the still twitching gills.

As the remaining three fishmen pounced from different directions, Jiang Jianxin didn't even stop moving; his fists tore through the air, creating a howling wind.

The first punch shattered the throat, the second punch pierced the abdomen, and the third punch smashed the last one into the load-bearing column—the concrete surface immediately cracked like a spider web, and the fish tail embedded in the cracks was still twitching nervously.

She shook her sticky arms and watched as the platform returned to deathly silence, with only a few deformed corpses twitching slightly in pools of blood.

"pat-"

Jiang Jianxin gazed calmly into the deep tunnel.

A series of gurgling sounds came from there, as if more things were gathering in the darkness.