Part Three: Mermaid

Jia Xin, on the other hand, sat leisurely on the sofa, sipping tea.

"Jia Xin, are you coming with me?" Zhang Chen asked.

"No. If something happens in the house while you're down in the lake, it'll be too late. I'd better stay here."

Thinking back to when everyone had gone swimming before, Jia Xin had remained on shore in his usual clothes, completely unmoved.

Could this guy be afraid of water? Zhang Chen nearly laughed at the thought.

"Fair enough. The lake is too large. If I search it, I might end up too far from the villa. It really wouldn't be safe to leave everyone alone here. Let him stay. Besides, I might be even stronger underwater than I am on land right now."

Zhang Chen nodded. At the same time, his right hand transformed into a wave and sent Er Wa's equipment back to him. Er Wa's eyes lit up at the sight, and he nodded repeatedly.

Zhang Chen did not have everyone see him off. It was not a big deal, and he would be back in an hour or two. Only Wang Yizhi took his hand and came with him to the lakeshore.

"Zhang Chen," Wang Yizhi said softly.

"Huh? What is it?"

"Mm... when you come back, I'll cook for you."

"Okay." Zhang Chen smiled. It seemed the little girl was still jealous over Miao Shuangshuang.

"If I became like that, would you come looking for me?" Watching Zhang Chen prepare to enter the water, Wang Yizhi finally voiced what was in her heart.

"Dummy, I'd never let you get hurt. Don't overthink it. When I get back, I want a feast, so hurry up and get cooking."

"Okay!" Wang Yizhi happily ran back to the villa.

Watching Wang Yizhi's retreating figure, Zhang Chen felt warmth fill his heart as he slowly walked into the lake.

"Even if I find Xiao Lan, she'll probably just be a walking corpse by then. Forget it. I'll take it one step at a time and look into what this lake is hiding."

His entire body sank beneath the lake's surface. Instead of the suffocating sensation of being unable to breathe, he felt as though every cell in his body was drawing oxygen from the water.

"This feels amazing!" Zhang Chen's movement speed in the water increased severalfold, and he swam like a mermaid.

As he went deeper into the lake, he gradually noticed something strange.

"What's wrong with the water in this lake?"

Zhang Chen tried transforming his entire body into water, but after doing so, he found that he could not merge with the lake water. He existed as a separate entity.

In his water form, Zhang Chen gradually noticed that the seemingly crystal-clear lake water was different when viewed as a liquid himself.

"Every drop of this lake water seems to contain some strange substance that prevents me from assimilating it."

Since he could not assimilate a large amount of lake water at once, Zhang Chen focused on a single drop. He enveloped it within his body and attempted to assimilate it.

"It seems possible."

Under the immense pressure of every cell in Zhang Chen's body, a faint red threadlike strand was peeled from the drop of lake water. The instant it was removed, that drop was assimilated into Zhang Chen's body, leaving only the fine red strand behind.

"Have I seen this thing somewhere before?"

After pondering it for a long while, he recalled what had happened a few days ago.

"Right. The mass of red blood in Wang Yizhi's bedroom the night before last felt exactly the same. Could it be..."

Zhang Chen temporarily put aside the search for Xiao Lan, because he seemed to have discovered a massive conspiracy.

The enormous lake was shrouded in thin mist, so the entire lake could not be seen from the villa. Zhang Chen swiftly swam toward the other side like a fish. After nearly twenty minutes, he saw what lay on the far side of the lake.

"Just as I thought. The villa is so far from Jiaoping Village, so how could it have affected the village? So that's how it is."

What Zhang Chen saw was lake water gathering into a small river, with Jiaoping Village situated along its banks.

"If that's the case, the whole village may have already been affected. This time, the difficulty is truly high. I should find Xiao Lan first, then go back and discuss it with Jia Xin. We need to make an escape plan."

With a splash, Zhang Chen dove straight toward the bottom.

"This lake is so deep?" Zhang Chen kept swimming downward, following a nauseating aura. The deeper he went, the stronger that nauseating aura became. Yet he had already descended nearly two hundred meters without seeing the lakebed, while the disgusting aura had already made his heart palpitate.

To prevent accidents, Zhang Chen had been constantly stripping and assimilating lake water from the very beginning. By now, he had assimilated nearly as much lake water as his own body mass.

At a depth of two hundred meters, sunlight could barely reach Zhang Chen. Everything before him was nearly pitch-black, and he could only rely on his telekinetic field to sense his surroundings.

"This..."

When Zhang Chen dove to a depth of around two hundred and fifty meters, faint Red Light appeared in the formerly dark depths. That crimson glow not only brought him a nauseating aura, but also a sense of despair.

Naturally, Zhang Chen greatly slowed down in his water form and spread his Telekinesis five meters around himself, ready for battle at any moment.

Yet even the fish swimming past him failed to notice his existence. Slowly, Zhang Chen entered the area of Red Light and finally saw the lakebed.

"How many people died here?"

The lakebed within the Red Light was covered in white bones. There was no need to count to know that over a hundred people had died here. Even Zhang Chen felt his heart tremble at the sight. Yang Zi had only killed a few dozen people last time, but this time, there were already so many visible at the bottom of the lake. It was truly astonishing.

"Is this a Blood Demon? How many people has this Rodin killed? Wait, what is that?"

Zhang Chen continued downward. Upon reaching the lakebed, he saw the object emitting the red glow. A slender vine grew out from the skull of a white skeleton, and attached to the vine was a round, spherical object radiating red light.

When Zhang Chen moved closer for a look, he was stunned.

Inside the red sphere was a small fish, like an infant growing inside a mother's womb.

"Is this fish hatching? This is completely like giving birth to a child."

At that moment, another red sphere not far from Zhang Chen moved. A fish slowly emerged from it, its belly still attached to something like an umbilical cord. The fish opened its mouth, bit through the cord itself, then swam toward the surface.

"Is this a mermaid breeding ground?" This was completely different from the mermaids Zhang Chen had imagined.

"If so many mermaids are breeding here, then who is giving birth to them?"

The moment Zhang Chen thought that, he sensed an extremely dangerous aura approaching from deep within the darkness to his right. The other party's speed was no slower than his own.

"Speak of the devil. There's no time to leave. I should hide here instead. Those fish can't detect me, so I can only gamble that this thing can't either." Though Zhang Chen's water form could not assimilate the surrounding lake water, it looked no different from it.

Before long, an enormous "mermaid" arrived. This time, it truly was a "mermaid." Its lower body was a gigantic fish tail over five meters long, while its upper body resembled that of a human "woman." However, that "woman" was assembled from hundreds of women.

Several hundred young women were pieced together to form the mermaid's upper body. Each one appeared to be asleep, her eyes tightly shut. Only an exceptionally beautiful twenty-year-old girl at the very top had her eyes open, surveying her surroundings.

"Isn't that Xiao Lan?"

In the upper-left area of the mermaid's body, Zhang Chen saw a short-haired woman with her eyes closed. Who else could it be but Xiao Lan?

At that moment, the giant mermaid reached the area of Red Light and stopped. Its sudden stop gave Zhang Chen a fright, and he thought he had been discovered.

But the beautiful woman with open eyes was not staring at him. Instead, she was looking at the red spheres around them.

Suddenly, the woman moved her hands. All the women on the giant mermaid's upper body opened their eyes, then separated from the mermaid's main body one after another, transforming into individual mermaids. These were finally the beautiful mermaids Zhang Chen had imagined.

After more than a hundred mermaids separated, only a cylindrical structure resembling a honeycomb remained on the giant mermaid's upper body. These mermaids began caring for the red spheres, their faces filled with maternal kindness and tenderness. The scene was deeply unsettling.

The separated Xiao Lan differed from the other mermaids. Her legs were merely covered in scales and had not transformed into a fish tail. She swam to a red sphere not far from Zhang Chen and began caring for it attentively as well.

"I'll see if she still has any self-awareness. If she does, I'll have to risk saving her. If not, I'll head back. I probably can't handle that big thing by myself. It's far stronger than either of the two ghosts from before."

The mass of liquid Zhang Chen had become slowly drifted toward Xiao Lan. Only upon getting closer did he realize that Xiao Lan's eyes had become round like a fish's, her pupils shrunk into tiny circles at the center. Two fish gills had grown on her cheeks, and silver scales covered every part of her body except her head.

"I'll give it a try. Even if she's conscious, she probably won't survive after being saved, but Jia Xin might have a way."

Zhang Chen still decided to try. At worst, he would expose himself and flee at full speed.

"Xiao Lan," Zhang Chen called softly beside Xiao Lan's ear.

However, Xiao Lan underwent a huge change. Her pupils slowly began to dilate, and a pained expression appeared across her face.

"Xiao Lan, Miao Shuangshuang and the others are all worried about you," Zhang Chen said quietly.

This time, Xiao Lan's body began to move as well. She used her hands to tear at the fish scales on her body, her expression one of extreme agony.

"She really is conscious. All right, then."

Zhang Chen separated a portion of water and directly fused it into Xiao Lan's cervical spine, instantly severing the connection between her brain and body. This was the move used by that Drowning Ghost last time.

With her limbs going limp, Xiao Lan's body was supported by the liquid Zhang Chen had become and slowly pulled out of the area of Red Light.

"Oh no. Xiao Lan seems to be connected to that giant mermaid."

The moment Zhang Chen brought Xiao Lan out of the Red Light, the woman atop the giant mermaid fixed her gaze on him. Then the mermaids below, who had been wholeheartedly caring for their young, all grew sharp fangs and claws and swam toward Zhang Chen.

"So fast."

Zhang Chen dragged Xiao Lan forward at full speed, but the hundred-plus mermaids behind him kept pace without slowing at all. Furthermore, the route back to the villa had been blocked by them. He could only swim toward a small hill on the other side of the lake, hoping these things could not go ashore.

"Every one I kill is one less." Seeing the hundred-plus beautiful mermaids relentlessly pursuing him, Zhang Chen's killing intent rose as well.

Zhang Chen could already manipulate water with Telekinesis, and in his water form, he could unleash his greatest combat strength underwater.

Zhang Chen directly separated the lake water he had assimilated earlier, shaped it into dozens of water spikes, enhanced them with Telekinesis, and fired them at the hundreds of mermaids behind him.

Swish, swish, swish! The invisible water spikes pierced through the bodies of dozens of mermaids at the front, and bright red blood instantly stained the water.

That attack had consumed nearly half of Zhang Chen's Telekinesis and the lake water he had assimilated along the way. But it achieved its effect: the deaths of several dozen mermaids at the front visibly slowed the group as a whole.

Zhang Chen looked behind him and saw that the pursuing mermaids had actually turned back.

"Are they scared? No."

Just as the thought arose, the giant mermaid entered Zhang Chen's field of vision. The returning mermaids had gone back to merge with the giant mermaid.

"Aah!" A piercing cry traveled through the water and reached Zhang Chen's ears.

"We're done for. That big thing is angry..."