Attack of the Murlocs

This was what made fishmen so difficult to deal with. Once a fight began, it would not end until one side was dead; they fought with their lives on the line.

Most people did not have full suits of armor. Even leather armor could only protect a few vital areas and offered no complete protection.

This made it easy to get injured when fighting fishmen. A moment of carelessness could lead to severe injury or even death.

Fishmen were often filthy as well. Once wounded by them, a person's injuries would quickly become infected.

In this era, an infection could easily become life-threatening.

Fishmen could also contaminate water sources. Similar incidents had happened before—after fishmen polluted the water, countless people downstream suffered from diarrhea and vomiting, their lives hanging by a thread.

If this group of fishmen occupied Bell Island Lake, the drinking water of everyone around Maple Hill City would be contaminated.

For Duke and the others, these fishmen had to be eliminated, whether for the residents of the territory or for themselves.

Everyone quickly climbed onto the crude wooden wall. It was about two meters high—not very tall, but enough to hold the fishmen back for a short while.

Fishmen were generally only sixty or seventy centimeters tall. Under normal circumstances, they could not jump over this wooden wall.

But there were simply too many of them, and the wall was far from safe.

With bow in hand, Duke fired first, shooting an arrow straight through a fishman's head.

The fishman's death did not frighten the others in the slightest. Instead, the smell of blood stirred their savagery, and they all charged forward with shrill, babbling cries.

Wave after wave of arrows rained down, and fishmen fell one after another.

Duke and the others had yet to engage at close range. They needed to use this distance and time to reduce the fishmen's numbers as much as possible.

As the battle continued, they discovered that there were at least three hundred fishmen, perhaps close to four hundred.

A few minutes later, the fishmen reached the foot of the wooden wall.

There were only so many people, and the arrows could only eliminate a limited number of fishmen.

After charging beneath the wall, the fishmen leaped up, trying to stab the people above with their fish spears. But they were too short to reach anyone on top.

A moment later, the fishmen that had just reached the wall were shot dead, collapsing into corpses on the ground.

More fishmen kept charging in. Soon, a layer of fishman corpses had piled up beneath the wall, and the remaining fishmen stepped on those bodies to continue their assault.

Duke noticed that the corpses below were piling higher and higher, and the fishmen were gradually becoming able to attack them.

He knew then that close combat was unavoidable.

In truth, these fishmen really did not know how to think. If they had kept attacking the wooden wall blindly, far fewer of them would have died.

Duke put away his longbow and drew his sword, cleaving off the head of the fishman before him. After the head hit the ground, its two bulging, dead fish eyes still glared fixedly at Duke, as if it wanted to bite him to death.

As more and more fishmen surged onto the wall, everyone was drawn into a bitter close-quarters battle.

Duke's combat strategy was clear. He was not trying to kill as many fishmen as possible, but to avoid getting injured at all costs.

All the battle aura in his body was used for movement and defense, not offense. He did not use the Burning Wave Sword Art either.

His attack power was already sufficient against these fishmen. He did not need the extra boost of battle aura; he only needed to be careful and avoid injury.

The fishmen were not afraid of death, but he could not trade injuries for lives with them.

Not long after the close combat began, a defending soldier let out a scream.

Duke saw a young man who looked barely over ten thrust his sword into a fishman's head. But immediately afterward, three fishmen drove their spears into his stomach. When they pulled them out, they brought his insides with them. The sight was horribly gruesome.

These fishmen did not care whether they died when attacking. Their eyes held only one goal: drive the fish spears in their hands into the enemy's body.

Duke and the others soon fell into a bitter struggle. Fishmen surrounded them on all sides, and soldiers kept falling.

The air was thick with the stench of blood and fish. Torches fell to the ground and set several wooden houses ablaze.

Duke was already covered in green blood as he observed the situation around him by the light of the flames.

By then, most people had formed small groups to face the enemy together. Still, some inevitably fell when their strength gave out or when they lost focus for a single instant.

Duke did not know how long the battle had lasted. He only felt that his movements had gone numb as he repeated the same actions over and over—dodging and killing fishmen.

Suddenly, a piercing cry came from afar. The fishmen immediately froze, then retreated at high speed.

In the blink of an eye, there was not a single living fishman left around them, only fishman corpses.

The fishmen were like a tide. They came quickly, and they left just as quickly.

Naturally, Duke and the others could not pursue them. The water was the fishmen's domain, and they lacked the ability to chase them down and wipe them out.

George panted heavily. "It was probably the fishman tribe's leader who ordered them to leave. Such losses have badly wounded them as well. They should give up this place and choose somewhere else to build a nest."

Duke looked around and fell silent for a while.

The fishmen had suffered heavy losses, but their own losses were just as tragic.

Of the original eighty-odd people, fewer than fifty were still standing. More than thirty had died.

Countless others were injured, and some would likely die later from infected wounds.

Such a brutal outcome was rarely seen throughout Maple Hill County. It had been a long time since there had been casualties this severe.

Duke's group had been assigned to guard against any magical beasts that might appear. They had never expected to face an entire fishman tribe.

To deal with these fishmen while keeping casualties at a normal level, they would have needed a force of at least two hundred. They were severely understaffed.

Duke was doing relatively well. He had always focused on defense, and aside from some exhaustion, he was not injured.

At dawn the next day, reinforcements from Maple Hill City arrived. They were stunned when they saw the scene.

Fishman corpses covered the ground, with blood and flesh scattered everywhere. It was more horrific than many battlefields.

Duke and the others all returned to Maple Hill City to rest for a time, while others would come to guard this place.

Before long, rewards and compensation were distributed. Quite a few of those who had died were Nightingale's people.

They were the elite under Count Hardy, and losing even one of them pained him deeply.

Duke received a reward of fifty gold coins, along with a full month of rest.

However, that rest period was only theoretical. As long as there were enough people, he indeed would not need to carry out any missions.

But if an emergency arose, he would still have to take part.

Only after Duke returned to the manor did he learn something: Xiwen, who had once passed the selection with him and joined Nightingale, had died.

A few days earlier, Xiwen had been stationed in a small town when a high-ranking magical beast charged out of Moonlight Forest and attacked it. Xiwen had tried to hold back the magical beast, only to have his head bitten off.