"Fishmen..." Xu Ye said calmly, drawing on the information the Bandit Lord had given him. "They originated in the First Era, the same era as mermaids. They have fish heads and human bodies, and serve as the mermaids' household servants."
"They feed on the mermaids' beautiful singing, so they can't live apart from them. Wherever fishmen are found, there must be mermaids nearby."
"They have no sexes and can reproduce on their own."
Crack!
The fishman paused, widening his dead fish eyes and flapping his fins.
"Human boy, you know quite a bit about our clan's history," the fishman said solemnly. "My name is Kus. I am a reincarnated Demigod, and the mermaids of today are nothing more than my followers."
"I merely rode my mount out to gain experience and recover my strength, yet you dared to kill it."
"Your crime demands punishment!"
He delivered that last line with swaggering bravado, pointing at Xu Ye, since this was the very fellow who had cut him out of the Golden Catfish's body.
Everyone wore an exceedingly strange expression.
They watched a fish with human legs angrily stamping his smooth, bare feet against the deck.
Qin Feng and Ivy hesitated.
They knew quite a bit about ancient organisms, and knew that quite a few almost godlike beings had recently begun appearing in the world.
Perhaps this strange fishman was one of them.
Xu Ye stopped Ivy as she was about to fetch some water and sneered. "Alice, the usual."
Alice took a Flip-Flop out of the Makeup Box, set it on a paw, and weighed it.
The Green-Headed Skeleton and the Hair Aberrant quietly stood aside, observing a moment of silence.
Kus sneered and beckoned with a fin. "It seems that unless I show a little of my power, you'll really