The scene before them offered a kind of answer.
The towering Fish-Man warrior was certainly no weakling among his kind.
Yet his all-out strike had not hurt that figure in the slightest. Instead, it had destroyed his own weapon.
The sight made one sinister-eyed leader among the onlookers knit his brows.
"Human,"
he began, his voice like sandpaper scraping a reef, "you're more troublesome than you look."
Before his words had faded, he lunged forward.
He moved so fast he almost left an afterimage.
His right fist arced toward the temple, two fingers of his left hand hooked toward the eyes, and his right leg snapped up with an air-rending shriek toward the lower abdomen-all three vital points were targeted in a single breath.
The onlookers instinctively clamped their legs together, a chill running down their spines.
A scream rang across the docks.
But the one curled up and trembling on the ground was the attacker renowned for his brutality.
"You... what exactly..."
He struggled to prop himself up, his right fist shaking uncontrollably, his right leg barely supporting his weight.
Most shocking was his left hand: his index and middle fingers bent sideways at unnatural angles, crimson seeping steadily through the torn flesh.
"I didn't do anything."
The young human who had remained in place answered with a smile, not even the hem of his clothes disturbed. "I was just standing here.
"To be honest, that combination had some technique to it. A Navy officer might really have suffered if caught off guard."
But to him, it probably felt like little more than a mosquito bumping into him.
He was completely unscathed, while the one who had attacked with all his strength was covered in injuries.
"Bastard-!"
Rage, fully ignited by that contempt, overwhelmed the pain.
His injured right