The Era of Gods

Translator: 549690339

It’s quite magical how the Fishmen have no language of their own, nor do they speak the common tongue; they only communicate with a primitive aquatic language akin to odd shrieks and cries. Yet, both he and the Naga understood their meaning clearly—it was quite astonishing.

Lin Xiao followed the direction pointed by the Clan members. Seaweed rose from the ocean floor, dangling in the water, with brightly colored corals swaying in the currents below. Small Fishmen, each a swirl of colors, darted between the seaweed strands and what looked like nori. Here and there, groups of small fish could be seen nibbling on long strands of seaweed, resembling colorful candied haw skewers hanging off the plant.

He didn’t see any Lobster Men, but he could smell the lingering scent of blood in the nearby seawater and spotted a group of small fish frantically scavenging for scraps of flesh on the seafloor not far away.

“Attack!”

With the Short Spear in hand, he gestured in one direction, and without hesitation, the Naga and Fishmen surged forward.

He wasn’t worried about running into an insurmountable obstacle; if the Sea Lobster Men were that powerful, they would have attacked the Fish people tribe long ago instead of lying in ambush here.

A horde of Naga and Fishmen surged forward, and the Lobster Men hiding in the dimly lit seagrass and rugged ocean floor thought they had been discovered, bursting out of their hiding places.

“What a massive size!”

These Lobster Men were covered in blue shells of varying hues—bluish and purple—about three and a half meters long, roughly the size of a tiger, and resembled enormous freshwater crayfish with multiple legs. A pair of small eyes on their meaty stalks could rotate flexibly, and six tentacles on their heads waved energetically as their dark, massive claws snapped open and shut with seemingly powerful force.

They were almost the size of three Fishmen stacked atop each other and slightly shorter than the Naga, but their frames appeared much more robust.

However…

Emmm…

Not to disrespect the adversary, but the appearance of the Lobster Men didn’t make Lin Xiao think of enemies so much as a walking seafood feast.

At that moment, an idea popped into his head—should he capture some Lobster Men to raise in the Divine Realm, perhaps to cook up a Lobster feast every now and then?

The Lobster Men were fiercely aggressive, emerging from their hiding spots with rapid flicks of their four small legs and tail fins resembling duck feet, charging through the water quite nimbly and then…

Shadowy figures whizzed by like javelins, knocking them forcefully out of the way, shattering their hard shells and sending flesh flying. Dazed, they floated towards the seafloor but quickly recovered, only to be rammed by another wave of shadows. And that was the end of it.

The individual combat power of these Lobster Men was considerable, but they were few in number, just over a hundred, likely never having encountered Fishmen capable of a charge before. A sudden, surprise onslaught left them completely bewildered.

Over a hundred Lobster Men were butchered on the spot. Lin Xiao followed up on the attack, smashing one Lobster Man’s head with his spear, knocking down its protruding eyestalks and tendrils, killing it instantly.

He proved exceptionally brave and ferocious, leveraging his strength, which far surpassed that of his comrades, to kill seven Lobster Men in quick succession. The remaining were overwhelmed by the teeming Naga and Fishmen.

After the battle, one Naga and four Fishmen had accumulated enough experience, and he spent 1,400 points of Faith value to promote them.

The Fishmen are a low-level race; advancing from level zero to First Level requires a hundred points of Faith value, and without experience, a forced promotion would cost a thousand points, which is ten times the Faith value.

Naga are an intermediate race; rising from Level 1 to Level 2 requires a thousand points of Faith value, and without experience, a forceful promotion demands a full ten thousand points of Faith value.

Having enough experience allows for rapid successive promotions, but without it, a forced promotion calls for a one-year interval in Divine Realm time, and the required cooldown increases with higher levels.

The Fishmen quickly cleaned up the battlefield, collecting the large chunks of carcasses; some shattered pieces of flesh were surreptitiously eaten by them.

To the Fishmen, the taste of the Lobster Men was incredibly delicious—a vigorous seafood that could be eaten raw directly.

A few Fishmen brought over a more than three-meter-long Lobster Man, and Lin Xiao broke off one of the claws with his spear, smashed open its tough shell with a forceful punch, pried open the shell to reveal the translucent lobster meat, scooped out a piece, and popped it into his mouth, finding it chewy, sweet, and utterly delicious.

He collected only about a dozen Lobster Man corpses into the Divine Realm, leaving the rest for his subordinates to share.

As they feasted on their large portions, they remained unaware of the vast shadow creeping stealthily towards them from the sea floor about a thousand meters to the south.

Not until a Fishman who had finished a small piece of lobster meat and was cutting kelp to eat noticed a large group of Fishmen stealthily approaching through the seagrass did Lin Xiao come to his senses, shouting loudly and ordering his subordinates to prepare for battle.

However, to his surprise, these Fishmen did not immediately launch an attack after discovering them but looked at the Grey Mist Fish People with curiosity.

Lin Xiao’s gaze flickered as he surveyed the surroundings, roughly estimating that there were probably two to three thousand of these Fishmen, twice their number, but they might not win in a fight, after all, they had a large group of Nagas with them.

But since these Fishmen did not make a move right away, he also did not act, preferring to watch and wait.

At this moment, several Fishmen, who were larger than their peers and were likely leaders, swam forward, making a series of cacophonous sounds at the other Fishmen:

A clever Fishman swam forward and responded with a flurry of chattering:

“￥&%&￥&…”

“*%￥&&*￥….”

To outsiders, it surely seemed as if they were arguing, but in Lin Xiao’s ears, their conversation went like this:

“You’re not Fishmen from around here, where do you come from?”

“We’ve come from a faraway place, we live nearby.”

“Have you encountered the evil Lobster Men?”

“We defeated a group of Lobster Men that ambushed us.”

“Did those evil Lobster Men run away?”

“No, we killed them and ate them.”

“You are brave warriors!”

emmm….

The corner of Lin Xiao’s mouth twitched as he continued to listen to their unproductive conversation.

And then..

After a while, their conversation shifted from initial inquiries and communication to a friendly chat, and they seemed to have become quite familiar with each other.

Lin Xiao listened to their casual conversation without making a sound or interrupting.

He was quite curious to see whether his God Realm Kin and their counterparts from another extra-dimensional plane could spark a connection.

It seemed that it wasn’t a given for them to fight upon meeting; the species from his Divine Realm didn’t seem to be anything special in the eyes of the creatures from the Outland extra-dimensional plane; they weren’t treated differently and were regarded as a group of roaming Fishmen.

It is worth mentioning that the Black Scale Nagas, who had merged with the bloodline mainly of Fishmen, were not the same species as the similar-looking Nagas. Strictly speaking, they belonged to a variant or evolutionary species of Fishmen, and their race was still classified as Fishmen.

Therefore, these Fishmen, upon seeing the Black Scale Nagas who looked vastly different from themselves, did not show hostility as they would towards actual Nagas but felt a semblance of kinship instead..