Who said this card is outrageous?

"Do you guys think these fishmen are really fearless?" a boy in a baseball cap muttered as he walked. "They lost so many of their kind last night, and they still dare to stay on the shore? They're completely different from usual."

“Who says otherwise?” another short boy chimed in. “These guys used to hide in the sea for days after getting beaten up once, but this time they’re acting like nothing happened.”

"Alright, alright, stop talking nonsense. Pay attention to your surroundings and don't crash." The leader of the team was a third-year college student named Shao Minglei, a second-tier warrior, who was the temporary captain of this squad.

He walked at the front, his eyes constantly scanning the surroundings: "The commander of the city guard said that our mission today is to find out the distribution of the fishmen on the shore, and we must not confront them head-on."

Several people echoed this sentiment and continued walking north along the coastline.

After walking for about half an hour, Shao Minglei, who was leading the group, suddenly raised his hand, signaling everyone to stop:

About thirty meters ahead, at the boundary of the coast, there was a group of mermen. Roughly counting them, there were about a dozen, mostly ordinary first-tier mermen, with two second-tier merman warriors mixed in.

"Just two brutes?" The baseball cap-wearing boy, having assessed the situation, curled his lip. "We could take them down in a minute."

"Wait a minute." Shao Minglei suddenly frowned and whispered, pointing towards the sea, "Look over there."

Everyone followed his gaze, and their expressions changed simultaneously—

Suddenly, a large group of fish-men emerged from the sea.

Leading the group were two Tier 3 murlocs that were significantly larger than ordinary murlocs. On the left was a Tidecaller murloc covered in gray-blue scales, holding a bone staff, with water ripples flowing around him. He was a spellcaster and shaman among the murloc race.

The fishman on the right, however, is a completely different style. It is several times larger than the Tidecaller fishman and is covered with thick scales, like a moving wall.

Two thick arms are covered with thick exoskeletons, giving people an invisible sense of oppression just by standing there. This kind of fishman is called the Giant Bone Fishman. It is a tank-type warrior in the fishman race. It has thick skin and flesh and is extremely strong. Ordinary third-level superhumans cannot break through its defenses at all.

Behind these two Tier 3 murlocs, a continuous stream of murlocs emerged from the sea: murloc warriors, wave-riding murlocs, tide murlocs... There were more than twenty Tier 2 murlocs alone, and countless Tier 1 ordinary murlocs, densely packed and seemingly endless, surging out of the seawater.

"Holy crap..." The short guy's mouth gaped open wide enough to fit an egg. "What the hell is going on?"

Shao Minglei's face turned ashen, and without saying a word, he made a retreat gesture: "Retreat, retreat quickly!"

Without him saying anything more, everyone was already retreating. Their numbers were no match for the Tidecaller Murlocs.

That thing has extremely strong mental perception capabilities; it could be discovered if you're not careful.

Fortunately, it was surrounded by restless fishmen, making it impossible for it to calmly investigate, which gave the students a chance to escape.

The group retreated more than two hundred meters in one breath, until they crossed a low ridge and confirmed that the Tidecaller fishman could not sense them, before stopping to catch their breath.

Although forced to make a "strategic retreat," Yu Renjia and others were extremely excited.

Such a large-scale operation by the fishmen must be very important intelligence. Reporting it will earn us a lot of academic credits!

Shao Minglei quickly glanced at the group of people and pointed to two of the faster students, including the short one: "You two go back to Weicheng immediately and report back. Remember to explain the situation here clearly."

Without a word, the two who received the order turned and ran, while the rest stayed behind to continue monitoring the fishmen's movements.

Shao Minglei observed from a distance with his binoculars and found that the fishmen did not seem to intend to move. After coming ashore, they gathered in that area, as if waiting for something.

"Just waiting like this isn't going to work," the boy in the baseball cap said, leaning over Shao Minglei. "Hey, does anyone have any Murloc cards? Could we send someone over to scout things out?"

As soon as she finished speaking, the young female card master in the team rolled her eyes: "If it were that easy, would you need to tell me?"

Lin Xiaoyi, a junior and a second-tier card master, is the strongest fighter in the team besides Shao Minglei.

She stated that summoned creatures are not real life forms, and the summoned murlocs lack independent consciousness. They are fine to fight alongside, but they are completely incapable of doing delicate tasks such as gathering information, and they might even be discovered by the Tidecaller murloc.

The boy in the baseball cap was speechless after being rebuked, and he shrank back, not daring to say another word.

Just then, Yu Renjia suddenly raised his hand: "Um... I have a card, maybe I can give it a try."

Everyone expressed their curiosity—they were currently at least 250 meters away from the group of fishmen, and as long as they didn't make too much noise, they didn't have to worry about being discovered by the fishmen, so they acted with a bit of recklessness.

After all, they were just a few college students, not a properly trained city guard.

A pale blue magic circle unfolded on the ground, and after the light faded, the Tide Spirit holding a trident appeared before everyone.

Upon seeing the Tidal Sea Spirit's appearance clearly, Lin Xiaoyi immediately frowned: "Why does this fishman have so many tentacles on its head? That's so strange."

Before Yu Renjia could even finish speaking, Tide Spirit became displeased, turned around, bared its teeth at Lin Xiaoyi, and kept making "fizz fizz" noises.

At the same time, the trident tapped the ground twice, looking quite unconvinced.

Yu Renjia, who was on the same wavelength as the card, translated in a timely manner: "It said...this is its racial characteristic, it's very powerful, and it's getting angry."

Lin Xiaoyi was stunned for a moment, then her eyes widened – the intelligence of blue card summons was indeed much higher than that of green card summons, but the behavior of this fishman in front of her was too human-like!

Seeing this, the other two also curiously communicated with the Tidal Sea Spirit, and then discovered that although this little guy seemed unreliable, he was indeed very clever.

Not only can it understand complex instructions and independently judge whether it is dangerous, but it can even decide what to do when necessary.

These are things that ordinary blue card summons cannot do.

"Then let's send it to gather intelligence." Lin Xiaoyi finally compromised. "Although it looks a bit strange, fishmen naturally have many mutated forms, so it shouldn't be detected when it blends in with that group of fishmen."

There was one more thing she didn't say because she was mindful of the Tidal Spirit's feelings—it's just a card, and even if something is discovered to be wrong, it can be summoned again after it dies.

Yu Renjia patiently assigned a task to the Tide Spirit, which the latter quickly understood.

"Fitz!"

The little guy slung the trident over his back, flicked his fish tail, and strode confidently toward the shore where the fish-men gathered.

Everyone lay down on the ground again, holding their breath.

Chapter 29 Establishing Authority!

Tidal Sea Spirit, carrying its trident, swaggered towards the direction where the fishmen were gathering.

Its steps were light, but its presence was imposing. At the same time, the tentacles on its head swayed slightly in the air, not forgetting to sense the danger around it.

It hadn't gone far when it arrived at the outermost edge of the murloc army and saw a group of ordinary first-tier murlocs rummaging through the rocks, all skin and bones, clearly the kind who hadn't had a proper meal.

Upon hearing the noise, the merfolk simultaneously raised their heads, and their bodies visibly froze the moment they saw the Tidal Spirit.

The fishman society is strictly hierarchical, and the suppression of the first-tier by the second-tier is an instinct ingrained in their bones. The first-tier fishmen didn't care about finding food and immediately scrambled to the sides to hide, preferring to huddle together rather than stand in front of the Tidal Sea Spirit.

The Tidal Sea Spirits adapted quite quickly, swaggering over without even glancing at them.

The further you go, the more fishmen you see, scattered in twos and threes on the rocks and beach.

Without exception, all the first-tier merfolk instinctively made way after sensing the aura emanating from the Tidal Sea Spirit.

Some of the more timid ones even lay down on the ground, not daring to lift their heads.

The Tidal Spirit was quite pleased with this. As it was walking, it suddenly felt an unfriendly gaze coming from the side.

Turning my head, I saw a second-tier merman warrior, a size larger than an ordinary merman, with obvious muscles in his limbs, and holding a crude bone knife made of polished bone.

Its gaze fell on the trident in the Tidal Sea Spirit's hand, and a greedy glint flashed in its pupils.

Behind the murloc warrior were seven or eight first-tier murloc minions, each of them looking menacing.

Tidal Sea Spirit remembered Yu Renjia's instructions and decided not to cause trouble in order to avoid being discovered.

So it looked away, pretended not to see anything, and continued walking.

However, its retreat did not deter the merman warrior. Instead, it made the Tide Spirit think that it was just a showpiece and that the trident was just something it had found by luck, so it became even more provocative.

The merman warrior strode forward, blocking the Tide Spirit's path, making "crackling" noises as he brandished his bone knife in the air, his gaze fixed on the trident in the Tide Spirit's hand.

The meaning is clear—hand over your weapons and we'll let you go.

Upon seeing this, the surrounding merfolk quickly retreated, making room for the two second-tier merfolk, who huddled at a distance, watching with a mixture of fear and curiosity.

Several other second-tier merfolk also noticed the commotion, but they made no move to intervene, simply observing from the sidelines.

In the world of fishmen, stealing from other members of their kind is commonplace. If the person whose property is stolen is unable to protect it, then they are deemed unworthy of it.

The Tidal Sea Spirit had no choice but to stop.

It tilted its head, looked at the merman warrior, then at the trident in its hand, and then slowly turned around.

The merman warrior thought it was about to back down, so he plunged his bone knife into the ground, opened his mouth full of sharp teeth, and let out a series of mocking "quack quack quack" sounds. His henchmen behind him also joined in the shouting, making quite a scene.

Then the tidal sea came alive.

Its body transformed into a blur in that instant, the tip of its trident drawing a silvery-white arc in the air.

[Mischievous Punishment]!

The merman warrior's laughter abruptly stopped.

It looked down at its chest in disbelief—a clean cut ran from its shoulder to its waist, and dark green blood was gushing out of the wound.

It opened its mouth, trying to make a sound, but only managed to squeeze out a few indistinct syllables from its throat.

The next second, a section of the upper body slid down from the waist and crashed heavily to the ground.

One fatal blow!

The whole process took less than two seconds.

The air around them seemed to freeze. The merman warrior's underlings stared blankly at the corpse split in two on the ground, trembling with fear.

It's unclear who knelt down first.

Then came the second, the third... all the underlings knelt down in unison, their heads buried deep in their chests, their bodies trembling like leaves.

The first-tier merfolk who were watching from afar also erupted in excitement. Their gazes toward the Tidal Sea Spirit changed from fear to worship, and a few of the bolder ones even knelt down, chirping and chattering, their expressions full of fanaticism.

The meaning couldn't be clearer: they want to acknowledge it as their boss.

The Tidal Sea Spirit originally didn't want to pay attention to them, after all, it still needed to return to its master's side, what use was there in having so many underlings?

But then it thought, if it could recruit enough underlings, or even go further and take control of the merman army, wouldn't that be more beneficial to its master?

When the time comes, we can ask whatever information we want and do whatever we want, which is much better than sneaking in like this now.

Tidal Sea Spirit's little brain lit up, and she thought this idea was very reliable.

Having made up its mind, it slammed its trident into the ground, glanced at the kneeling fishmen, and acknowledged them as its underlings.

The first-tier merfolk were relieved and scrambled to their feet, obediently standing behind the Tidal Sea Spirit.

Tidal Sea Spirit glanced at them briefly; there weren't many, only a dozen or so. They still needed to collect more.

Its gaze then passed over the densely packed first-tier merfolk in front of it and landed on the few second-tier merfolk in the distance.

After observing them, it discovered that these second-tier murlocs were scattered, each occupying a territory and a group of followers, and they kept to themselves.

That makes things simple—

Tidal Spirit once again hoisted its trident and strode toward the nearest Waverider.