Chapter 13: Anti-Humans, Rotten Fish Swarm

Canghai City’s coastal park.

This area was originally the liveliest spot in the entire city, with countless people coming and going every day.

But today, it was unusually quiet.

Because as soon as tourists tried to enter this beach, a nauseating rotten stench hit them head-on, and those who couldn’t handle it even fainted on the spot.

At first, everyone thought a whale had beached itself—after all, it was midsummer, and things rotted at an unimaginable speed.

But the park manager’s patrol team had been searching for a full two hours, and let alone a whale carcass, they hadn’t seen even a single small fish. 

Even the seagulls that were usually everywhere around the beach had collectively vanished.

The manager immediately thought of the possibility of a monster appearing and reported it early on.

Now, the entire coastline was cordoned off with long caution tapes.

“What a horrible smell…”

A magical girl had already arrived here.

If Li Guang and Chi Zaozao were present, they would recognize this magical girl as the one they saw yesterday.

Her yellow skirt swayed gently in the wind, her brilliant golden hair tied into a high ponytail, her pristine white stockings wrapped in white-and-yellow small heels.

Magical Girl—Gold!

That was her title.

“Sister Gu, put this on—it’ll make you feel better.”

From within a ripple of golden light, a winged orange cat flew out, handing over a mask with both paws.

“Thank you, Little Orange.”

Gold put on the mask, blocking the foul odor from her nose.

“What on earth happened here?”

She looked around vigilantly, her brows furrowing deeper as her divine sense swept the area.

She couldn’t sense a single trace of magical fluctuations, yet the rotten stench in the air grew stronger.

Just then, the winged orange cat’s eyes locked onto a patch of water not far away.

“Sister Gu, there’s something there.”

It wasn’t a detection of magic, but a biological instinct telling her that a danger capable of threatening her life was hidden in that water.

“Where?”

Gold looked around—nearby, there was nothing but sand and water, not even half a shadow of a monster.

For a moment, she actually felt a bit ashamed.

It seems I’m still too weak…

Magical Girl Gold thought as much.

After all, she had only met this little orange cat a week ago and been chosen as a magical girl—both her experience and abilities were immature beyond words.

But now wasn’t the time to think about that.

The girl gripped her magic wand tightly with both hands, raising it high toward the spot the orange cat indicated.

Magic gathered from all directions, gradually condensing into a ball of light at the wand’s tip.

‘MAGIC POWER CHARGE!’

The incantation activated, and the golden light ball gradually transformed into a diamond shape, already taking on the form of a cannon shell.

‘LAUNCH!’

The golden shell blasted off, kicking up airflow that carried surrounding sand and dust, slamming viciously into that patch of water.

Boom—!!!

The calm water surface exploded in a spray, sending up a wave of white foam.

But soon after, the water returned to stillness.

“Little Orange, was it really there?”

The girl looked puzzled at the orange cat hovering in midair, her eyes full of doubt.

But the orange cat didn’t respond to the girl—her eyes remained fixed on that calm sea surface.

Other creatures’ perception of danger far surpassed humans’, and what’s more, this orange cat was a contracted beast!

She sensed that a group of incredibly dangerous things had awakened beneath the water.

The next second, the sea surface boiled like water, countless bubbles rising from the depths and bursting on the surface.

Immediately after, Magical Girl Gold witnessed a scene she would never forget for the rest of her life.

A streak of crimson appeared out of nowhere on the pale blue sea, followed by a school of fish.

Yes, fish—an utterly ordinary school of fish.

As the school emerged, that crimson blood mass seemed to come alive, rapidly expanding.

With her superhuman vision, the girl could clearly see a sea fish start struggling the moment it touched the blood mass, soon going still.

The blood mass, like a true living being, began to devour the fish.

Where the sea fish’s body touched the red blood, it rapidly rotted, melting like ice meeting fire.

This scene played out on every single sea fish.

One sea fish tried to leap out of the water, escaping the hell below.

But it was futile—the fish’s body turned into a splatter of blood plasma midair, sprinkling across every part of the surface.

In just an instant, this stretch of sea was left with nothing but countless eerie white bones.

The sea surface fell calm again, and those fish bones began dissolving, vanishing without a trace in less than two seconds.

As if nothing had ever happened.

“This… what on earth is this!!!”

Acid churned in the girl’s stomach, a wave of indescribable terror surging in her heart.

It wasn’t a monster, but it was more terrifying than one!

What kind of existence was this!

Only at this moment did the girl understand why she hadn’t seen a single living thing in this sea area since earlier.

They had probably all been dissolved by this thing!

She realized this wasn’t something she could handle.

Just then, the blood plasma that had just calmed seemed to sense something, boiling up once more.

The crimson red across the entire sea area gradually shifted toward the shore, bringing with it an even more nauseating fishy stench.

Gold’s legs went weak, and she knelt on the ground unsteadily.

She quickly yanked off the mask from her face, collapsing onto the beach and vomiting wildly.

The stench hit her brain directly—even the special mask was useless against it.

The orange cat froze in place, staring incredulously at the scene before her.

The school of fish that had just been killed by the blood plasma… had come back to life.

Amid the crimson waves, a neat row of fish heads burst from the sea.

These sea fish bore signs of severe rot, long devoid of their original lively appearance.

Flopping onto the beach, this group of zombie fish thrashed on the shore, hopping one by one toward the largest among them—a zombie dolphin in the middle.

“Sister Gu… quick… run… run!”

The orange cat reacted immediately—this was absolutely not something a newborn magical girl could handle!

But behind the orange cat, Gold had no strength left at all; she barely managed to stand, her face deathly pale.

“This… what exactly is…”

Terror gripped her heart, and Gold completely missed the orange cat’s warning.

By this time, the zombie sea fish had fully merged.

A massive lump of flesh formed by the rotten fish swarm writhed on the beach.

The wriggling flesh mass continuously squeezed its own body, and before long, the five-meter-tall giant lump compressed forcibly into a two-meter-tall humanoid monster.

Strips of rotten fish clung tightly together, forming that thing’s skin.

Blobs of mushy flesh were compressed into cylinders to serve as fingers.

On its blood-drenched head hung two sardine heads—apparently, those were its eyes.

The rest of its body was all compressed from zombie fish.

This was the symbol of distortion and pollution, the virus of the world.

Anti-Human—Rotten Fish Swarm.