Siren Cocoon

The rain outside the mansion grew heavier, and the distant beach and the town nestled on the hillside turned into silent gray shadows within the misty curtain of rain. As piercing white light streaked across the sky, Amy noticed that the beach, which had been empty earlier, was now filled with countless dark shadows at some point.

She approached the window. Another thunderclap roared, and she saw the figures clearly—they were townspeople who had turned into fish-men with blood-red eyes. Holding various weapons, slimy liquid slid off their bodies along with the rainwater as they marched toward them in a grand, menacing procession with eerie smiles.

A sharp sound pierced through the rain. A strong sense of crisis made Amy take a step back as a bullet grazed her cheek, leaving a bloody trail.

Eerie chanting drifted from the other side of the sea, sometimes distant and soothing, sometimes swirling around their ears, identical to the audio clip Amy had heard at the start of the program recording; was it the Siren King’s song?

Still shaken, Amy touched the side of her face. The bright red blood made her certain that these fish-men townspeople were now controlled by the Siren King. They had guns in their hands—guns that could fire normally in the rain and maintain accuracy—so they certainly weren't ancient hunting relics.

Amy’s mind made a cold, swift judgment.

"Is everyone crazy?" Baker whispered as he looked down at the malicious fish-men townspeople approaching.

"Do you remember what that red-haired man looked like?" Amy asked Baker.

"I remember."

"Let's get out of here first. We'll head back to town and see if we can find him," Amy said decisively.

Baker nodded. Just then, the door was pushed open. Tang Xin walked in with Shanshan and urged, "There’s sudden movement downstairs. We have to leave here quickly."

Hearing this, the group no longer delayed. They quickly packed everything and ran toward the second-floor stairs. Just as they reached the corner, they froze in place. The lightning illuminated the window in stark black and white, revealing countless fragmented merman statues swarming and crowding the hallway. The ones in front had their mouths wide open, their hands stretching forward as if they had been crawling just a second ago.

"These merman statues can move?" Amy's eyes widened.

"They aren't statues." Tang Xin keenly noticed that the parts of the "statues" wetted by the rain had shed their gray stony layer, revealing a greenish hue. A white, spider-silk-like membrane covered their bodies, and their organs were halfway between human and merman, showing an incomplete evolution.

These monsters hadn't been fish-men in life, but humans. She had seen this form in the academy library's scriptures regarding races—a form between a primordial fish-man and a human, known as a siren cocoon.

The process of a fish-man being cursed into a primordial fish-man was an incomplete metamorphosis; they would skip the cocoon and evolve directly into the final form.

Only when a human failed to transform into a primordial fish-man would they exhibit this state. Their human side made them subconsciously resist the change; it was a struggle between self-denial and self-identification, resulting in this twisted form.

When they completely denied themselves, it meant they could not evolve successfully, nor could they ever turn back into humans. They would remain as a siren cocoon until the day their life withered away.

"Stare at them, and they won't move," Tang Xin warned everyone.

Everyone followed suit, and sure enough, after being stared at, the siren cocoons returned to a petrified state. Only the siren cocoons below kept pouncing up like a human pyramid, only to stiffen once they were noticed.

The scriptures hadn't mentioned that in prolonged drought, these siren cocoons would lower their bodily functions to the minimum and enter a petrified dormant phase.

However, the scriptures did mention that they loathed their own hideous forms. As long as they felt the gaze of others through eye contact, they would lose their ability to act because of the pain deep within their hearts.

"A-Xin, you know this too?"

"Isn't this all part of the required content in the academy's theoretical curriculum outline?" Tang Xin said.

Amy thought to herself that if she had been this studious, she wouldn't have been eliminated with a C+.

Baker and Shanshan followed their lead and stared. Although they were terrified, they didn't cause any trouble at this critical time.

After a moment, several more siren cocoons pounced from below. The ones that had been submerged at the bottom managed to escape their line of sight. A few leaped up, only to be shattered by Tang Xin's water arts.

The moment the vision cage was opened, those monsters were like sharks smelling blood, surging forward. In an instant, over a dozen reached a position about five meters away from the group. Noticing the movement behind them, Baker quickly turned around.

The passage behind them, which had been empty earlier, was now also filled with these siren cocoons. Their maneuverable space was compressed to less than ten meters with no way to retreat. The siren cocoons bared their fangs and claws, and those surging up from behind compressed the space in the front, advancing toward them at a slow speed second by second.

It felt as if they would all pounce at once and tear the group to pieces if anyone even blinked.

Shanshan hugged Tang Xin's waist tightly in fear, revealing half of her small face as she gazed at the monsters right before her eyes, saying nothing.

Tang Xin analyzed the situation calmly; this couldn't go on. The reason she didn't attack those siren cocoons was because she was worried about breaking the visual balance. These monsters moved very fast; she could protect herself, but she couldn't look after two children at once.

With the controlled fish-men townspeople downstairs and these siren cocoons in front of them, the mind was prone to confusion in such an emergency. Tang Xin shook her head.

Calm down. Think. What would Yuzu do if she were here?

Tang Xin's mind raced. Suddenly, she remembered the scene when they first saw these siren cocoons in the statue gallery. She crouched down, and after a quick mental calculation, she said seriously in Shanshan's ear:

"Don't be afraid, Shanshan. I need to step away for a little while. You just stare at the third guy on the right in the very front. No matter what happens later, do not look away. Can you do that?"

Shanshan’s face was pale, but she nodded tremblingly.

After giving the instructions, Tang Xin quickly ran toward the back, returning to the room they had started in. The moment she moved her gaze, the siren cocoon she had been watching lunged forward, only to be pinned down by the siren cocoon behind it. Another siren cocoon stepped forward, half-shielding the body of the one on the left.

The restless swarm of siren cocoons advanced several meters in an instant.

A pair of sharp claws almost touched the girl's cheek. Shanshan was so scared she almost cried; that festering, hideous face was right in front of her, and she could smell the thick, fishy stench.

But remembering Tang Xin's request, she didn't instinctively look at the monster that lunged at her first. Her gaze remained fixed on the siren cocoon to its rear-right. This angle happened to keep all the siren cocoons that went out of control at the same time within her peripheral vision.

Tang Xin had calculated the movement trajectories of those siren cocoons in advance.

Amy was inwardly amazed by the girl's calm and high-speed calculation ability, but she was also worried. Those monsters would be pushed forward continuously. Before long, those sharp claws would tear Shanshan's face apart.

In this situation, it was simply too difficult to expect a child who had seen little of the world to remain calm.

During the brief standoff, Amy's sharp eyes noticed that the fingers of a cocoon behind the first monster had already begun to move.

This isn't looking good...

The siren cocoon at the very front suddenly shuddered, and its sharp claws stabbed toward Shanshan's face, leaving a bloody scratch.

"Shanshan!" Baker urgently shouted a warning, but he was a step too late. Suddenly startled, Shanshan backed away, and the visual balance was instantly shattered. Innumerable monsters pounced together. Just as it looked like the group was about to be submerged by the erupting siren cocoons, Tang Xin returned in time and waved a red curtain, covering everyone beneath it.

The restless siren cocoons around them quickly settled down. As if they had lost their target, they began to wander aimlessly.

"I'm sorry, big sister, I'm sorry..." Shanshan buried her head in Tang Xin's arms and wept softly. "I was so scared, I was really so scared."

Tang Xin held the girl, her fingers stroking her hair. "It's okay. You were very brave."