Chapter 187. Demons and Monsters (11) Palm-sized Mermaid Fry

     Ye Mo sidestepped, dodging the orange fireball, as she nocked three arrows onto her longbow and took aim at the leopard demon.

     “Aow!”

     The cry was miserable.

     One arrow pierced the leopard’s eye, another tore through its ear, and the last was deflected by the fur on its lower abdomen—though not before leaving two gashes behind.  

     The leopard, which was gifted with innate speed, was struck in its vital eye by an arrow – a consequence of its underestimating the opponent.

     The rose spirit’s flower buds trembled twice. Now they were certain that this human was the powerful individual their own kind had warned them about, the one who killed the thousand-year-old banyan spirit.

     So, taking advantage of the leopard demon’s shock and rage, the rose spirits scattered a trail of beautiful, vibrant flowers as they fled, abandoning the spiritual herb.

     “???”

     The leopards snapped back to their senses, but the rose demon had already fled. Only two hesitated, while the rest vented their rage on the “passerby” before them.  

     1 vs 4.5, begins.

     “Roar! “

      The leopard demon excelled in close combat, with powerful hind limbs, a flexible body, and sharp teeth and claws. Compared to these, the fireball’s attack speed was nothing significant.

     Moreover, Ye Mo’s experience as a Tyrannosaurus Rex in the previous dungeon hadn’t been in vain. Frankly speaking, the leopard’s close-quarters combat skills were quite a bit lacking compared to a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

     Therefore, Ye Mo was able to evade most of the attacks, and the remaining fireballs and sharp claws were blocked by her defensive armor.

     Having practically predicted the leopard demon’s attacks, she accelerated her own offensive maneuvers.

     Using attack as defense.

   【Survivor Ye Mo is detected to have exceeded the Agility threshold, Agility attribute +1】

      The first target was the injured leopard demon. Her strength surpassed all five leopards combined. Before long, her sword had deeply pierced the leopard demon’s abdomen, and the first leopard demon collapsed unconscious in resentment.

     Ye Mo then faced the remaining four leopard demons.

      The second, the third, and finally the last two tried to flee, but Ye Mo’s ranged attack bow was not just for show. All five leopard demons ended up in her storage space. One of them possessed an inner core, while the rest did not.

     The spiritual herb, of course, was claimed as well.  

     This spiritual herb had pure and abundant water-based spiritual energy, but its roots had been damaged during harvesting. Ye Mo placed it in a spirit-preserving box before storing it in her storage space.

     …

     Ye Mo changed into a new set of equipment and continued forward, successfully entering the canyon.

     This canyon was indeed as the raven demon and the small stone monster had described: not large in area, and filled with irregular rocks and pools of varying depths.

     To the south, there was a steep cliff, from which a torrent of water cascaded down, crashing against the scattered rocks at the valley floor, creating a spectacular and beautiful waterfall with white splashes.

     However, the untouched paradise of the canyon was marred by some bodies that had not yet fully decomposed.

     Among the corpses, it wasn’t difficult to spot some merfolk half-demons.

     The raven demon had said that this small canyon was originally where a few merfolk half-demons lived. Not long ago, it was discovered by a group of demons who plundered its meager resources. Killing was just a trivial matter they did along the way.

     Precisely because it was such a simple, unremarkable place, over a dozen rare baby half-demons had been spared—mistaken for ordinary animals. Whether they had awakened any intelligence remained unknown.

     Hawk Eye searched, while Ye Mo also scanned the area with her spiritual senses.  

     Before long, they simultaneously detected over a dozen half-demons in the scattered pools, all of them palm-sized mermaid fry.

     Although these merfolk didn’t all have human bodies and fish tails – some had human heads and fish bodies, others human bodies and fins, and there was even one with a fish head and human body – their small size made them not terrifying.

     More than half of the merfolk had already died due to lack of food. Ye Mo, with her water-repelling Pearl, went deep into a pool, took out a small wooden box, and placed a small piece of low-grade water-elemental spirit stone and a wood-elemental crystal core inside.

     The mermaid fry were starving.

     Without any other enticement, one mermaid fry swam directly towards the wooden box, driven by its biological instinct.

     “Come back—”

     The largest one, with a human body and fish tail, tried to stop them, but it was ineffective. It could only watch helplessly as its siblings swam away from it.

 

    【Main Quest 2: Rescue Your Kind (3/10000).】

   【Main Quest 2: Rescue Your Kind (4/10000).】

     …

   【Main Quest 2: Rescue Your Kind (6/10000).】

 

     Aside from the highly wary little merfolk, the system notification only chimed four times—meaning three of them, faced with starvation, had chosen survival over sentience, their spiritual intelligence dissipated.  

     Unlike core-formed demons, young demons cannot absorb spiritual energy directly from the air. For them, growth depends not just on physical nourishment, but crucially on spiritual power.  

     Without it, they devolve into peculiar creatures—ones typically incapable of reproduction. This is how many lone half-demons fade into oblivion:  

     Death or mindlessness.

     “Blue Bubble, Purple Bubble, Black Bubble, White Bubble.” Ye Mo was terrible at naming things, so she called them by nicknames based on the color of their scales, eyes, hair, and fins. “Red Bubble, come here. Or do you plan to just wait here to die?” 

     The red-tailed merchild asked in a small, hesitant voice, “Who are you? Why are you saving us?”

     “Because we’re the same.” Ye Mo removed her hood, revealing a pair of furry ears.  

     The little merfolk stared into her eyes with wide, unblinking gaze for a long moment. A few glistening tears slipped into the water—no pearls formed, but the redness around their eyes betrayed their emotion.  

     Then, the red-tailed merchild suddenly beamed—a smile as bright as sunlight—even as a slightly choked voice whispered, “Okay.”

     Red Bubble darted forward faster than any of it siblings, a crimson streak flashing through the water—  

   【Main Quest 2: Rescue Your Kind (7/10000).】

     Only 7.

     With just a hundred days left, scouring the lands alone to rescue others made this quest seem nearly impossible.  

     …

     Leaving the water pool with the small wooden box, Ye Mo placed some aquatic plants and stones inside, preparing to close it with a wooden lid that had air holes.

     “This will be a bit safer.”

     Ye Mo tied the small wooden box to herself and, amidst the merfolk’s bewilderment, began mining.

     There were minerals at the bottom of the valley, on the steep cliffs, and at the bottom of the pool.

     This canyon was incredibly rich in mineral resources, and there wasn’t just the one type that the little stone monster recognized. There were also several types that didn’t exist or hadn’t been discovered on Earth, with only a small portion having familiar components.

     After Ye Mo loaded over twenty tons into her space, the five merfolk cubs had absorbed almost all of the water-elemental spirit stones and wood-elemental crystal cores, and their vitality had increased significantly.

     The other demented merfolk animals had also absorbed some spiritual power to varying degrees, which was slightly beneficial to their growth, but they were ultimately just animals.

     Ye Mo took the little mermaid fry out of the canyon.

     On the way back, because there were five mermaid fry, she was more careful than when she came, trying to take the original route and avoid the dangerous demons and monsters.

     Despite this, she still encountered one or two dangers.

     They all attacked when they saw the wooden box and discovered the residual wood spirit power in the wooden box.

     Because they had not yet formed the inner elixir, they could not keenly perceive the weak amount of wood power in the wooden box. Their strength was not high, and it was not difficult for Ye Mo to defeat them.

     In the latter half of the journey, Ye Mo advanced even more smoothly—thanks to the lingering fear from yesterday’s display of power, now likely amplified by the rose spirit’s exaggerated rumors.  

     By the time the sun hung directly overhead, she could just make out the battlefield from the previous night.  

     Back to the underground cave.

     The little stone monster was talking to the raven demon. One was pretending to be powerful, and the other was weak and irritable. The former was naturally black-bellied, and the latter’s temper could always be ignited by the former.

     Ye Mo used his mental power to scan them briefly and found that the raven demon was about the same as in the morning. At least he didn’t get worse, which showed that the little stone monster’s wood healing technique had improved.

     “Master Half-deer.” When the little stone monster saw her, she immediately threw away the raven demon with several breaths left and rolled over.

     Ye Mo: “Mm.”

     The wooden box was put down, the box was opened, and the mermaid fry inside was exposed.

     The little stone monster stood up, but couldn’t reach the edge of the wooden box. It could only jump up and down, having its first-ever meeting with the mermaid fry like Red Bubble.

     “Who are you?” The little stone monster, capable of taking the risk to raise a tiny little stone monster, was somewhat naive.

     Four mermaids leaped out of the water, looking at the hopping stone in front of them, chirping and vying to answer, “Blue Bubble, Purple Bubble, Black Bubble, White Bubble.”

     After absorbing a spiritual stone, they seemed to have become much smarter. After all, they are already four or five years old, and they are demon too.

     The red-tailed mermaid flicked it tail twice and chose to be beautiful alone, but when the little stone monster talked about Ye Mo, the red-tailed mermaid would unconsciously spit out a few bubbles and listen carefully.

     Red bubble note : …Raven demon are bad guys.

     …

     Time was pressing. After setting down the small wooden box, Ye Mo ignored the half-demons. Once she determined a direction, she began to expand the space with a clatter and bang.

     While digging, she piled the soil into her ring space.

     Small amounts of scattered gravel and dirt on the ground would be gathered together after a while and then put into the space, to be dumped somewhere later.

     It didn’t matter if she didn’t dump it, it would disappear directly after leaving the dungeon.

     The little stone monster and the mermaids heard the sound and stopped talking, all looking in the same direction.

     After staring for more than ten minutes, the red-tailed mermaid suddenly jumped out of the small wooden box.

     It slid towards that direction and stopped at a spot neither too close nor too far. It bent down and picked up a broom that was more than ten times larger than its body.

     Huffing and puffing, it climbed onto the broomstick and, imitating Ye Mo’s earlier actions, swept the scattered debris on the ground together.

     “Not bad, thank you.”

     Ye Mo glanced back, then continued digging the hole. However, she no longer stopped to deal with the debris, she only needed to leave it until the end to put the trash piled up by Red Bubble into her space.

     “It’s very simple.”

     The little mermaid kept a straight face, but the back of its ears secretly turned red, and its dirty tail swished back and forth.

     The little stone monster experienced envy for the first time in its life, but there was only one broom.

     Fortunately, the space was quickly expanded more than four times.

     Ye Mo took out two or three sets of basic equipment for smelting, solidification, quenching, annealing and heat treatment, and began smelting ore, quenching and forging.