Sakurako’s will to die was already half-formed; had it not been for the monkey perched above her head, she would not have struggled at all, letting the Soul-Eating Fish bite and peck as they pleased. But now, with this desperate survivor clinging to her head, the hardness in Sakurako’s heart immediately softened by half. She had no choice but to carry the monkey and turn toward the shore. The Soul-Eating Fish, seeing their feast escaping, certainly would not let them leave freely. They formed an underwater fleet and surged toward Sakurako’s beautiful legs.

Dozens of arrow-like mouths attacked her legs in a frenzy, causing Sakurako such sharp pain that her vision went dark, her body seized up, and she lost her footing, tumbling into the water. This fall was no small matter; as her entire body submerged, the Soul-Eating Fish rejoiced, swarming her again to peck wildly at her chest and head. The monkey atop her head also unfortunately fell into the enemy’s grasp, struggling underwater, throwing left punches and right kicks as it fought the fish. Individually, the Soul-Eating Fish were merely small predatory creatures; one-on-one, they posed no real threat to a person or a monkey. But things were rarely that simple.

These small fish were notorious for swarming, gathering in groups of a dozen or twenty, sometimes hundreds or thousands. Once they fixated on a target and used sonic pulses to summon their companions, the prey usually had no chance of escape. Just the sight of the dense, dark mass rushing toward them was enough to scare a person to death. After struggling for a long time, both Sakurako and the monkey were covered in wounds. The person and the ape had both lost the will to survive, sinking toward the lakebed while being pecked at by the Soul-Eating Fish.

Sakurako, having valued her beauty since childhood, even at the final moment, still used her hands and arms to shield her face and head, unwilling to let those devilish fish mar her looks. However, the body beneath that exquisite countenance was truly riddled with holes, not a single patch of good skin remaining. Just as she thought she was about to be devoured, the fish around her suddenly thinned out, and the frequency of their pecking gradually decreased. When silence settled and she could no longer feel the pressure of fish mouths, she cautiously lowered the arm guarding her face and glanced out through her fingers. She saw a lean figure blocking the way, rapidly skewering the surrounding fish left and right with a trident.

The dense school of fish looked like piles of dry grass before him; one swift thrust of the trident could catch a string of them. Those that weren't speared saw the fork and retreated, darting away the moment they touched the man, entirely lacking the ferocity they had shown while tormenting Sakurako and the monkey. The man kept stabbing, occasionally reaching out to sweep the impaled Soul-Eating Fish off the trident. The skewered fish that fell to the lake bottom either lay still like stones and died, or after a brief flurry of tail movements, revived and fled to the distance, daring not to approach again. When the dead fish piled up on the bottom like a small mountain, a sudden calm descended, and the remaining Soul-Eating Fish swam away in scattered groups of three or five, looking quite bored.

Only the man holding the trident remained, along with the heavily wounded Sakurako, and, of course, a half-dead Golden Ape lying on the lake floor. Seeing the Soul-Eating Fish disperse, the man turned and swam toward Sakurako, his speed swift as a blade. Before Sakurako could comprehend what was happening, she was lifted out of the water and held aloft. Instinctively, she wrapped her arms around the man. As the water drained from her face, she opened her eyes and burst into tears, writhing and crying out, wishing she had been bitten to death by the Soul-Eating Fish instead.