Chapter 561 - Attraction

"QUICKLY!!" he shouted anxiously.

The water moved again from the right side.

This time it was strong enough to push him back a step, closer to the edge of the cliff where even more tendrils grabbed hold of him. They were still thinner than silk threads but with thousands and thousands of them coming at him at once, he would soon be in a precarious situation.

Luckily, Baracus responded pretty damn quickly.

In Hao Xuan's grasp appeared a cylindrical metal tube closed from both sides. There was a single red rune constantly rotating in the center.

"Crush the rune and throw it above your head for maximum effect," Baracus instructed.

Hao Xuan promptly inspected the rune. It looked like a bracket with both ends twisting into a 'V' shape. Strangely enough, he instantly knew what it meant.

'Initiation'.

Following Baracus's instructions, Hao Xuan pressed his thumb on the red rune and pressed until it broke into pieces as if made from glass.

The pieces started spreading over the entire tube, prompting another warning from Baracus.

"You should not hold onto it any longer. The ignition will be more than 7,000 degrees Celsius."

Considering the surface of the sun is 'only' around 5,600 Celsius, this was quite a shock to Hao Xuan.

As if holding onto a burning ember, Hao Xuan turned towards his right and threw it with full force.

Like a torpedo leaving its tube, the cylinder shot through forward in a straight line but less than a couple of seconds later a loud thump reached Hao Xuan's ears.

The cylinder had made contact with something, something fleshy.

But before he could worry about who or what that was, Baracus's voice rang in his ears.

"Close your eyes. Three-."

Despite Baracus's third warning, Hao Xuan could not help himself but to open his eyes ever so slightly and peek towards the direction of the cylinder.

Thankfully he did not forget to bend down and dig his hands into the cliffside.

As soon as the timer finished, a dark red light ignited about 30 meters away from him. It looked like a lit cigarette.

Hao Xuan wanted to ask if that was it but he knew better by now. A moment later the red light started increasing in intensity until he could see bright red cracks appearing on the surface of the tube from where he was.

They were bright enough to illuminate a meter or so of their immediate surroundings.

Hao Xuan's eyes followed the expanding light outwards and caught sight of a beast. It was a bipedal creature, holding onto the tube with four webbed hands that had three digits each.

Its faces only had two pitch-black eyes at the top and a mouth filled with protruding razor-sharp teeth at the bottom, much like that of an angler fish.

Its bottom half looked like a normal fishes tail, albeit much larger.

"A mer....man?" Hao Xuan could not help but think so seeing its shape.

Although it looked nothing like the beautiful fish people from the stories back on earth.

The creature was staring at the cylinder in its hand that was now covered in bright red cracks.

"Blow up already!" Hao Xuan couldn't help but shout inwardly but as if the creature had heard him speak just now, it suddenly looked right at Hao Xuan.

Its toothy maw arched into a demented smile as it pulled back one of its arms and threw the cylinder right back towards him.

Hao Xuan's eyes almost popped out of their sockets seeing the cylinder closing in on him.

That's when Baracus finally finished his countdown, "-one, Primary Detonation."

At a distance of less than 10 meters away from Hao Xuan, the cracks finally covered the cylinder completely, breaking it into pieces.

The color red completely disappeared from Hao Xuan's sight, overtaken by an intense blue light. At first it was the size of a coin.

Hao Xuan blinked and it reached the size of a football. The water around it started evaporating, creating a vacuum that pulled Hao Xuan in.

The last scene he saw before the blue light consumed his vision were rows upon rows of similar mermaid-like creature floating behind the one that had caught the cylinder.

There were thousands of them. Some held onto crude weapons that looked like spears.

But it was neither their numbers nor their hideous appearance that grabbed Hao Xuan's attention, but the cruel intelligence glimmering in their black eyes.

There was not a hint of panic among them.

They stood in formation, almost ceremoniously. Many of them looking at Hao Xuan in amusement, as if watching a roadside show.

The light seemed to have been restricted at a hundred meters since it could go no further. Yet he could see large silhouettes hiding just beyond the boundary.

That was enough for Hao Xuan to get a grasp of the situation. His eyes could not help but examine the faces of each creature in his field of vision.

Although some were spectating him, most of the others were fixated on something else, something behind him.

That was when Hao Xuan realized that he was not the main act here, nor the reason this army had gathered.

Whatever was about to crawl up from the other side of the cliff was the main attraction.

Blue light engulfed Hao Xuan completely and he heard Baracus's robotic voice again.

"Secondary Detonation, initiated."

*BOOOOOM*