One crawled in. Two crawled in. The third followed.

But everyone had overestimated the lower hold’s capacity. The cramped space was already half-filled with fish, and could barely accommodate three merfolk the size of grown adults.

The third merfolk had only gotten halfway in when the other two attacked it.

Unable to reach the fish, it grew frantic, and immediately redirected its aggression toward the nearest target — Ashalina.

Ashalina had been prepared. She raised the longsword in her hand and brought it down hard.

The hardness of fish scales surpassed all imagination — the sword was actually less useful than the bamboo poles. At least the poles let them keep some distance from the merfolk.

At the critical moment, A-Long charged over and drove his blade into the merfolk’s dorsal fin.

*Thud!*

Blade struck fin, and the impact sent a numbing shock up A-Long’s hand. The dorsal fin was only nicked slightly — that alone said everything about how hard it was.

The merfolk, enraged, set the fan-shaped collar around its neck trembling, and transparent mucus began to form at its mouth, on the verge of spraying outward.

“Step back!” Bai Youwei shouted.

A-Long dodged aside. The merfolk lunged after him —

And then a bolt of lightning struck, blasting the merfolk back several meters with a thunderous crack.

Ashalina seized the moment, raising her blade and bringing it down toward the merfolk’s neck.

She drew blood with the blow, but the wound was shallow — the bloated membrane of skin at its neck had deflected the strike, shifting it away from the vital point.

Ashalina kept her grip on the blade. In the few seconds the merfolk was dazed from the electric shock, she used all her strength to shove it back into the hold.

“A-Long! Bamboo!” Ashalina shouted, throwing every ounce of strength into slamming the hold door down.

At the same time, she whipped the bamboo pole in her hand sideways to brace the door.

A-Long grabbed several more bamboo poles and ran over — but before he could set them in place, the hold door shook violently, nearly flying open.

Ashalina held the door down for her life, veins bulging at her temple, every muscle pulled taut.

“Hurry!!!” she roared with all she had.

The merfolk inside thrashed again.

A-Long couldn’t even get the poles in position — he threw himself bodily onto the door and pressed down with his full weight.

Bai Youwei saw what was happening, turned toward the wheelhouse, and yelled: “Xiaoxin! Come help!”

Just Ashalina and A-Long alone could never hold back three merfolk below. Pan Xiaoxin was only a child, but he’d been through the labyrinth twice now — he was surely no weakling.

Bai Youwei also opened the dollhouse and called Teacher Cheng out to help. An old man and a young boy pressed down hard on either side of the bamboo poles.

The merfolk thrashed with savage fury.

These creatures, though capable of coming ashore to feed, were water beings at heart — left out of the water too long, they would dehydrate and die.

The hold door kept being forced open by the merfolk, only to be shoved back down by Ashalina and the others.

Three merfolk were ferociously strong; even with four people pressing down, they were slowly losing ground. Bai Youwei stood tense at one side, waiting for whichever merfolk surfaced first to meet it with another electric blast.

And then, at the worst possible moment, a figure came stumbling out of the dollhouse —

It was A-Qing.

He still had the rope binding him, the cloth stuffed in his mouth, and who knew where the strength came from — he had somehow stood up. Hopping and lurching, he emerged from the dollhouse and toppled stiffly toward the guardrail.

Everyone was stunned.

“A-Qing!” Ashalina got up and went after him.

Bai Youwei’s expression changed drastically. “Don’t let go!”

But it was too late.

Without the main force of Ashalina, the hold door was violently thrown open by a merfolk. One escaped. A-Long, Teacher Cheng, and Pan Xiaoxin scrambled to press it shut again, but another merfolk inside was already thrusting half its body out, snapping at them.

Everyone panicked and backed away. Bai Youwei suppressed one with a lightning strike, but the other broke free and chaos erupted on deck.

And Ashalina hadn’t been able to catch A-Qing — she watched helplessly as he toppled off the boat and plunged into the water.

—