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Chapter 44

I had been tricked. The evolved fish had waited for the perfect moment, and now it had evolved into a prestiged fish. Although the coming tribulation wouldn’t harm either of us, Tanner and the rest of his family could be in danger. Based on the strength of the previous tribulation, I had made this calculation. It was for that reason I had wanted to kill them both, but that damned fish had sacrificed his companion so that he could kill all the flawless fish while I was distracted. Now, he had not only wiped out years of research, but he was threatening the humans too.

If I killed him fast enough, I could interrupt the tribulation. I had heard during one of Mara’s talks that the only way to stop a tribulation was to kill the person who started the tribulation. That meant I had to kill the fish.

He looked like a massive grouper fish, except his eyes seemed to hold an intelligence beyond that of any fish I knew. He wasn’t moving. Rather, he was staying in his spot, his eyes open. He was waiting for me to make the first move. Evolved animals could not be underestimated. At the level of a prestiged, he’d be extremely intelligent. He’d even understand speech if someone taught it to him. He knew I was his captor, and he probably wasn’t happy with me. The next time I raised them, I’d make sure loyalty was their first trait!

The prestiged fish looked up as if he could see through the murky waters to the sky above, where dark clouds gathered. He didn’t have long to wait before the lightning began. Tribulation was beautiful and horrifying at the same time. I had watched each of my fish go through it. It was like watching a tree get split down the middle by a massive ax, except the lightning bolt was the ax and the tree was the grouper. I couldn’t allow it to happen. I attacked.

The prestiged fish had been waiting. As soon as I sent webs to restrain him, a wave of water erupted from him, forcing my tendrils back. I was shocked by the force it exuded, and on the surface, my pond had become as choppy as if I were in the middle of a storm. I felt my cellular bodies being targeted specifically. They were being pushed away, almost like the prestiged fish was trying to claim a portion of the pond as his territory. I tried to send out more tendrils, but they were all pushed back by the sheer power of the waves the fish sent, one after another.

This was bad. If this kept up, Tanner’s family would be pulled into the storm, and then he’d die. He didn’t deserve that, not because I had messed up. I tried a different tactic. Instead of attacking the fish, I attacked the source of his power, the water. I tried to pull the water away from him. I said that with enough evolutions, he could probably leave the pond, but I saw no feet on him yet, so without my pond, he was just a dead fish on the sidewalk.

He struggled against me, but I continued to pull the water away, trying to create a bubble inside the pool localized around the fish. The prestiged fish was losing more and more water. Every once in a while, a lightning bolt would strike the pond, and it somehow seemed to give him a jolt of energy. After a couple of strikes, he suddenly burst out from my bubble, swimming away from my trap rapidly. The fish’s headshot through the water like a missile. Before I could react, he started a suction. He was sucking in water rapidly, and as he sucked in water, he also sucked in my body cells.

At first, I felt excitement. My cells could start to attack his body from the inside. However, I had been far too naive. As soon as he stopped the suction, I lost contact with all of those cells like they had been brought into another space.

-1,000,000 HP

I couldn’t help but grunt at such a blow. It wasn’t enough to threaten my life, even by a little, but it was the most damage I had taken in a long time. I was still several evolutions beyond him, so it wasn’t like he was a threat to me, but him being a threat to me, and me being able to kill him before he threatened the Tanners were two different questions. The storm outside was still getting bigger. At this stage, there were multiple rounds of lightning, each stronger than the last. We had only made it through the first and least dangerous. I could even make out Tanner at the interest of his house, frowning as he looked this way. I wanted to tell him to run, to get out of the zone of tribulation, but that might be more dangerous than staying indoors.

“Come on, you damned fish, it’s time to die.”

I released several types of toxins, but he began his suction once again. He took a massive amount of water from the pool, including the water that had the toxin in it. It was too much hoping he’d be harmed. At least, if he was being harmed by the toxins, it was nothing for his current HP. He appeared to have an indomitable stomach capable of devouring anything.

I created a wall of swirling water and sent it rushing at the fish, but the prestiged fish simply turned his head, and a jet of water came out of his mouth, destroying my wall. The next wave of lightning strikes began. These hit faster and wider. Many of them were missing the pool entirely, setting the grass ablaze.

“This is ridiculous.” I had been trying to conserve my energy, but the situation was getting out of hand. This was my fault, so I couldn’t let the Tanners die because of my mistake.

I was a little worried about how the fish had devoured my cells, so I decided to try a new trick. I began releasing a compound I had been experimenting with. All of my cells began to make it. The fish seemed to notice something was wrong. He began suctioning again. He consumed my cells in the millions.

-1,000,000 HP

-1,000,000 HP

Thankfully, I had plenty of cells to spare. A single division could replace everything he had used. I was no longer caring about the remaining fish. I was no longer caring about even my survival. I just had to stop the fish’s rampage. Thus, the pond itself began to turn to gelatin. That’s right, I created the compound of agar. It was thanks to Mara, who had fed me pudding during snack time one day. I had reversed-engineered the solidifying compounds, and to trap the fish, I began to turn my entire pond into jelly. As the viscosity increased, the fish’s movements became harder and harder. He tried to suck in, but the jelly didn’t move nearly as fast as water.

With its movements restricted, I began the offensive. I activated Mimic. Specifically, I mimicked the prestiged fish itself. My cells all came together, creating a fish identical to it. It saw another fish like him appearing, and it started to panic, but it was trapped in the jelly. However, even though I was in the jelly-like pond too, I was one with the environment and didn’t struggle to move within it. I opened my mouth, replicating his suction ability.

The fish desperately tried to swim away, but it was slowly dragged in. Above the surface, the top of the pond had become burned, the now jelly-like pool causing enough friction that the pond itself was on fire. Lightning bolts were striking the house now too. It had yet to catch on fire thanks to a certain lightning rod Tanner had installed after various tribulations, but it wouldn’t be able to hold out much longer. Even it was starting to melt by the extreme heat of multiple bolts of lightning.

The fish finally lost its grip, and it flew into my mouth. I consumed the fish in the same way it consumed me. Like that, it died. The last lightning bold flashed, and then the sky started to clear once again. In the process, my pond had very nearly been destroyed. All of the fish in it… in fact, all of the life in it was dead. The plants along the shore had been burned to a crisp, and the ground was scorched up the hill. I was the only survivor.

Once the sky cleared, Tanner walked down to my shoreline, a complicated expression on his face. “Tribulation?”

I was trying to remove the gelatin, but large parts of my pond were still jelly. It looked particularly unappealing. I created an area of water near Tanner and created bubbles.

He nodded, biting his lip. “Just… how high an evolution are you? I fear… your next evolution, we wouldn’t survive it.”

I realized that he was correct. When I had my previous tribulations, this place had been free of people. I had caused so much damage that my pond was avoided by animals for generations. This was merely a 4^th level evolution. What would the strength of my ninth-level evolution be?  Forget the Tanner farm, the city an hour away would likely be affected by such a tribulation.

I realized that my hope of reaching the tenth evolution was impossible… not while the Tanners were my neighbors.