152: Chapter 152 The Small Shed Sets an Eye

The two hundred Old Veterans formed their formation three times faster than the new recruits.

It took the Old Veterans less than three breaths to go from crouching to standing in their formation positions—it wasn't that they were fast, but that before forming the formation, they rubbed their soles against the deck.

The deck, dampened by the mist, was as slippery as ice, and rubbing their soles allowed them to get a better grip on the wooden planks.

The new recruits didn't know to rub their soles.

It took the new recruits nearly ten breaths to go from crouching to running into their formation positions—and they still ran to the wrong spots.

The leftmost position of the Third Squad had two people standing there, while the rightmost position was empty.

Commander Cai walked through the middle of the formation—he grabbed the extra person by the back of his collar and lifted him from the left side to the empty spot on the right.

After moving him, he didn't stop—he continued walking to the next position.

Lu Changyuan stood at the bow of the ship.

He did not enter the formation—he stood in a position that allowed him to take in the entire ship's formation at a glance.

The formation was swaying—the shields on the left side of the Third Squad were an inch too high, and the shields on the right were half an inch too low.

It was uneven—the formation they had practiced on land all day became uncoordinated once they hit the water.

But the formation hadn't broken.

The outer circle of each small circular formation was manned by the bravest person in that unit—the one standing on the outermost edge of the First Squad's formation was an Old Veteran with an old scar on his cheekbone.

He pressed his shield another half-inch into the drainage groove, then tilted his head to scan behind him—he was checking on the new recruit trembling behind him.

He didn't scold him.

He shifted his shield half a foot toward the new recruit—on the battlefield, that half-foot of shield equaled half a shoulder's worth of cover.

Night fell.

The sea mist turned from gray to black—after dark, the mist could no longer be seen, only felt.

The mist felt cold against the face, and once it crept into the collar, it trickled down the neck.

A few windproof oil lamps were lit on the deck—the flames were compressed by the mist to the size of beans, and the bean-sized light cast a faint circle of yellow glow across the deck.

At the edge of the yellow light was the mist—it remained motionless on the water's surface, like a damp wall.

Sounds of water came from the mist.

The sound was not loud—it wasn't the sound of waves hitting the ship's side, but something finer, like a school of fish flipping their bellies on the water's surface.

Scales brushing against scales—thousands of scales were moving simultaneously underwater, and sound travels faster in water than in air.

There was movement underwater first, and then the bottom of the ship began to vibrate again—this time, the frequency of the vibration was nearly double what it had been before.

"They're here."

Lu Hu drew his blade from his waist.

The sound of the blade leaving its scabbard was muffled by the mist—like iron wrapped in a wet cloth.

The first batch of Black-Scaled Fish Demons vaulted up from the right side of the ship.

When the first Fish Demon vaulted up, the people on the deck hadn't yet reacted—they only saw a dark green shadow leaping up from outside the ship, soaring nearly three feet above the gunwale.

The shadow flipped in mid-air—it had a half-human-sized fish body, and its scales shimmered with a very dark green in the yellow light of the oil lamps.

The Fish Demon was biting down on a sharpened fish-bone blade—the bone blade was curved, and the tip was ground to the thickness of a needle.

The Fish Demon landed on the deck—it landed less than two zhang from the leftmost position of the Third Squad.

When it landed, its webbed feet made a very crisp sound on the wet deck—'slap.'

Then came the second, the third, the fifth—seven or eight of them surged up at once.

They vaulted up from both sides of the ship simultaneously—their movements in vaulting over the ship were as practiced as vaulting over reefs.

The Fish Demons were used to their webbed feet stepping on reefs in the water—stepping on the wooden deck caused them an extra, unnecessary sliding step.

That extra sliding step gave the person in the Third Squad's formation a breath of time—in that one breath, the Old Veteran with the old scar on his cheekbone pushed his shield forward by half a foot.

The shield collided with the first Fish Demon's bone blade—the bone blade pierced into the wood grain on the shield's surface, and the tip got stuck in the grain, unable to be pulled out.

The Old Veteran twisted his shield half a turn to the right—the part of the blade stuck in the wood grain snapped off.

The Fish Demon let go of the blade—and opened its mouth to bite at the Old Veteran's wrist.

Its teeth were serrated—when the upper and lower rows of sharp teeth clamped together, it was like two rows of nails interlocking into each other's gaps.

The new recruit behind the Old Veteran moved.

The new recruit held a short spear in his hand—the tip was something he had ground himself, but it wasn't level, and the blade edge was skewed to the left by half a point.

He thrust the short spear from behind the Old Veteran's shoulder—aiming for the Fish Demon's open mouth.

The spearhead pierced through the Fish Demon's upper jaw—and came out through the back of its head.

The protruding spearhead carried a piece of shattered gill cover and half of a gill filament that was still twitching.

The Fish Demon's body twitched on the deck—it bounced up less than three inches, then went limp.

The Old Veteran looked back at the new recruit—the new recruit's hand was shaking, and the end of the short spear was wobbling in his palm—but he kept his grip on the short spear.

Seven or eight such clashes were happening on the deck simultaneously.

Some positions held—the muffled sounds of shields and bone blades colliding came one after another.

Some positions did not hold.

The person on the far left of the Third Squad had his lower leg bitten by a Fish Demon.

The Fish Demon vaulted up from under the ship's side—its webbed feet crawled three steps along the row of reinforcing crossbeams on the outside of the hull, then it squeezed in through the gap beneath the edge of the shield.

Its mouth clamped onto the person on the far left's lower leg—biting between the calf and the ankle.

That person was a new recruit—he had been there less than three months, and the reason he was shoved into the Sin Battalion was different from everyone else present.

He had been thrown over there because he lost a fight in another battalion.

His lower leg was spurting blood inside the Fish Demon's mouth—the blood sprayed onto the wet deck and was washed away by the mist, turning into a very faint red film of water.

The Fish Demon dragged him by the leg toward the ship's side—its webbed feet slipped on the wet deck, and the dragging speed was not fast, but the tips of its teeth were sinking inch by inch toward the bone.

The new recruit's screams traveled far in the mist—reaching the ships behind them.

The new recruits on the ships behind were crouching in their formation positions, and after hearing the screams, some of them flinched behind their shields.

Xue Mingyuan stood in the middle position of the Third Squad.

He held the sword that had been newly issued yesterday—his hand was trembling.

The tip of the sword was wobbling up and down by less than half an inch.

His whole body was shaking—shaking from his shoulders down, the vibration traveling through his arm to the hilt and then to the tip, which traced very fine arcs in the yellow light of the oil lamp.

But he did not withdraw from his formation position.

The position he stood in was the 'waist eye' of the Third Squad—the 'waist eye' was the weakest point of the formation, and if the 'waist eye' was broken, the entire small circular formation would collapse.

Xue Mingyuan raised his sword to his chest—the blade held horizontally three inches in front of his chest, with the tip pointing forward.

His hand was still trembling—but his feet did not retreat.

His feet were planted on the deck—blood was already flowing in the drainage grooves on the deck, seeping out from under the shields and spreading to the soles of his shoes.

His sole slipped slightly to the side on the blood—he stomped against the deck and steadied himself.

Lu Changyuan stood at the bow of the ship.

He did not make a move.

His sword hung at his waist—the mouth of the scabbard was dry.

He was watching.

Watching how the Old Veteran of the First Squad used his shield to jam the Fish Demon's second blade—twisting the shield to the right, the bone blade snapped.

Watching why the Second Squad's formation wasn't broken—because the person standing at the 'waist eye' was a mid-level soldier who had served for two and a half years; before the Fish Demons vaulted up, he had slanted his short spear into the deck's drainage groove, with the end of the short spear resting against the knees of the second row of people in the formation—the second row felt the force on their knees and pushed their waists forward.

Watching why a breach opened in the outer circle of the Fourth Squad—because the person standing in that position stepped back, and that step opened a gap two palms wide between his shield and the shield next to him.

The Fish Demon's bone blade thrust through the gap—piercing through the outer layer of cloth armor and cutting the flesh underneath.

Blood splattered out from the gap onto the surface of the adjacent shield, painting a dark red diagonal streak across it.

Lu Hu stood by Lu Changyuan's side—his blade was already drawn, pointing downward, with no blood yet in the blood groove on the blade's surface.

His eyes were scanning the boundaries between the various squads' formations—the gaps between the formations were the places on the deck most prone to breaches.

He was waiting for the Young Lord's command.

Lu Changyuan was mentally noting the people.

The first wave of Fish Demons was pushed back.

Seven Fish Demon corpses were left on the deck—and the corpse of a Sin Battalion soldier lay on the two-zhang-wide open space between the Third Squad and the Fourth Squad.

The corpse's collar was flipped open—the name was embroidered on the inside of the collar.

Blood had smeared the name.

An Old Veteran walked out from his formation position—walked to the side of the corpse, crouched down, turned the corpse over, used his hand to wipe the blood off the collar, and glanced at the name.

Then he stood up—dragged the corpse half a zhang toward the inside of the deck, and leaned the corpse's shoulder against a cargo crate.

He pulled the short spear from the corpse's hand—wiped the fish blood off the spearhead on the corpse's military robe, and walked back to his formation position.