OPSR: Chapter 16 (Patreon)

Hatchi's blood tasted surprisingly good. Salty, metallic, but not as unpleasant as I thought blood would be. Hatchi looked over at me before one of his hands swung one of his blades in my direction, at which point I moved. His own sword dug into his arm, not enough to cut it off, but enough to do significant damage. Before the large group could work cohesively together, I rushed over and bit another on his exposed leg.

The spitting fish screamed out in pain as I confirmed that one lineage factor from a fishman wasn’t enough. It could be strengthened by absorbing multiple sources. Spitting at me, I moved to avoid it, not because it would deal damage, but because it was his actual spit he used in his attack. Cutting him down the next second in retaliation.

Everyone looked in shock at how easy I made it look, but I chose my target carefully. This was one of the weakest fishman here, including the grunts. Usopp could take him down by himself. They thought themselves untouchable in the ‘weakest sea’, thought themselves gods, but in a single strike of my sword, I proved them wrong.

Licking the blood off my blade was not only to strike fear in them, but to see if taking in more blood from the same person would help increase the lineage factor line of fishman, but it didn’t. It had to be separate forms of DNA to trigger. Dozens of fishman here… I was getting excited now. Killing was much easier than I thought it would be, but it very well could be because they’re fishmen.

It wasn’t out of racism, but they were terrifying to look at in real life. Even worse than the live-action versions of the characters, because they were gigantic. Almost every fishman was close to, if not over, eight feet tall. I could only land on Hatchi because I was on the roof, and I didn’t want to run around biting the rest of them on the leg to get their blood(lineage factor).

Also, I come from a world where I know that drinking a bunch of different people's blood is an incredibly bad idea. I was really, really hoping I wouldn’t get an incurable disease from doing this, but because of how outnumbered I was, I needed every advantage I could get before fighting Arlong. My blade struck out now. They were so used to using their bigger, stronger bodies that not many relied on weapons when they really should have.

Because while they’re strong, that doesn’t mean they were immune to having their arms and legs cut off. Every fodder fishman I injured or cut down was another lineage factor on my blade. Swinging both at the same time, going back and forth between them and licking the blades between swings, I looked like an actual psychopath.

They had come here to enslave the island, to put these humans through the same things their leader went through; they were true scumbags; that was why killing them was so easy. Anyone watching this happen would see what appeared to be a single toddler fighting against a group of adults, and actually winning. They would also see my still slightly thin frame that I had started to bulk up, inches suddenly appearing on me as my clothes started to struggle to hold in my new size.

Not many of the fishman noticed; they were too busy either trying to fight me or running away in fear. There were two exceptions, Arlong, of course, but also his second hand man, the fishman karate master who followed him, Kuroobi. Hatchi was missing a few arms already, fighting with desperation, getting up over and over again, even though he was one of the very few I wouldn’t mind surviving this, but he was too attached to his crew. As evil as they were, they were his people. So, I had to put him down.

Swinging both blades at the same time, he moved to block with hands that were no longer there. One blade was stopped by two hands while the other struck true, killing him. Only two looked on at my heaving frame with fury now; every other fishman had run or was dead. There was no fair fight; there never would be. This wasn’t a show where everyone would pair off and fight their respective enemy. Both attacked together.

Arlong and Kuroobi worked well together. Every time one would attack, I couldn’t retaliate because the other would be there to catch me. Every strike from Arlong’s sword or punch from Kuroobi went completely uncountered. Kuroobi sliced his hand on my blade that I had up defensively while I took a strike from Arlong. The only reason my head wasn’t shattered was the adaptive exoskeleton.

The attack still hurt tremendously, but it didn’t cut more than the surface of my skin; only a paltry amount of my blood trickled out before I got the sword that stabbed Kuroobi up to my tongue. I felt the change happen. The first was by far the most noticeable; Hatchi had a more complete lineage factor than the rest of the crew. At least until I tasted Kuroobi’s blood and felt a fundamental shift in myself.

I grew larger all at once, my skin turning a bluish tint as gills formed on my neck. Webbing formed between my fingers as a secondary layer formed over my eyes to protect them underwater if I ever went. I felt my strength surge dramatically as I got the gist of what just happened. I gained a hybrid fishman form from combining enough of the fishman lineage factor.

I was weaker than them when the fight started, only being able to defeat so many because of how unequipped they were, only being able to fight Arlong and Kuroobi because of all the other fishman DNA I absorbed, but I was still weaker than either of them… But that wasn’t the case now. This time, when Kuroobi struck at me, I struck back, regardless of the damage I would take from Arlong.

Arlong’s teeth sank into me as both blades pierced Kuroobi; he spun, ripping a chunk of flesh from my shoulder, but Kuroobi fell to the ground dead. It was now a one-on-one fight. Arlong knew this; the only reason he didn’t flee was that his crew was already destroyed. It would be a complete disgrace for him to go back with his tail between his legs now.

I wanted to say the fight was even, that he put up a valiant effort, but I was able to fight two of them in a weaker form. Now that I was in this half-fishman form, I was mopping the floor with him. Overpowering him when he clashed with his sword, until it broke, or smashing through his teeth and cutting his hands when he used them as castanet weapons.

Arlong was done for, but it wasn’t a pretty death. It was slow and brutal. Every small wound pushed the fight closer to its ending, but he just kept fighting. More and more damage piled up until he couldn’t stand anymore. His nose cut from his face, missing an arm with a dozen smaller cuts all over his body, he died from blood loss while cursing all humans.

I finally licked my blades clean. Once again, he had the strongest lineage factor out of all of them, more pieces to the genetic puzzle of Fishman completed as I felt myself grow stronger in this form. I dropped out of this form and back into my human form, feeling the bruises all over my body, several cuts, but the man form of damage I suffered from the battle was from fatigue. I was barely able to stand on my feet as most of the civilians rushed up after the fighting was over.

They hadn’t suffered for years under the rule of Arlong in this timeline, and some looked at me warily from my fighting style, but everyone who knew what was going to happen, what Arlong was going to do, looked at me with thankful smiles. Bellemere and her daughters were included in that list.