I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 210: Collector (2)

Speed was an attribute that the hero lacked without a doubt. He could reach the 5-miles-per-hour barrier but that was about it. And in such a situation, it was insufficient.

Because not only did he need to reach Dana as fast as possible, he also didn't exactly know where to look first. It was fair to say that he had rushed this whole situation, but going back to the hidden den for the sake of asking about details, could be even more time consuming.

Just before he came close to admitting that he had no clue where to look, he began spotting similar figures who were floating closer and closer. Once they arrived, it was clear to see that these marine animals were the small group of diamond stingrays.

Their leader's feminine tone echoed, as she questioned. "What are you doing here? The enemy should be near the border!"

It sounded reasonable. The border had such a name because it separated the massive differences of ocean depth. It only made sense for the enemy to come out of the deeper portions of the sea.

Without thinking about it too much, the hero nodded. "Okay, let's go there then!"

...

Within a few moments, they arrived at the very destination that was picked earlier and began paying attention to all surroundings. The prime idea was to look for this enemy, by stalking the borderline and just hope for the best.

But it only took a few seconds for them to lose hope, as there was nothing here. And since a possible battle was likely going on between Dana and the enemy, there was no time to waste whatsoever.

So it was up to Timmy to pitch, "Nothing's here, we need to look somewhere else!"

Before anyone else could have uttered out even a single word, they noticed a weird figure who suddenly popped out to their left. In the first few seconds it wasn't scary, but severity was made a tad more apparent when the same figure continued to explode in size!

After a blink of an eye, it became over 10-feet-long and was sloshing its weight around with the apparent aim to resemble a fish's figure.

The more solid such a form became, the more terrifying this scene was developing into. And the group of stingrays were quick to realise that whatever Amie had seen earlier on, wasn't in any way an over-exaggeration!

Regardless of how terrifying the situation was becoming, the blue-dotted boy was the first to lunge forward and face the thing. But since it wasn't attacking, it didn't seem reasonable to do anything drastic at the moment.

After staring each other down for a few moments, it was the hero who asked. "Are you the collector?"

As if trying to reply, the thing began rumbling for a few moments, and released sounds that were equal to what a human would make while suffocating underwater; it came along with hints of hard materials crashing against one another, for the sake of making an ear piercing sound.

Such sounds were even scarier once attention was lended to the creature's appearance. It was pitch dark in colour, but it released small bits of green-light once in a while which seemed in all ways, artificial.

Communication doesn't seem like an option, so the best thought now was to figure out a way of attacking this enemy. Because from the looks of it, even though these stingrays were more in numbers, the enemy seemed much more powerful.

To answer a question that neither of these sea-disk's asked so far, the creature who they are recognizing as the collector, spat out a mouthful of bones that gave out a greatly familiar resemblance.

After looking at what gave out the portrait of a ribcage, the group of friends felt their spines becoming colder than ever. Because in many aspects, this skeleton resembled the body form of an eagle ray!

It was even more bizarre how the skeleton wasn't broken in any way! Not even a chip or tip of it was missing - everything was in place and it didn't seem like it was going anywhere.

Anger spiked up in the boy's mind, and the only thing he could shout was. "You water-kissing freak!"

And without waiting for a reply or a second thought from anyone whatsoever, he charged against the enemy and began clapping his jaws with the aim of devouring the monster, even if he had to do it chunk-by-chunk.

But before the hero could even collide with this monstrosity, the creature's appearance shifted again.

For a second it seemed like the hero had barged through the target's heart, but a brief peek would make one realise that the enemy had somehow shape-shifted its chest, to allow the stingray pass through without even meeting the slightest barricade.

Within a second, Tim had reached the enemy's other side and could see the reef in the far distance. It felt tremendously odd to have such a result, but the rage he withheld, didn't allow the boy to stop the set of rage.

Instead, he turned around for the sake of charging against the enemy once more but had the displeasure of witnessing a scene that continued to shed a bizarre aura.

The very creature that he was facing against, had shifted its shape again and was now breaking down into millions of pieces.

It crumbled down like an aged castle and mixed with the very sand that was laid out underneath them. At first it was easy to spot it, since the enemy's colour was solely black.

But in a few short moments, it began disappearing from the sand's surface, as if it was water that shrunk down in a hot pan.

Such a result would make one think that Timmy had killed this monster, but a prime guess took over instead. They began thinking that the enemy had dug deep in the sand, and was hiding its body from anyone else!

Before they were given the chance to figure out a plan on how to handle this situation, they noticed a patch of black-coloured material; shooting out of the sand and directly aiming for the diamond stingrays!