I'm a Stingray?

Chapter 124: Ranks

"What? I'm bigger now?" Timothy yelled out with all of his power and even ignored the fact that so many shrimp could have eavesdropped.

[You are, but the difference now is barely a centimeter for both width and length. You are far away from becoming a full grown adult.]

Regardless of that fact, it felt like a marvelous gift and he couldn't help feeling a great sense of success and began swimming in his spot even. It felt magnificent, apart from that he had gathered up so many system points and using them is so close from happening.

Yet regardless of these wins, compared to all the losses and trials he had gone through ever since he obtained this new body, the wins still felt lacking and could use more.

A shrimp managed to ruin the fun by bursting in to report, "Your majesty, over 200 white-legged shrimp have died in this battle."

"No biggie, we still have like 4,800 more of them left, right? It will feel like nothing had happened, this is a big community." His attitude surely proved optimistic but judging from the glares coming from everyone around, this was snowballing into a problem.

The marine animal who just had spoken to him was likely a guard, so it was easy to simply brush that one off. But the next shrimp to make an entrance, had a feminine tone.

Apart from that it shook with authority, the first word managed to catch Tim's attention even though he was not looking at her. "Hear me, king! This matter must be discussed and now!"

Although it was ear catching, it also managed to become equally annoying. And the first thing he said was, "Stop yelling lady."

Letting out a rough sigh and tightening her jaws to compress rage, the old lady got closer and added. "It doesn't matter if I yell or not. 200 of our kind have died, what do you plan to do about this situation?"

"What do you want me to do? They are dead." Yet still his view remained stiff and difficult to battle.

But this lady came prepared, regardless of the fact that only a few minutes were given. Therefore she managed to counter-argue, "Precisely. You haven't even been in command in a day and yet we lost so many brave souls, your ruling is already hanging by a thread!"

"Another threat? This is getting old." The stingray answered and just swam away to end the topic. Thankfully, no mad-shrimp dared to launch a sneak attack after that type of disrespect.

...

Travelling became much easier after that point. Predators of the surrounding areas kept a good distance away from the large platoon. Timothy couldn't tell why but they legitimately turned their tails and swam away once noticing the group.

If these predators have a vision admirable enough, his thought would be that fright had entered their hearts thanks to the most recent battle. Either that or a group spanning over 300 meters wide, felt a bit too intimidating for anyone who wanted to try their luck.

After a while he stopped focusing on these beings as confidence had built up brick by brick like a castle. However, when he zoomed in on a damn reef shark and noticed how it fled right away, a huge brick dropped in his conscious castle and managed to decorate the interior.

By now, they've travelled a total of 4 kilometers from the starting point, and only now had one of the elders approach with a different demand. "Our community is tired, we demand to rest here now!"

"Okay okay, that's fair." He answered and liked the idea too. That large tunnel was left with him having an empty stomach but a travel that long, managed to rupture the already consumed provisions.

The group finally stopped walking and out of a sudden he heard complete peace and quiet. It wasn't noticeable but the cumulative crawling of the entire community, had slowly tired out his hearing senses - although it wasn't deafening, its impact was drastically felt now when everyone stopped moving.

It would be a horrible idea to land somewhere surrounded by these shrimp who could turn on him at any time. So after that paranoia was pushed through a thought, he swam away from the crowd and landed about 30 meters away.

His vision was on the edges of the massive upgrade, it had lasted quite a lot of time but sure proved useful. In this case it was easy to keep a glance at the crowd and charge towards any threat if it actually appeared.

Right after a few seconds, the vision suddenly closed in and anything above 20 meters away, appeared like a massive blur. Heavily familiar, and it instantly made him think. "Yeah makes sense, lasted so long already."

At that moment, an old looking shrimp approached whom was paired with a few bigger of its kind. Whatever their intent might be, it couldn't be good, common logic fought in every aspect to think that way.

"I can't say that it's my pleasure to meet you, king." That was the first thing of which the elder uttered, his energy was made clear after that point.

"The hell do you want now?" It felt as if Tim had met this one before but it felt like a new face, "I can't bring back the dead."

"You can't but I still demand compensation. Most of my tribe had died in the barracuda attack that you failed to prevent!" It was easy to notice that this geezer came prepared for the debate, his raging attitude proved it so.

A bit pissed that his level 12 vision was gone and definitely agitated by this geezer, it piled up all together to the sea pancake shouting. "What could I possibly give you?"

Feeling happy that the conversation had led down where he wanted it to, the old shrimp allowed for silence to stretch a little as a bloat of victory and then answered. "Ranks! Of course someone like you wouldn't be aware of anything like that but I want to become the new president of this entire community."