The Fangtooth fish did not answer him, which wasn't surprising. Each species of fish had a distinct language they called their own, so communication between species was often difficult, if not impossible.
In this situation, it was especially worrisome that he couldn't communicate with these fish, because if he wanted to threaten them to stay away, he'd have to shoot a warning shot. He could not predict how they'd react to it.
"What am I supposed to do now? They probably think I'm begging them or something." He thought.
[Statistically, you can survive a battle against them, because you have a strategic advantage. You can attack some of them before they even get to you.]
"Yeah?" He followed along, "What if they can shoot things as well? They survived the dungeons, and I doubt they bit their way through it. What if instead, I try to back away?"
[That is a potentially safe option. As for your concerns of these Fangtooth fish possessing ranged attacks, it is unlikely that they have them. By all odds, they made it through the dungeons because you made quite a dent against the number of monsters within the dungeon. They got lucky.]
"That's insightful," He nodded, "But I'm gonna back away, because I don't look forward to missing a couple of my fins."
George swam backwards, which felt unnatural for him, as his body wasn't built for this, but this was his best option. If he turned around and fled, he'd be chased by them, so it was best if he kept some amount of eye-contact with them.
While he backed away, seven more Fangtooth fish made their way out of the dungeon, straight out of the magical barrier. There were twenty of them now, and at this point, he was sure he'd lose a fight against them.
"Shit shit shit…" He whispered.
Seconds later, the group of fish started following him. They were approaching slowly, which didn't make them look any less menacing, but more intimidating.
"Shit…" He repeated. "Well, they're not waiting for their friends anymore, so there shouldn't be more of them."
Moments later, the entire school of fish started rushing towards him, with a pale look on their face, and with their fangs sticking out. If only one of them had rushed towards him, he'd understand it as a sort of an attempt at negotiation, but that was not the case. These fish weren't smart enough to negotiate, they were attacking!
"Oh, hell no!" George cussed. "I'm no easy meal, you menaces!"
Afterwards, he shot at the school of fish using his Molecular Torsion ability. He shot at them four times, and spent all of his remaining Mana Essence points during the shooting, but at least he did manage to land those shots, from a comfortable distance too, because these fish had charged at him as a group!
Two fish tore apart upon impact. They didn't explode, but most of their bodies did disappear, and in turn, what remained of their bodies flung across the waters before they floated aimlessly. The other two fish he shot at, got crippled, they swam in circles.
"Good enough," He sighed.
Afterwards, he stopped backing away, and charged forward. He greeted the threat head on, and as he gained a bit of momentum, he clashed with the remaining enemies!
Thanks to the recent evolutions, he was essentially an underwater battering ram of the deep sea! He rammed through the school of fish smoothly, and tossed them left and right as if they were bowling pins. The venomous dorsal fin on his back did a lot of damage as well.
George distanced himself from the enemies after the collision, and when he turned around, he saw that he had stunned at least six of them. Some of the fish he stunned might even be dead, because his bony head had developed a thicker skull recently. Ten kilos of bone and muscles hitting those fish at 15 km\h was nothing less than devastating!
"Hahaha!" He celebrated.
Afterwards, he charged towards the remaining enemies again, and this time he had a great advantage, because they hadn't fully registered what happened. When they decided to turn around, he was already a single foot away from them, and managed to ram through the school of fish once more!
"They're a lot smaller than I thought," He grinned.
George had knocked three more Fangtooth fish unconscious, and now, he felt that the battle was fairly balanced, so he decided to stop ramming through them. Instead, he swam towards the few remaining fish, and started either smacking them around with his tail, or biting them in half.
It didn't take him long to end the battle. He won. To seal his victory, he even went around and bit through the fish he had originally knocked out. He didn't want to spare any of them, and this was especially the case after he started collecting essence points. He experienced greed for once.
Once he bit through them, the system flashed the total amount of points he had. They weren't a lot, but he was happy nonetheless.
[Blood Essence = 200]
[Bone Essence = 80]
[Mana Essence = 15]
"Good enough," He said. "Those guys were tiny, I'm surprised they pooped out anything at all. I definitely wasn't expecting any mana out of them, so we had a good haul."
[Some fish bear mana, even if they don't have any abilities to use the mana on. You got lucky, congratulations.]
George simply smiled, and moved along. He managed to eat half of the fish he killed, and he discovered that he had a big appetite. He had developed his muscles recently, so it wasn't a surprise that he required more protein to sustain himself.
"I have a big gut, don't I?" He said. "I'm gonna need to hunt regularly if I'm to support my evolution."
Regarding the essence points he won after the battle, he decided not to spend them right now, because he was too close to the magical barrier that shone brightly below him. He'd be vulnerable to attacks, and the system agreed with him. George discovered that he was smart enough to make most of his own decisions now, the system trusted him. He was happy.