"Haha, I see that I might have startled you there. My apologies, but at least you know I'm here now."
Alex spoke, trying to ease the tension that had suddenly risen with the woman's reaction.
Considering she was naked and swimming alone in the river, he couldn't blame her for being apprehensive after seeing an unknown man approach her and call out to her.
There were many cases in history where this happened to women, who were never heard from again...
Alex had to be careful with his words, to not scare her completely into attacking him off the bat.
"I'm not trying to perv on you or anything like that, I promise! You see, I'm kind of lost... I'm looking for someone, but I don't even know where we are. Could you tell me where we are?"
Alex recomposed his previous question to make him seem more friendly, but like he was talking to a brick wall, the woman just kept on staring at him with the same deadpan expression.
'Does she not understand me?'
It clicked in Alex's mind that this woman might be a native inhabitant of the Primordial Expanse, so she might not understand the universal federal language he was speaking.
'How am I supposed to approach this?'
Alex sighed, trying to figure out an approach to this situation.
The woman's deadpan, unblinking stare was unnerving, and the silence only made it even worse.
He decided to try again, speaking slowly and using hand gestures this time, hoping to bridge the possible language barrier between them.
"Where... are... we?"
Alex asked, pointing to the ground and then making a wide circular motion to indicate the area around them, shrugging at the end to indicate his lack of knowledge.
He forced a smile the whole time, hoping to ease the tension.
But before he could finish his question, the woman's lips parted.
Alex felt a short bout of happiness, thinking he had finally gotten his question through to her, but what happened next, was the last thing he would have expected.
It was nothing short of terrifying.
A scream — high pitched, ear shattering, and filled with energy so dense it startled Alex — exploded from her mouth.
His only hope was that this one was on the lower end of strength for Sirens.
The siren's scream subsided, leaving an intense ringing in Alex's ears.
But she didn't wait for him to recover.
With a sudden leap out of the water, she lunged at him, her claws slashing through the air with precision, aiming directly for his vitals.
Alex barely had time to roll away, forced to take his hands off his still pained, ringing ears in order to properly defend himself and fight back.
He summoned Virtue's Edge out of his spatial storage, giving him just that bit more confidence when facing this monster.
The siren hissed, her black eyes narrowing as she circled him.
She moved exactly like apex predators do when toying with their prey — it was clear that she wasn't taking Alex seriously yet.
But inside, Alex was immensely relieved.
This Siren was clearly on the weaker end of her species, but she still had strength that rivalled the Red Demon commander who he needed to team up with Colonel Margit to take out.
While he was relatively equal in strength, he was now alone, and the Siren had already gotten the upper hand on him with her first, sudden sonic attack.
Alex knew he was in a serious pickle right now, but there was no escape for him.
The Siren slowly rose out of the water, using her abilities as a higher life form to fly, but she absolutely terrified Alex whilst doing so.
Because she was ascending the whole river with her...!
It was like the river was suddenly enraptured in zero gravity, as it started to float upwards at the same speed as the Siren.
But this was only the start of things.
The Siren lifted her arm and pointed it at Alex, and the river moved like it was one with her.
It enveloped Alex in an instant, and he was dragged into her domain.
They were both in her natural domain now.
The originally neutral fight had just drastically moved in the Siren's advantage.