Deep into the night, the sea churned with violent swells.
Standing at the bow of the speedboat, Muda stared unblinkingly at the red and green points of light bobbing with the waves in the distance. Unbidden, a wash of memory colored his eyes.
Roughly two months ago, that place had been a picture of peace and serenity. Amber cylinders had swayed with the surge of ocean currents, shimmering under the sunlight like a field of wheat growing across the water, the undulating waves its rippling gold.
Now, that majestic expanse of gold was history, just like the vanished Shilong City.
Scattered metal components and ruptured pipelines had plunged together into the ocean. Turbine generator units, like wild horses breaking their reins, had been smashed to pieces by the raging waves and lost across this endless sea.
Sometimes, Muda couldn't help but wonder.
Perhaps humanity was simply an unrepentant animal, doomed to endlessly repeat the mistakes it had made more than once, trapped in a recurring cycle of destruction and rebirth, only to mourn the good old days after everything was beyond saving.
Perhaps—
The tenets of the Church of the Torch weren't entirely wrong.
If one truly wanted to eradicate the baseness inherent in human nature, the only way was to purge those wretched traits from the genome, ascending into a higher form of life.
His thoughts drifted far with the sea wind. Estimating that the time was about right, Muda retrieved his walkie-talkie and pressed the button.
"This is the Maritime Patrol. We are about to cross the perimeter... requesting clearance."
A burst of static crackled from the walkie-talkie, followed by a gruff voice trailing off in a long yawn.
"Patrol? What are you guys doing out here?"
Muda replied succinctly.
"We tracked an anomalous sonar contact. Just coming over to take a look, to be safe."
"Alright. Need backup?"
"Not necessary for now."
"Got it. Stay in touch. If you need backup, we'll be there in no time."
The voice on the channel sounded relaxed and leisurely, even accompanied by the crunchy chewing of potato chips, completely devoid of suspicion.
It seemed that after more than two months, the brothers patrolling this area had grown lax after all.
Though that was hardly surprising.
This ocean current power station was already destroyed. There was no reason for Shelter 70's submarines to attack a facility they had already leveled.
The brief exchange ended. Letting out a breath, Muda hung up the transmission, wiped the sweat from his forehead, switched channels on the walkie-talkie, and lowered his voice.
"...The target is right beneath the buoy ahead. That's all the help I can give you. You'd better not stay too long. I can wait for you for fifteen minutes at most."
A moment later, an answer came through the walkie-talkie.
"Copy that. Thank you."
"Don't mention it. Good luck."
With that, Muda waved a hand, signaling the pilot in the cabin to keep heading northwest and circle around the buoy not far off.
Standing behind Muda, the sailor slinging a rifle hesitated for a moment before finally blurting out, "...Why are we helping them?"
Something like this was not without risk.
If the Federation Navy caught them escorting a Shelter 70-model submersible into the wreckage of the ocean current power station, they wouldn't be able to talk their way out of it no matter what excuses they made.
Staring into the dark, rolling tide, Muda didn't truly understand why he had agreed to help either.
The Federation had already officially defined that attack, and the feud between the island survivors and Shelter 70 ran far deeper than a single power station.
Even if those folks from the Alliance dug up fresh clues, he didn't believe those clues could change anything.
It was merely a fuse.
And yet—
He still wanted to know what the truth was.
Perhaps there remained a one-in-ten-thousand chance of an alternative.
After lingering in silence against the noisy sea wind for a long time, he spoke slowly.
"We aren't just helping them."
"We're helping ourselves, too."
The sailor stared blankly at his officer's back, at a loss for words for a long time...
...
At the same time, directly beneath the speedboat, a cylindrical submersible turned its propeller, steadily descending toward the facility sunken on the seabed.
This very submersible was the one Huang Guangwei had previously beached on the shore.
Researchers from the Scientific Expedition had not only repaired the damaged propulsion system and simplified the operational controls, but at Sisi's request, they had also outfitted it with harpoon launchers, underwater grenade launchers, and other aquatic weapon systems flown in from Dawn City to Port French Fries.
Since these weapons hadn't been tested in real combat, even the researchers who mounted them weren't sure whether they would actually work.
However, considering the mission might encounter attacks from aquatic mutants lurking beneath the surface, Sisi had decided to bring them along anyway.
At the same time, she prayed silently in her heart—
Hopefully, they wouldn't need to use these toys.
"Gotta say, this place is truly magnificent..."
Sitting in the cockpit, Sisi switched on the submersible's searchlights. Her eyes followed the camera feed as she meticulously examined the metal wreckage looming close ahead.
A ring over ten meters in diameter was deeply embedded in the seabed. At its center hung massive metal impellers. Right now, those impellers and the outer structural frame were tangled in severed power cables, resembling a shipwreck ensnared by seaweed.
This was likely one of the ocean current power station's seabed turbine generators, belonging to a separate power system from the floating generators that drifted on the surface and had now been swept away to who-knew-where.
There were over a dozen similar turbine generators in the vicinity, and that was merely what she could see so far.
Countless pieces of metal wreckage lay strewn across the craggy seafloor, with colorful fish darting through the pitch-black shadows from time to time.
Rather than the ruins of a power station, it looked almost like an underwater city drowned beneath the sea.
Watching the area illuminated by the searchlights, Tail, sitting in the copilot's seat, had her mouth hanging wide in astonishment, letting out intermittent squeals of wonder.
"Holy craaaap..."
These realistic lighting effects!
These flowing texture details!
And this cinematic scene modeling!
It was absolutely mind-blowing!
Too bad the VM had no signal down here. Otherwise, she would have loved to share the scenery immediately with Sesame Paste and Rou Rou back on shore, and with everyone on the forum.
"A faint electrical current is detected outside the hull. Looks like a few generator units are still running... No wonder there aren't any mutants around here."
Glancing at the warning flashing across the center console screen, Sisi panned the searchlights and camera toward the port side of the craft, quickly pinpointing an area where no fish dared swim.
That was likely the source of the electrical leak.
Marking the sector on her map, Sisi consulted the machine-translated manual while tapping the screen with her index finger, plotting a new safe course. She carefully piloted the submersible around the hazard zone, continuing toward the objective.
Based on intelligence provided by that Shelter 70 resident, the Scientific Expedition NPCs had not only helped draft a 3D model of the power station ruins, but had also preplanned the survey path and data collection protocol, drastically reducing the manual workload.
Once they reached the target area, she would only need to make minor real-time adjustments to the route based on the local conditions.
The mission was actually quite easy.
So easy that she was even considering making a detour after exploring these ruins to check out the coordinates where the research vessel Golden Coast had gone down.
Unlike Sisi, who was kept busy the whole time, Tail sat in the copilot's seat staring out the cockpit window in sheer excitement, practically wishing she could weld her face and nose to the glass.
With zero tension about her, she didn't look like an operative on a covert infiltration mission at all; she looked like a tourist out sightseeing.
It wasn't until the submersible cruised beneath one of the turbine generator units that she suddenly remembered the mission underway. She turned eagerly to Sisi.
"Oh, right, Sis! How are we doing the investigation next?"
Keeping her eyes glued to the 3D map model on the console and the green dot representing their current position, Sisi took a deep breath.
"Simple. Reach the designated area on the map, deploy the probe, wait for data collection, and retrieve the probe."
"Eh?!" Tail looked at Sisi in disbelief. "It's that simple?"
"It's not entirely simple; there are plenty of dangers down here... Besides, isn't simpler better? Why do you look so disappointed?"
Sisi glanced briefly at Tail, wearing a helpless expression at her companion's crestfallen face.
Meeting that exasperated gaze, Tail scratched the back of her head with an embarrassed giggle.
"No way! Simpler is great, of course! But if it's like that... does that mean we don't even get to go outside the sub?"
Sisi pondered for a moment. "Probably not."
"Ugh!"
A thoroughly crushed expression washed over Tail's face. She looked at Sisi pitifully, seeking confirmation again and again. "B-but... is it really okay not to check closely? What if there are overlooked clues hidden inside a fish's belly or behind a reef—"
"How could there be anything like that?" Sisi couldn't help snarking at the fanciful girl. "What do you think this is, a crime scene from a detective novel?"
Over the course of nearly two and a half months, the Southern Archipelago Federation had definitely combed and searched this sea thoroughly.
Under such circumstances, expecting to discover some brand-new clue the Federation Navy had missed was unrealistic. The most promising leads were actually the seemingly mundane ones.
Such as the operational logs of the power station.
The Alliance's Scientific Expedition was best at unearthing traces from mountains of raw data; if there was anything suspicious, they would spot it in an instant.
Upon learning she wouldn't be doing an EVA, Tail instantly deflated like a punctured balloon, slouching listlessly in her seat.
Sisi looked at her out of the corner of her eye and couldn't resist asking, "...I mean, we're over a hundred meters deep on the seabed. Aren't you scared at all?"
Tail cast her a puzzled look and tilted her head.
"Scared?"
"Like... thalassophobia or something."
Watching Sisi keep her eyes rigidly glued to the center console, Tail seemed to put two and two together, a mischievous grin slowly tugging at the corner of her mouth.
"Oho! Tail gets it now! Sisi's weakness is the ocean floor!"
"How is that a weakness? And that's impossible... What's there to be afraid of?"
Sisi froze, the rebuttal spilling out of her mouth almost reflexively, though her gaze remained glued immovably to the screen, completely undermining her claim.
It was rare to see her best friend looking this flustered, and Tail's teasing smirk grew increasingly conspicuous, completely undisguised.
"Then take a look out the window!"
Sisi refused without a second thought. "No thanks. Looking at the screen is the same thing."
"Just one peek!"
"All right, all right... Stop messing around, Tail. We've reached the spot. Time for business!"
As she spoke, Sisi glanced at the readouts in the upper-left corner of the console and hurriedly slammed the button to deploy the probe.
A basketball-sized metal sphere ejected from the submersible's belly, trailing a tether as it shot toward the metal wreckage a dozen meters away.
The metal sphere drew closer and closer to the interface, on the verge of docking.
Just then, however, an awkward hiccup occurred.
The forward-drifting metal sphere jerked to an abrupt stop, snapped taut by the tether.
Sisi's expression froze. She hurriedly checked the parameters on the console, cursing inwardly.
It was just a tiny bit short...
Just as she moved to maneuver the submersible slightly closer, a sudden surge in the current swept the tethered probe upward, catching it on a propeller blade tilted crookedly against the metal wreckage.
Dragging its tether, the probe swung like a pendulum, looping around the blade several times until the line was thoroughly ensnarled.
Now they were far more than just a little short.
Noticing the tightening gravity on Sisi's face, Tail dropped her teasing demeanor and asked carefully, "Sis, what happened?"
"Nothing, just a minor issue. I made a slight misjudgment, and the probe got stuck on a blade. Someone needs to go over and untangle it... Tail, wait here for a moment."
One had to clean up one's own mess after all.
Glancing at the profound darkness outside the cockpit, Sisi swallowed hard, steeling her nerve as her hands reached for the seatbelt.
It's really not that scary...
She chanted inwardly, trying to convince herself that everything around her was just game modeling, nothing to be afraid of.
Just as she finally made up her mind to unbuckle, she saw Tail already leap from her seat, open the metal locker in the cockpit, and pull out the hermetically sealed deep-sea diving suit stored inside.
Taking less than a minute to suit up, Tail gave Sisi an enthusiastic thumbs-up.
"Just detach the probe from the blade, right? Leave it to Tail!"
The girl looked like she was rushing off for a swim; trading the atmospheric diving suit for a pool float wouldn't have felt out of place in the slightest.
Sisi stared blankly at her, only managing a faint whisper after a long pause.
"...Are you sure you're okay with this?"
Tail grinned. "Piece of cake!"
With that, she backed into the airlock, offered a playful salute, and cleanly shut the inner hatch.
Seawater flooded in, filling the airlock, before the outer door slowly opened outward.
Venting a long stream of bubbles, Tail, encased in the bulky suit, kicked off from the edge of the hatch and drifted out leisurely, floating toward the probe caught on the turbine blade.
The task was indeed not difficult.
Practically child's play.
Even so, sitting in the cockpit, Sisi couldn't help sweating for Tail.
That deep abyss of darkness looked like the gaping maw of a leviathan. She truly had no idea why this scatterbrained girl wasn't frightened in the least.
Just as she was thinking this, an energetic voice came over the comms.
"Ooh! It's undone... Sis! What's next?"
Snapping out of her daze, Sisi hastily tapped the center console screen.
"Ah, just move the probe to the interface. I've sent you the location."
"Roger!"
Confirming the interface's position through the HUD on her helmet visor, Tail tucked the probe under her arm. With an energetic heave, she engaged the small thrusters on the back of her suit and swam toward the marked coordinates.
It was a terminal welded onto a metal rack.
The display was busted, but the connector was still intact.
Tail brought the probe up to it. Soon, two mechanical arms deployed from the sides of the metal sphere, latching onto the terminal and anchoring itself firmly in place like a spider.
From here, it could handle the rest on its own.
Tail released her grip, drifting back a short distance to watch the little gizmo go to work, detaching the wiring originally connected to the terminal screen and plugging it into its own spherical body.
Inside the cockpit, Sisi breathed a sigh of relief. Looking at the progress bar on the console, she said, "Data transfer in progress... It'll take about five minutes. Tail, how's it looking out there?"
Floating beside the probe, Tail waved her arms vigorously toward the bright searchlights. Her muffled voice came over the channel.
"Ooh! Everything's normal! Man, it's so quiet down here!"
Feeling an uneasy sensation that something sinister was lurking in those pitch-black waters, Sisi said worriedly, "The probe is hooked up... Tail, why don't you come back inside first?"
"No rush. I'll wait until the transfer is done, just in case something happens!"
"That... shouldn't happen, right?" Sisi swallowed involuntarily as she spoke.
Yet that imperceptible hesitation did not escape the ears on the other end of the line.
A cheeky smirk promptly crept onto Tail's face, and she giggled teasingly.
"Eh? Could it be that Sisi is scared?"
Sisi froze, her face flushing crimson the instant she caught on.
"What are you talking about? Wh-what do I have to be afraid of!"
Resting a gloved hand beneath her heavy diving helmet, Tail leaned against the metal frame and mimed rubbing her chin.
"Kinda weird! To think Sisi, who works in a morgue, actually has something she's afraid of!"
"What morgue?! I'm in pathology!"
Listening to the comms, Sisi gave a rueful, exasperated explanation. But before her words could finish, an abrupt, alarmed cry cut her off.
"Sis! There's something beneath you!"
Sisi blinked, sitting up straight in her chair.
"Are you joking? Don't mess around at a time like this!"
"No, I'm serious! There really seems to be something down there... Also, point your searchlights around, stop shining them right at me!"
Almost the moment Tail's words fell, a subtle vibration crept through the submersible's deck, traveling from below up through Sisi's ankles.
A jolt of terror seized Sisi's heart. Realizing her inexcusable lapse, she frantically tilted the searchlights downward, aiming them straight beneath the submersible.
The beam of light sliced through the darkness like a sword, plunging into the black abyss.
And the instant the beam illuminated that abyss, she found an amber pupil nestled within a massive rocky basin, staring unblinkingly straight at her.
The eye was the size of a truck.
Behind it drifted grayish-black tentacles, each as thick as a barrel, crawling across the rugged seafloor like vines clinging to a wall.
When had this thing moved here?!
Or had it...
Been here all along!
A bone-chilling dread crawled up Sisi's spine.
The twin terrors of the deep ocean and tentacled abominations collided, making her heart skip a beat.
The vibrations pulsing through the hull grew increasingly violent, and the seawater surrounding the craft churned as if brought to a boil.
She knew—
This was the silent roar of this leviathan of the deep!
"Holy craaaap! A tentacle monster?!"
Tail's scream snapped Sisi out of her trance. Almost instinctively, she yelled at the top of her lungs, "Tail! Protect the probe!"
With that, disregarding the half-finished progress bar, she decisively severed the tether between the submersible and the probe.
Events proved her judgment correct.
Almost the split-second she severed the tether, a whistling black shadow slammed into the flank of the submersible.
Hovering near the ruins, the craft was swatted away like a golf ball, tumbling end over end until it slammed violently into a metal gantry.
The gantry bent under the impact. An agonizing metallic groan echoed through the hull, accompanied by dull thuds landing on the submersible's roof.
Shaking her dizzy head, Sisi barely clawed her way back to consciousness. Clinging to the last dregs of her awareness, she throttled the propulsion system to maximum, steering the submersible out of the danger zone just before the overhead alloy framework collapsed.
She had barely traveled ten meters when billowing plumes of silt erupted behind the craft. The collapsing metal debris buried the reefs below in a slow, relentless avalanche.
Had she been a fraction of a second slower, she would have been crushed to death.
"Phew..."
Leaning back in her seat, Sisi gasped for air, her chest heaving violently.
With no time to hesitate, she fixed her gaze on the console screen, where warning lights flashed frantically. She swiftly swept the seabed below with the searchlights and camera, circling toward the northern perimeter of the ruins as she urgently hunted for traces of the sea monster.
The creature seemed to have vanished into thin air.
Yet Sisi knew with absolute certainty that it was still nearby, hiding somewhere around the ruins of this power station!
"...Tail! Are you alright?"
No response came over the comms.
Scattered metal debris was everywhere, and the cables floating around the turbine generators formed a natural barrier of interference.
"Tch..."
Gritting her teeth, Sisi slammed a fist onto the armrest. Her index finger tapped furiously across the screen, replotting a course back toward the center of the ruins.
The data transfer was incomplete; the raw files were still stored on the probe.
If they tried to siphon it bit by bit through a wireless trickle, moving that massive volume of data would take until the end of time.
Not to mention the risk of packet loss!
The only option now was to retrieve the probe in person.
Perhaps having sensed the disturbance on the seafloor, that NPC named Muda sent a communication request at the exact moment she headed back toward the heart of the ruins.
Keeping a wary eye on the pitch-black seabed, Sisi reached over and pressed the accept button.
The connection had barely gone through when a deafening roar blew out the speakers.
"What the hell are you doing down there?! Testing nuclear weapons?!"
Having no time for nonsense, Sisi took a deep breath and cut straight to the point.
"A monster! There's a... sea monster with tons of tentacles down here! Somewhere right below the ruins of the ocean current power station!"
A half-second of stunned silence hung on the other end of the line.
"A sea monster?! Impossible! Large mutants won't come anywhere near that zone; there are still turbines operating there—"
Sisi: "That's the whole problem! Because of the electrical current, normal schools of fish won't enter the ruins, but something forced that behemoth to stay down here! I suspect it's on the verge of starving to death... I think it's psychic interference. What do you think?"
Muda cried out in shock, "Psychic interference?! How could that be!"
Sisi: "No time to explain... The device controlling that thing must be somewhere nearby! Do you have a way to locate other psychic interference devices? If you can, it would be a huge help!"
Muda roared, "Forget the damn psychic interference device! Get the hell back up here right now!"
Hearing the NPC's frantic shouting, Sisi replied calmly, "My teammate is still down there. There's no way I'm leaving her behind. And the probe... I have to retrieve it. Even if it kills me, I'm bringing it back!"
"Are you out of your goddamn minds?! That's our war! Ours! You don't need to throw your lives away for it!"
Standing aboard the speedboat, Muda's eyes went wide. Clenching the walkie-talkie with all his might, he bellowed with every ounce of strength in his lungs.
Yet no answer came from the other side, leaving only dead silence.
The tumultuous waves sounded like hurried drumbeats, drowning out the white foam surging endlessly to the surface.
He couldn't understand.
What were these people risking their lives for?
They hadn't even known each other for half a month!
And those brief two weeks hadn't been pleasant either.
God knew how many people were waiting to laugh at them, how many people wished they would get the hell out of here and go back to their wasteland.
Muda gritted his teeth, his hand squeezing the silent walkie-talkie until his knuckles turned white.
Talking about bringing an end to the wasteland...
Who the hell cared about that sort of thing!
At least around here, nobody gave a damn!
Taking a deep breath, Muda suddenly seemed to make up his mind. He turned toward the wheelhouse and roared, "Shut down the psychic interference device!"
The sailor inside the wheelhouse froze.
The psychic interference device was their tool for warding off mutants.
If they switched that thing off, they risked being capsized at any second.
"B-but—"
The sailor tried to protest, but the moment he opened his mouth, he was cut off by his superior's roar.
"I said shut it down! Now!"
"Yes, sir!" Meeting his officer's murderous glare, the sailor dared not hesitate. He hurriedly powered down the psychic interference device, praying silently in his heart that no mutants would fixate on them.
Muda strode into the cabin, shoved the man aside, and locked his eyes onto the console screen.
With the psychic interference device offline, the display went dead quiet, as if broken.
Muda held his breath, waiting in agony.
Just then, an imperceptible ripple suddenly appeared on the calm surface of the display, like a dragonfly lightly skimming across water.
The instant he saw that ripple, his heart leaped into his throat.
That was a psychic interference signal—
It was real?!
Muda wasn't the only one stunned; the sailor beside him wore a look of utter disbelief.
The only psychic interference device within a dozen li was right aboard their speedboat.
Where was that signal coming from?!
"Lock onto its position!"
Tossing that command behind him, Muda pushed open the door, stepped out of the wheelhouse, and hollered at the other sailor on deck.
"Ready depth charges!"
Sensing the gravity of the situation, the sailor swallowed hard and nodded briskly.
"Yes, sir!"
Chapter 684