Fierce Battle in the Deep Sea!

Meanwhile, elsewhere. The instant the submersible piloted by Sisi was swatted away by a tentacle thick as a water barrel, the flailing beam of its searchlight snapped out like a broken match, vanishing along with the hurled craft into the silent deep sea far away. "Si!" Tail couldn't help but cry out, but through the heavy diving helmet, not a sound could escape. A full minute passed before a dull rumble like rolling thunder drifted from the distance. The submersible seemed to have slammed into the support frame of a turbine generator unit, triggering a localized collapse. Watching the murk churning through the darkness, Tail panicked terribly, yet there was nothing she could do. The communication channel was dead silent. Turbid silt swallowed the last faint sliver of light. The entire body of water seemed to plunge back into silence—a terrifying silence. There was no light here. No air. No sound. There was only boundless silence and darkness, punctuated occasionally by tremors and muffled thuds carried by drifting bubbles, like the whispered murmurings of some unnameable entity in the abyss. Regulating her breathing, Tail carefully retreated to the edge of the ruins, tucking herself beneath a protruding metal bracket and trying her best to make herself as small as possible. The spherical probe was not far to her left, still quietly at work. The cable connecting it to the submersible had already drifted away with the surging currents. Tail finally understood where the current that had knocked the probe askew earlier had come from. It had probably been the monster's "breath"! Realizing that the monster was not far beneath her, Tail felt her scalp tingle with dread. Her gaze kept darting toward the spherical probe clamped onto the terminal. "Holy crap! When is this thing gonna finish collecting data—huh? It let go?" Just as the words left her mouth, the round probe suddenly retracted the mechanical arms hugging the metal frame. Seeing the upwelling current about to sweep it away, Tail acted quickly, extending both arms and grabbing hold, pulling the basketball-sized probe tight against her chest. "Done!" Looking down at the probe in her arms, Tail let out a long breath, a triumphant grin spreading across her face. Yet before two seconds had passed, that triumphant expression froze. Now came the problem. How was she supposed to bring this thing back? This body of water was located near the middle of the Southern Sea; even on a speedboat, it took a three- to four-hour voyage. In her diving suit, she would die of exhaustion before she could swim back. Not to mention she might encounter mutants along the way far more terrifying than that tentacled sea monster. "Oh crap... I'm totally screwed!" She really had celebrated too early. Just as panic was setting in, static rustled over the communication channel, followed by an intermittent voice. "Tail... what's your status?" Hearing that familiar voice, Tail gasped in excitement. "Si! Thank goodness, you're alive!" Confirming that Tail was alive, Sisi, seated in the cockpit, let out a breath of relief, the corners of her lips curling slightly. "What kind of talk is that? I don't die that easily... But since you're in the mood to joke around, you must be doing fine." Tail giggled, full of energy. "Oh! Of course! Tail is doing great right now!" Sisi: "That's wonderful... By the way, Tail, can you see where the guy that swatted me went?" "Uh... that's kind of tough." Tail cautiously poked her head out through a gap in the ruins and peered outside, feeling as though she were submerged in pitch-black ink. "It's pitch-dark here, can't even see my own fingers. I can't see a thing." Sisi sighed. "Fair enough..." This was the deep sea, after all. Never mind that it was night up on the surface; even in broad daylight, barely any light would reach such depths. Listening to the quiet static on the channel, Tail took a deep breath and summoned her courage. "Should I find a way to lure it out? I have a flashlight—" "Don't you dare!" Sisi interrupted without hesitation at the dangerous suggestion, speaking hurriedly, "There's no telling if our weapons will even work on that thing. We need to avoid a firefight if possible... In a moment, I'll fire a few flares near you to mark an extraction path. If you can, try to bring the probe out too. We need the data on it." Tail: "Oh! Leave it to Tail!" Hearing that energetic response over the channel, Sisi couldn't help a reassuring smile. "All right! I'm counting on you!" Though Tail usually seemed a few fries short of a Happy Meal, she was thoroughly dependable at critical moments. Tapping the cockpit's central console screen with her index finger, Sisi switched the remote weapon station's ammunition to flares, aimed toward the probe's general direction, and pressed the launch button. With several short, dull pops, trails of fine, milky-white bubbles surged forward, bursting midway through their flight into an alluring reddish-orange glow. Those faint gleams were like matches struck in the dark, tracing a crooked trajectory through the pitch-black wreckage. Using the flares to confirm her escape route, Tail held the probe tightly against her chest, kicked off with both legs, and darted out from under the half-collapsed metal frame, drifting slowly toward a broken metal blade illuminated by the flares a dozen meters away. The tentacled sea monster was nearby. She couldn't get too close to the flares, or she would be spotted; nor could she drift too far, or she wouldn't be able to see anything. Perhaps because her surroundings were so deathly quiet, Tail felt her heart thumping violently, her pulse beating in her ears. "Holy..." This is way too freaking thrilling! The darkness pressing in from all sides was like a monster's gaping maw; merely looking into it drained every ounce of courage. It was terrifying for the one trapped inside, and just as agonizing for the one watching from afar. Inside the submersible's cockpit, Sisi fixed her gaze intently on the blinking green dot on the central console screen, holding her breath. "Good girl, Tail!" Only fifty meters left! Watching the green dot draw closer, her lips moved silently, sweat beading in her tightly clenched palms. Forty meters! Thirty-five! Thirty— Just as the green dot was about to break clear of the power station wreckage, disaster struck without warning! The flashing green dot on the screen seemed to hit a solid wall, its forward momentum grinding to an abrupt halt. Startled, Sisi wasted no time deliberating and immediately switched on the submersible's forward searchlights. A brilliant beam pierced the heavy gloom, illuminating the area directly beneath a struggling Tail and the probe in her arms. A tentacle thick as a water barrel jutted out from the nearby wreckage, firmly seizing the bulky deep-sea diving suit and coiling once around it. Being deep-dive gear rated for megapascals of pressure, the barrel-thick tentacle didn't instantly crush the suit and Tail inside into a pulp. Still, just listening to the audio over the comm channel, it was clear her situation was dire. "Gurgle-gurgle-gurgle—" Seeing Tail trapped by the sea monster's tentacle, panic surged through Sisi. She swiftly manned the remote weapon station, targeting the base of the tentacle. "Hold on, Tail!" Even as she shouted, she decisively hit the fire button. Two thick, long harpoons launched from the submersible's belly, carving cotton-white streaks through the pitch-black deep sea. One plunged deep into the ruins, while the other scored a direct hit on the tentacle protruding from the wreckage. The harpoon's tip pierced the monster's hide, and the explosives rigged to it detonated an instant later. A flash of fire erupted alongside a billowing cloud of milky-white bubbles. As the bubbles dispersed, a wound the size of a washbasin appeared at the tentacle's base, dark-green fluid oozing steadily from the rupture—it seemed to be its blood! Even though these two harpoons were by no means professional underwater weaponry, merely makeshift rigs slapped together from a harpoon launcher and composite explosives, faced with sufficient yield, the mutant still suffered substantial damage. Surprisingly, it did not release its grip on Tail despite the wound. Under the crushing pressure, the deep-sea diving suit groaned under the strain. In the beam of the searchlight, Sisi was shocked to discover that tiny cilia were writhing along the washbasin-sized wound, knitting it closed at a pace visible to the naked eye. That explosive yield could have flipped a tank! What kind of monster was this?! There was no time to hesitate. Deciding in an instant, Sisi quickly switched to the grenade launcher and emptied a burst toward the healing wound. Dense lines of bubbles shot forward like arrows loosed from a bow, converging on the base of the tentacle. A rapid succession of muffled detonations followed, and the washbasin-sized wound was instantly swallowed by churning bubbles and mud. Yet grenades were fundamentally not designed for underwater combat. While devastating in the jungles of Baiyue Province, down here a hundred meters deep, they fell glaringly short. Having weathered the barrage, the tentacle didn't budge an inch. The damage was far inferior to the earlier "goblin harpoons." A muffled roar echoed through the deep sea, sounding like a mocking jeer from the monster. "Si—I can't hold out much longer!" Tail's voice crackled intermittently across the comm channel, sounding as though she could drop dead at any second. "Hang in there, Tail!" Forcing herself to stay calm, Sisi ceased firing uselessly and swept the searchlight around, trying to find the giant sea monster's weak point. The creature was cunning, lurking behind the wreckage of a massive turbine generator. It used the metal supports and turbine housing as cover, sheltering most of its body. Sisi even had a sneaking suspicion that the monster kept a single tentacle exposed—rather than dragging Tail behind the cover to consume her after taking a hit—because it was using her as bait, waiting for the submersible to approach! Tracing the searchlight beam over the surroundings, Sisi soon noticed that directly beneath the annular turbine where the monster hid lay a patch of porous reef and rows of bent metal supports. An idea struck her. She promptly adjusted the reticle of the remote weapon station and emptied the magazine into the base of the turbine generator. Fragmentation grenades swarmed into the narrow space like locusts. Exploding in rapid succession, they blew the reef and metal supports propping up the annular turbine to pieces. With an agonizing groan of buckling metal, the already-tilting annular turbine collapsed like a landslide, crashing heavily atop the sea monster sheltering behind it. Its colossal bulk had no time to dodge. The giant octopus-like monster was pinned square beneath the massive turbine, over a dozen meters tall, collapsing into the billowing silt with a muffled shriek of agony. "Cough—!" Tail's coughing came over the comm channel. Still clutching the probe, she was flung free by the limp tentacle, tumbling through the currents and slamming into nearby debris. Honing in on the probe's signal, Sisi pushed the thrusters to maximum, steering the submersible in pursuit. The instant she drew close, she swung open the exterior airlock hatch. "Get in!" Slamming into the ruins had nearly knocked Tail offline, and the red alarm light on her diving helmet was flashing frantically. Fortunately, her physical constitution as an Awakened allowed her to endure. Reaching out, she caught hold of the open hatch, heaved with all her strength, and rolled inside with the spherical probe hugged to her chest. The hatch slammed shut. The pressure gauge on the diving suit dropped rapidly, and the water in the airlock buffer chamber began pumping out. Watching the darkness vanish beyond the sealed hatch and the green status light blink on in the dim compartment, Tail slumped onto the floor. She took several deep gasps to catch her breath, rolled her eyes, and stuck out her tongue. "Cough, cough—holy crap! Tail almost went from Tail into mashed-Tail paste!" A snort of laughter leaked across the comms. Clearing her throat to stifle a chuckle, Sisi composed herself and asked with concern, "Are you alright?" "I'm—" Tail started to reply, but the moment her mouth opened, a massive impact slammed into the hatch right beside her, rocketing her from the floor straight into the ceiling. A loud clang vibrated straight through her skull. She felt her jaw dislocate. She reached up to pop it back in place, only to be blocked by the faceplate of her diving helmet. Before she could recover from the first jolt, a second impact followed immediately. As if flying into a rage, the sea monster crawled out from under the collapsed turbine generator and began violently bashing the submersible dodging through the dark. On the verge of blacking out, Tail finally grabbed hold of a folding chair fitted with safety harnesses in the buffer chamber. Unable to unfold it, she used the nylon straps to strap herself securely to the chair. Listening to the clangs and bangs vibrating through the hull, Tail struggled to take off the helmet locked onto her suit, fumbled around her jaw with both hands, and took a painful while to pop it back into joint. Thank goodness the game filtered out pain beyond a certain threshold. In reality, she would have passed out from the agony. As the ringing in her ears subsided, Sisi's voice came over the comms. "...That bastard isn't dead yet! Hold on tight!" Tail: "Holy crap! This boss has way too much HP!" Sisi: "It's not just high HP. A wound healing that fast is completely unlike normal mutants. It might be a genetically modified synthetic breed!" Tail: "A synthetic breed?!" Sisi: "Right... Aside from the Church of the Torch, I can't think of any other possibility!" Tail: "What do we do now?!" "We're out of options. Our submersible's weapons barely scratch it. All we can do is pray it isn't fast. If we can just clear these ruins, we can get away... Dammit!" Sisi, who had been calmly analyzing the situation a second ago, suddenly gasped. Startled by the gasp, Tail panicked and quickly asked, "What happened, Si?!" "Propulsion... that thing we just fixed seems to have broken down again!" "What?!" Looking at the propulsion failure alarm flashing on the console screen, Sisi broke into a cold sweat, her index finger jabbing frantically at the screen. Yet the submersible refused to respond, tumbling and drifting forward with the currents under its own momentum. Just then, the tumbling submersible shuddered to a sudden stop, its bulkheads groaning with shrieks of friction. Through the cockpit side window, Sisi saw a monstrous tentacle snake over the canopy and coil tightly around the submersible's cylindrical hull. She could even make out the barnacle-sized suckers pressed flat against the exterior glass! It seemed their luck had finally run out. The sea monster lurking in the dark had caught them after all. "Dammit..." The pressure sensors in all four directions instantly maxed out on the screen. Her heart leapt into her throat, memories of terror rushing back once more. Before she could react, several Gs of acceleration pinned her mercilessly to her seat. Like an athlete gripping a shot put, the tentacle reared the submersible high, adopting the windup stance of a shot-putter. Just as the tentacle was about to smash them, boat and all, to pieces against the reef, a sea-urchin-shaped metal sphere trailed a string of bubbles and sank into the quiet deep sea. It was roughly half the height of a person in diameter, bristling with conical firing pins as long as a forearm. Perched on the seabed reef, the sea monster clearly noticed the uninvited guest, but paid it no heed. Very soon, however, the creature paid a steep price for its negligence. The instant the iron sphere neared its back, a blinding flash illuminated the silent deep sea. Wine-red flames and shattered shrapnel burst forth in an instant, carving out a bubble cavity several meters wide a hundred meters down in the deep sea! The searing heat drew an anguished shriek from the thrashing sea monster. Clouds of bubbles surged from the reef, as if the entire sea trembled with its convulsions. The gripping tentacle reflexively unclenched, tossing the submersible away like an empty soda can. "Si—we're flying!" Hearing the excited shout over the comms, Sisi felt as though a rocket had been ignited beneath her seat. She braced her nerves, staring into the pitch-black void beyond the windows. "You—you'd better hope we're just flying!" In this lightless deep sea, she had no sense of direction whatsoever. At their current speed, if they slammed into a reef or the seabed, they would inevitably end up as a pile of scrap metal. When that happened, they could only wait for someone else to excavate their remains— assuming the monsters in these waters even left their corpses intact. Fortunately, the worst-case scenario did not come to pass. After hurtling for a while, the submersible ceased accelerating under the water's drag, drifting quietly like a jellyfish. "...Si! What the heck was that explosion?!" Hearing the excited voice over the channel, Sisi leaned against her seat, panting for a moment before speaking slowly. "It was probably a bomb from the Federation patrol... Looks like they intervened after all." Tail: "Huh?! Doesn't that mean Tail owes them another favor?" Sisi: "Hardly... As long as we can bring this probe back, they'll be the ones in our debt." She had no doubt about this. Although the Scientific Expedition had not yet analyzed the data, this monster lurking beneath the ruins was already proof enough of many things. That terrifying regenerative ability reeked of the Church of the Torch's handiwork, and its desperate efforts to stop them from retrieving any clues from the ruins proved that whatever they were looking for was definitely here! Just then, another dull boom echoed from not far away. The Federation patrol speedboat had dropped a second depth charge onto the monster, likely the last one aboard. Packed with picric acid and high explosives, that depth charge could have wrecked a submarine displacing ten thousand tons. Even with its astounding regenerative abilities, the monster fell short against purpose-built underwater weaponry. Hit twice in its vitals, the flailing tentacled monster let out a mournful wail, finally drawing its last humiliating breath and collapsing heavily onto the ruins of the ocean current power station and shattered reef. Moments later, a noisy voice came over the comm channel. "...What's your status?" Catching her breath, Sisi replied, "Hanging in there. Propulsion system and pressure sensors are damaged... otherwise alright." "Then that's bad." "What's wrong?" "The Federation fleet is heading toward us... You guys made too much noise!" The voice held a mix of irritation and anxiety. Evidently, this was going to be a huge problem for him. Thinking calmly for a few seconds, Sisi said, "Can you find a way to lead them away?" Muda: "Do you take them for idiots?!" Sisi took a deep breath. "Then we have no other choice... Do us a favor." Muda paused. "What is it?" Sisi: "Take the probe to Port French Fries for me. I'll share its coordinates with you in a moment... Our researchers can analyze the data inside. Remember, you must get it to Port French Fries if you want to uncover the truth." Muda: "What about you two?" Sisi: "Ummm... considering how much you've helped us, how about I gift you a First-Class Merit?" Muda: "What?" Before he could respond, Sisi tapped the console screen with her forefinger, terminating the comms, and switched the line to Tail in the buffer chamber. "Tail, throw the probe out." "Eh?!" Surprised, Tail pressed her face against the small viewing port on the buffer chamber door, looking at Sisi in the cockpit. "Throw it out?! We're not taking it back?" Sisi made a helpless expression. "I'd love to, but unfortunately this broken submarine is done for, and the Federation Navy is on its way... We can only ask that NPC named Muda to deliver the package for us." "Oh! Understood!" Tail nodded, put her helmet back on, waited for seawater to flood the buffer chamber, and manually cranked open the outer hatch. With a heave, she hurled the spherical probe out into the water. The silver metal sphere drifted into the sea and soon began to float upward. Before long, it would reach the surface to be retrieved by the speedboat waiting above. With that done, Tail closed the airlock hatch and drifted back to the chair to sit down. Without draining the buffer chamber right away, Tail asked over the comms, "What about us? What's next?" Sisi leaned back in her seat, pinching the bridge of her tired brow with her thumb and forefinger. "Let me think..." First off, this submersible belonged to Shelter 70. Although both of them had shown their faces at the Ring Island port, not many people had seen them. Whether being taken prisoner as Shelter 70 residents or directly stating their identities as Shelter 404 residents, both were viable options. Weighing the two, she actually leaned toward the former. That way, they might gain access to the Federation's upper echelons, perhaps even figuring out what was up with that sea monster, while avoiding a direct diplomatic conflict between the Alliance and the Southern Archipelago Federation. Of course, there was a third option. Namely, finding a spot to bury themselves. They would respawn in Dawn City after three days, and taking an airship would take five days at most to get back to Port French Fries—by far the least troublesome route. While Sisi was hesitating, a pale-blue antenna icon suddenly popped up on the console radar, automatically patching in an unfamiliar transmission request. "...This is the *Dolphin*. We have received your distress signal and are proceeding toward your position." Not only Sisi heard the voice; Tail, sitting in the buffer chamber, heard it as well, surprise instantly washing over her face. "What's going on?" Sisi stared dumbfounded at the console screen, involuntarily swallowing. "I don't know... I guess some automated safety diagnostic system on this submersible sent an SOS. Is that *Dolphin* a Shelter 70 submarine patrolling these waters?" Meanwhile, upon the surging sea in the distance, a towering silhouette had already emerged. Unlike the Federation patrol's speedboat, this vessel was a genuine warship. Its deck mounted not only two massive gun barrels, but also torpedo tubes and heavy close-in weapon systems. It was a Federation destroyer. Standing at the bow of the speedboat, Muda gripped a walkie-talkie, a look of complicated emotion in his eyes as he gazed toward the flagship in the distance. He was pondering how to explain things to his superiors in a moment. Of course, compared to explaining himself to command, what troubled him even more was the signal he had just detected through the terminal of the psychic interference device. The psychic interference device was a gift from the Church of the Torch to the Southern Archipelago Federation; Shelter 70 possessed no such technology. Even if those shelter residents understood the principles, they were nowhere near as proficient in deploying it as the Federation. There was only one explanation for how an unauthorized signal could appear unnoticed in waters controlled by the Southern Archipelago Federation and elude search after search. This was definitely not something a mere captain could pull off; it had to be someone within the Naval General Staff, or even high within the ruling authorities—perhaps an entire clique! For whatever reason, that mole had obstructed, or completely derailed, the Federation authorities' investigation into the ruins of the ocean current power station. If that was truly the case— had Shelter 70 really been the one to destroy the ocean current power station? Watching the warship draw closer, a solemn look crept across Muda's brow. He had a growing feeling that things were about to get very messy...