246: Chapter 246 The Freemasons' Trump Card: The Poseidon Fleet

Antarctica, 1,200 meters beneath the ice cap.

In Freemasons' top-secret circular conference room, harsh cold light shone down on the pure black metal round table.

Eleven people wearing identical pure white masks sat in high-backed chairs. The air pressure was extremely low, and the chill in the air was bone-piercing.

The Sixth Elder slammed his palm onto the alloy tabletop, creating a resounding echo.

"The grain war was lost, five of Wall Street's super bridge accounts were wiped out in full, our decades-old foundation in Sakura Country has been completely ruined, and now even our orbital satellites in outer space have become a joke."

The Sixth Elder's voice trembled, his throat filled with suppressed rage.

"Lu Chen is digging up our ancestral graves. If we let him keep going like this, our influence in Asia will be completely wiped out."

"Deal with the immediate matters first."

The 2nd Elder spoke, his voice old and carrying a musty, stale quality.

"Our deep space detection network captured the gravitational wave anomaly spectrum beneath Jiangcheng. His chassis is on the verge of losing control, and he is looking for high-dimensional materials to constrain the magnetism."

"Extreme Pressure Soft Gold."

The Third Elder sneered and leaned forward.

"On the entire Earth, there is only a small mineral vein 11,000 meters deep at the bottom of the Mariana Trench. That place has always been under our control. He wants to go get it? Dream on."

"He is assembling a submarine fleet."

The Sixth Elder ground his molars.

"Don't forget, that guy has some kind of perverted nuclear weapon he got from who knows where; it can even instantly vaporize orbital weapons. We absolutely cannot let his ships touch the bottom mineral vein. If he really gains complete control over that chassis, we can only wait for death."

The 2nd Elder pressed a black communication key in front of him.

"The base defense system has granted the highest level of authorization. Is the Poseidon Fleet submerged and in position?"

The holographic screen in the center of the conference room instantly lit up, and a technical supervisor wearing a deep-sea pressure suit appeared on the screen, covered in cold sweat.

"Ten Elders, the Poseidon Fleet's thirty-six fully automated deep-sea warships have all dived into the waters above the Challenger Deep, completely locking down all descent channels."

The technical supervisor reported quickly, not daring to pause for even a second.

"Very good."

The 2nd Elder nodded.

"Repeat the specific armament situation in front of all the Elders. I want to confirm that our final trump card is absolutely foolproof."

"Received. The Poseidon Fleet has abandoned all conventional thermal weapons and physical ammunition. The entire fleet is equipped with ultra-high-power deep-sea acoustic oscillation generators. When the main cannons are at full power, they can instantly generate terrifying frequency physical resonance waves."

"Tell us some intuitive data that everyone can understand."

The Sixth Elder coldly interrupted him.

"At a depth of 10,000 meters in the deep sea, the water density is extremely high. This shockwave doesn't need to aim underwater; it is an absolute area-of-effect destructive strike. As long as an enemy submarine enters the thirty-nautical-mile radius, the high-frequency sound waves will directly ignore defenses, shaking the titanium alloy hulls and the equipment inside into powder. The blood vessels of the personnel inside will instantly burst, and not even a single complete bone will be left."

A burst of sinister laughter rang out around the round table.

The 2nd Elder leaned back into his high-backed chair.

"Lu Chen thinks he can walk sideways just because he has a few submarines and a few hundred modified thugs. He is too arrogant. The rules of the deep sea have been set by us since ancient times."

"Issue the highest firing authority directly to the fleet's main control computer."

The First Elder finally spoke, his voice dull and overpowering everyone else's.

"Shut down any warning frequencies. Obliterate every living thing that approaches the sea area. Don't let even a small fish get through. I want Lu Chen to suffer a crushing defeat in that trench, and I want that chassis to explode into pieces beneath Jiangcheng, taking his one million people down with him as funeral companions."

The conference room lights went completely dark, leaving only the ghostly blue sonar map on the screen flickering frantically.

The scene shifts back to Jiangcheng.

Beside the underground foundation pit, the red light of the alarm had just been manually cut off by the security team.

Lu Chen leaned against the iron control console, which smelled of machine oil. The double happiness cigarette in his mouth had burned halfway, the gray-white ash threatening to fall. He was giving orders into the communication microphone for the three nuclear submarines to set sail fully loaded with micro nuclear torpedoes.

On the holographic projection wall, the dozens of dense red cursor points representing the enemy's Poseidon Fleet were still slowly moving in an extremely oppressive formation, firmly locking down that sea area.

Wu Dong sat in front of the console, his hands typing rapidly on the keyboard, cold sweat dripping from his chin onto the keys.

"Boss, it won't work. Our three submarines can't just charge in like that."

Wu Dong stared fixedly at a fragment of noise spectrum he had just intercepted from the enemy's top-secret frequency.

"I just got a glimpse of data from their underlying communications. This isn't some high-energy laser grid at all; that's just a disguise to fool low-level radar."

Wu Dong hammered the Enter key, and the red dot image on the screen instantly cut to a complex wavy sound wave spectrum, with dense, sharp, eye-piercing peaks.

"What kind of gibberish is this?"

Wei Jianguo leaned in to look, his brows knitting into a dead knot.

Wu Dong panted heavily.

"Boss, these people are truly poisonous. What they've set up under the Mariana Trench is an fully automated deep-sea acoustic ghost fleet. There isn't a single living person on these thirty-six warships; it's all controlled by supercomputers."

Old Zhou's legs went weak again, his hands gripping the edge of the table tightly.

"Then how do we fight? We can't even find a living person to surrender to."

Lu Chen flicked the ash from his cigarette.

"Sound waves?"

"Yes, sound waves specifically for underwater physical oscillation."

Wu Dong swallowed a mouthful of dry saliva, his voice trembling.

"At a depth of 10,000 meters in the deep sea, that is an extreme high-pressure environment. The water density is completely different. The lethality of acoustic oscillation will be magnified hundreds of times by the water pressure. These bastards haven't installed a single conventional shell; it's all high-power acoustic generators."

Da Biao heard this and felt a surge of anger. He slammed his palm, which was as big as a palm-leaf fan, onto the console, making the screws on top jump around.

"I don't care what kind of wave they use! My Death Squad Soldiers can dismantle ten-ton armored vehicles with their bare hands. If the submarines get close, I'll take two thousand brothers and go straight into the water, sneak into their warships, and eat that tin plating raw from the inside out."

"You don't know a damn thing, you illiterate fool."

Wei Jianguo turned back and cursed, spraying spit all over Da Biao's face.

"Da Biao, your men mutated after taking the genetic medicine, and their bones are harder than high-carbon steel. I won't argue with you about that. But in front of acoustic weapons, all that muscle of yours is just paper shells that shatter at a touch."

Da Biao's red eyes widened, his chest heaving violently, completely unconvinced.

Wei Jianguo turned to point at the dense wavy spikes on the screen.

"This thing is called resonance. When the sound waves hit in the water, as long as the frequency matches, the hard bones on the outside will be fine, but the brains inside your skulls and the internal organs in your stomachs will be shaken into a pile of stinking paste within 0.1 seconds. You'll bleed from all seven orifices and die instantly. What are you going to use to dismantle the iron plating? Are you going to fill it with your lives?"

Da Biao was stunned, his fists clenched so hard they crunched, unable to say a single word in response.

Zhang Qiang's deep voice came through the communication microphone. He was still on standby in the nuclear submarine at Military Port Zero, feeling completely drained of confidence.

"Boss, Old Wei is right. Once we encounter this kind of full-coverage high-frequency oscillation sound wave underwater, the submarine's high-pressure-resistant titanium alloy hull might hold for a few seconds, but the precision electronic circuits inside and the brothers' flesh and blood definitely won't. As long as it touches the edge, everyone in the submarine will instantly bleed from their seven orifices. We won't even have a chance to press the torpedo launch button."

Zhang Qiang's voice carried extreme frustration and helplessness.

"This move of theirs is too ruthless. It completely wiped out all our physical violence advantages underwater."

The control room went completely silent, the air filled with an extreme sense of suffocation as if someone were tightly gripping their throats.

Freemasons were smart this time, pinning the main battlefield at the 11,000-meter high-pressure deep sea, sealing off all paths with an acoustic oscillation grid that was the perfect counter to physical armor and flesh and blood. The submarines couldn't get in, and the Extreme Pressure Soft Gold couldn't be mined.

The countdown kept ticking. In another seventy hours, the anti-gravity chassis overhead, which had absorbed enough energy and completely lost gravitational control, would tear through the earth's crust and completely uproot Jiangcheng. Everyone would die here.

Old Zhou paced in circles, his palms covered in cold sweat.

"Boss, how about we forget about that Extreme Pressure Soft Gold? I'll go pull some strings, get the Old Chief to step in, get dozens of heavy military transport helicopters, and use steel cables to drag this chassis that's about to explode into the open sea in the Pacific Ocean. As long as the green hills remain, there's no need to worry about firewood."

"Is your brain just there to add to your height?"

Wei Jianguo was so angry that he threw the marker in his hand at Old Zhou's back.

"The chassis's massive energy field is currently tightly connected to Jiangcheng's geomagnetic field. Drag it away? You dare to drag it ten kilometers horizontally out of Jiangcheng's territory? The crustal stress will collapse on the spot, and the earth of the entire Jiangbei Province will be torn open in a huge gash. Millions will die."

Old Zhou was completely drained of fight. He squatted on the ground, his face pale, clutching his bald head with both hands.

Wu Dong turned his swivel chair, his eyes red and bloodshot as he looked at Lu Chen.

"Boss, we can't go into the sea. This firepower density is too perverted. This is completely beyond the scope of conventional naval warfare. Once our three submarines get close, they will be instantly destroyed. Not only will we not be able to grab an ounce of ore, but the submarines and the brothers will all have to be fed to the fish in the deep sea."

Lu Chen didn't answer immediately.

He stood quietly in place, his gaze piercing through the blue smoke, staring fixedly at the cluster of red dots on the holographic projection wall that were locking down the passage.

Freemasons' final trump card, the Poseidon Fleet, fully automated defense, unreasonable large-scale acoustic oscillation slaughter. These old foxes hid deep under the sea where ordinary people couldn't reach to set a trap and disgust people.

The corners of Lu Chen's mouth slowly curled into a cruel arc without any warmth.

Deep in his mind, he directly summoned the system's pale blue virtual operation panel. Except for him, no one else could see these floating golden data points.

The chassis of 1.05 million loyal employees was running crazily, and the balance of tech points was soaring by the millions, giving him plenty of confidence.

Lu Chen's gaze slid rapidly down the high-dimensional weapon category in the Tech Mall. He didn't even look at the conventional thermal weapons and high-energy shields, locking directly onto the very bottom of the mall, the Netherworld Extinction category option marked with a deep blood-red skull warning.

[Ding, the system detects that the host is viewing interstellar-class underwater physical strike blueprints.]

[Severe warning: This category of weapons has immense destructive power and is prone to causing permanent rupture of the underlying ocean ecological chain of the host planet. Please redeem with caution.]

Lu Chen directly ignored the row of blood-red warning text, his finger tapping heavily in the void.

He decisively opened a complex internal structure dissection diagram emitting a deep black light.

Deducting 8 million tech points, redemption successful.

Lu Chen withdrew his gaze from the void, the tyrannical and fanatical desire for destruction deep in his eyes leaking out bit by bit, to the point where the surrounding air temperature seemed to drop a few degrees along with it.

He stuffed the remaining small stub of the double happiness cigarette into his mouth, bit down hard with his molars, and the plastic filter was flattened and cracked on the spot.

"Scared already?"

Lu Chen's voice was low, carrying a fanaticism that tore through all reason.

Old Zhou, who was squatting on the ground, Da Biao, who was panting like an ox, and Wei Jianguo, who was covered in cold sweat, all looked up at him simultaneously.

Lu Chen spat the chewed-up half-cigarette onto the ground, stepped on it casually with his leather shoe, and walked in large strides to the center of the console.

"Want to play with sound, huh?"

Lu Chen pressed both hands on the console, his sharp eyes fixed on the stunned Wu Dong.

"Since they've laid out their entire coffin-fund fleet at the bottom of the water, we don't need to be polite with them."

Wu Dong stared blankly at Lu Chen, his fingers still frozen on the keyboard.

Lu Chen extended a finger and tapped heavily on the alloy edge of the console, making a crisp sound.

"Old Wu, access the Zero-number backup encrypted node, go to the intranet's highest-security cloud drive, and pull out the infrasonic depth charge blueprint that was just generated for me."