248: Chapter 248 The Symphony of the Sea, The Deaf Ghost

As the radar operator's terrified roar faded, the red alarm indicator lights in the command room all burst.

There was no flash of fire, nor was there the sound of an explosion.

A dull, extreme physical hum traveled along the seawater and slammed violently against the cruiser's titanium alloy hull.

Andrei felt his chest suffer a heavy blow, the air in his lungs instantly sucked away; he opened his mouth wide, retching without being able to make a sound.

"The heart rate monitors have all gone off the charts..."

The adjutant clutched his ears and knelt on the alloy floor, tears and snot streaming out uncontrollably.

"Sir, the frequency is wrong; we are being shaken by a dense array of infrasonic waves."

Andrei stared fixedly at the main screen, where the sonar array data was collapsing crazily, and the green cursors representing detection nodes were turning into black screens in large patches.

"Activate the backup physical sonar, engage the noise-canceling soundproof armor."

Andrei spat out a mouthful of blood-tinged saliva and issued the order at the top of his lungs.

The technician slumped over the console, fingers frantically pressing the physical buttons that had long since locked up.

"It's useless. All high-frequency probes have shattered due to overload, the underlying motherboard temperature has exceeded 700 degrees, and all automatic circuit breakers have burned through."

The technician looked back, his eyes filled only with despair.

"The opponent dropped one hundred thousand independent infrasonic wave generators that require no energy. The depth and water pressure of the Mariana Trench amplified the resonant frequency by three hundred times, and our sonar defense line is scrapped."

Andrei slumped into his leather chair; the humming in his ears triggered severe intracranial congestion. This cruiser, loaded with cutting-edge technology, was completely trapped on the seabed, cut off from all contact with the outside world.

"Notify the thirty-five unmanned warships below, activate full fire control, and surface immediately to counterattack."

Andrei gritted his teeth and squeezed out the command.

The adjutant looked at the backup frequency divider, which had completely turned into static, and shook his head desperately.

"The lower communication link has been severed at the physical level. That wave of full-coverage resonance just burned out the master control chips of the unmanned warships ten thousand meters down. They have all sunk to the bottom; they are blind, deaf, and completely paralyzed."

The scene shifts to the Antarctic.

One thousand two hundred meters below the ice sheet.

Freemasons' top-secret circular conference room.

The massive holographic projection screen in the center emitted a harsh, sizzling electrical sound. The originally high-definition real-time underwater sonar monitoring image collapsed instantly, and the screen turned into a vast expanse of white noise.

There was dead silence in the conference room; behind eleven pure white masks, only the sound of rapidly accelerating breathing could be heard.

The Sixth Elder stood up abruptly and ripped the mask off his face.

"Andrei, the Poseidon Fleet master control channel, answer immediately."

The Sixth Elder roared into the encrypted microphone.

The high-fidelity speakers only emitted continuous physical interference noise from infrasonic waves, which painfully stung the eardrums of everyone present.

"Stop shouting. All thirty-six physical feedback signals from the underlying motherboards have been lost."

The 2nd Elder rested his hands on the edge of the black metal round table.

"The Poseidon Fleet's automated defense network has been forced to zero."

"What level of strategic weapon did he actually use?"

The Third Elder's voice trembled.

"That is top-tier deep-sea armament that we spent six centuries of wealth to build. Even if he sent an entire nuclear submarine fleet to force their way in, they would be torn to shreds by the high-energy acoustic wave network instantly."

"What on earth did Lu Chen throw down? There was no high-energy heat source reaction, no fire control radar warning, yet it burned through our hardware motherboards directly from the underlying logic."

The First Elder slammed his fist onto the table.

"It's scrap iron."

The intelligence chief hurried into the conference room, panting heavily.

"The final acoustic spectrum transmitted back by the radar has been analyzed. They were one hundred thousand pieces of the lowest-quality cast iron shells, each containing industrial piezoelectric ceramics worth a few cents, plus a miniature infrasonic wave generator."

The entire room fell into dead silence once again.

The 2nd Elder's eye twitched a few times.

"Using the physical properties of deep-sea water pressure to generate piezoelectric effects to provide unlimited electrical energy, one hundred thousand of the cheapest generators simultaneously produce range-based, same-frequency resonance."

The 2nd Elder took a deep breath.

"He used a bunch of scrap metal manually hammered out by a million peasants to smash our high-end, fully automated defense line, which cost hundreds of billions of dollars."

"The passage has been physically cleared. His submarines are about to reach the ore vein layer."

The Sixth Elder clenched his hands into fists tightly.

"We are losing control of the entire deep sea."

"The Extreme Pressure Soft Gold must absolutely not fall into his hands. Even if it means destroying the primeval landscape of eleven thousand meters, we absolutely cannot let him fix that anti-gravity chassis."

A fierce light erupted in the First Elder's eyes.

"Activate the crustal high-energy pulse backup plan. Blast through the seabed fault zone."

Jiangcheng.

Underground Level 3 command center.

"Boss, the enemy's radar signal sources have all been cleared."

Wu Dong hit the enter key heavily and wiped the cold sweat from the tip of his nose with force.

"All channels are completely silent. Thirty-six large metal sources are sitting motionless in the seabed silt layer. They have all become scrap metal."

Lu Chen leaned against the iron control console, which smelled of machine oil, and tossed his plastic lighter onto the table.

"Cheap goods can often accomplish big things. Large quantities and reliability are the best cure for flashy, useless tricks."

Lu Chen spat out the cigarette butt in his mouth.

"Tell Zhang Qiang the deep-sea passage is open. Get ready to work."

Zhang Qiang's voice, trembling with excitement, came through the encrypted communication channel immediately.

"Viper Squadron received. Diving tanks fully open, diving at full power. Da Biao and two thousand brothers are already lined up in the decompression chamber."

Zhang Qiang's voice echoed throughout the command center through the loudspeaker.

Wei Jianguo walked over to the main screen in two steps, his fingers quickly swiping across the real-time water pressure data profile.

"Zhang Qiang, after reaching the abyss at eleven thousand meters, the effective breath-holding and pressure-bearing time for exiting the cabin in the Exoskeleton is only forty-five minutes."

Wei Jianguo shouted into the microphone.

"Lock the physical safeties on the high-dimensional miniature nuclear torpedoes tight for me. Do not touch them carelessly and trigger a sympathetic detonation."

"Old Wei, you're just talking nonsense. The bones of the brothers under my command are now much harder than the steel plates you build. It's only fifty tons of ore; we'll fill it up for you by each carrying two blocks."

Da Biao's rough voice cut directly into the communication channel.

"Safety anchor cables attached for everyone. Deep-sea visibility is extremely poor. Tactical helmet high-energy light sources must be set to maximum. Start excavating immediately upon reaching the designated coordinates."

Lu Chen issued the final instruction.

Three Viper-class nuclear submarines, modified for extreme pressure resistance, dragged violent wakes behind them, completely ignoring the paralyzed Freemasons unmanned warships at a depth of three thousand meters, and plummeted at full speed toward the endlessly dark Challenger Deep.

One hour later.

On the holographic projection wall of the command center, the complex deep-dive profile of the bottom of the Mariana Trench was being constructed bit by bit.

"Diving depth of eleven thousand meters reached."

Zhang Qiang reported the data.

"External limit water pressure is 320 MPa. The submarine's titanium alloy main keel compression index is stable. The infrared signature of the Extreme Pressure Soft Gold ore vein is locked, five nautical miles away in a straight line."

"All decompression chambers start water injection."

Da Biao shouted in response.

At this very moment, the main console in front of Wu Dong suddenly erupted with a blinding red alarm, and the fans of the two parallel host computers emitted a terrifying roar of being on the verge of overload.

"Stop! The underlying geological data is wrong."

Wu Dong typed frantically on the keyboard, pulling up the deepest geological detection radar echoes.

"The trench terrain is being forcibly reorganized."

Old Zhou was so scared he jumped up immediately, gripping the edge of the console tightly with both hands.

"What happened? Are there still enemy ambushes down there?"

Old Zhou asked urgently.

Wu Dong pulled up the 3D seismic wave map. On the holographic screen, directly below the dark area representing the ore vein, a large number of dense red high-energy patches were surging up crazily.

"It's the indiscriminate resonance aftershocks from the depth charges just now, combined with external directional blasting pulses. Freemasons are completely overturning the table to destroy the evidence."

Wu Dong's throat went dry.

"The seabed's super crustal fault zone has been forcibly detonated. A cluster of active volcanoes is being fully activated."

Wei Jianguo shoved Wu Dong aside and personally stared at the temperature rising curve of the external sensors.

"The water temperature outside the cabin is soaring geometrically. Magma is backflowing into the cold water zone at the bottom, and the underground pressure is multiplying tenfold."

Wei Jianguo turned his head sharply to look at Lu Chen, his spectacle lenses covered in fine beads of sweat.

"Boss, the soft gold ore vein is growing right above the volcanic crater. In fifteen minutes at most, the entire ore vein belt will be completely vaporized and swallowed by the erupting super magma cluster."

"How many degrees of extreme high temperature can our submarine's pressure-resistant hull withstand?"

Lu Chen asked.

"That is a special titanium alloy for extreme high pressure; it can't withstand the continuous direct roasting of magma at several thousand degrees. Once the external ambient temperature exceeds the critical threshold of 200 degrees, the submarine's internal nuclear reactor cooling circulation system will crash on the spot, and the submarine will suffer a sympathetic detonation."

Wei Jianguo shouted at the top of his lungs.

In the communication channel, Zhang Qiang also cut in with an urgent tactical warning.

"Boss, the seabed visibility is completely covered by stirred-up volcanic silt. The external water temperature has exceeded eighty degrees and is still rising. The submarine's main pressure-resistant hull is starting to make thermal expansion noises. We must surface immediately. If we delay, the water will be completely boiled, and the submarine won't even have the chance to empty the ballast tanks to surface."

The entire Underground Level 3 command center fell into a terrifying dead silence.

Old Zhou's legs went weak, and he collapsed directly onto the cold concrete floor.

"It's over. We risked our lives, but the Extreme Pressure Soft Gold is gone anyway."

Old Zhou clutched his bald head in despair with both hands.

"That out-of-control anti-gravity chassis above us is beyond saving. All one million people in Jiangcheng will be buried in the ruins."

Fifteen minutes.

This is the final death countdown before the submarine magma completely swallows this sea area.

If the submarines execute an emergency ascent now, they could absolutely save the hundreds of core Death Squad Soldiers and the three priceless nuclear submarines. If they hold out and don't leave, everyone will be completely buried in an eleven-thousand-meter-deep seabed grave by this violent deep-sea eruption.

Lu Chen fished another double happiness out of his pocket, bit it between his lips, and didn't light it.

He stared fixedly at the super volcanic lava deadly warning circle on the holographic screen, which was constantly expanding and turning red.

"The two words 'retreat' do not exist in my dictionary."

Lu Chen grabbed the red communication microphone on the table.

"Da Biao, can you hear me?"

Lu Chen's voice was cold to the extreme.

"Boss, I'm in the No. 1 decompression chamber. The water is drained, and the door will open immediately."

Da Biao's rough reply came back, accompanied by the hissing sound of high-pressure water draining.

"Lock the submarine's power; ascent is prohibited."

Lu Chen pressed his thumb down on the microphone's send button, issuing a death command to never turn back.

"Full power propulsion. Drive straight to the position directly above the ore vein and perform a forced hover."

"Old Wei, report the real-time water temperature and the final countdown."

Lu Chen turned his head.

"The external water temperature is 120 degrees. Only twelve minutes remain until the crustal eruption is complete."

Wei Jianguo's fingers were trembling so much he could barely press the metal keyboard.

"Twelve minutes; that's long enough."

Lu Chen spoke into the microphone again.

"Da Biao, those two thousand brothers under your command who drank the high-dimensional Genetic Enhancement Fluid—just how monstrous is their bone density? Now, show me the real proof."

"All two thousand men, exit the cabin. Cut all safety anchor cables."

In the depths of Lu Chen's eyes, an extreme ruthlessness that could tear everything apart erupted.

Old Zhou shouted in horror.

"Boss, the water temperature below is about to break 100 degrees. You're sending them down there to be boiled alive!"

Lu Chen completely ignored Old Zhou next to him and continued to issue the high-pressure order on the main channel.

"I don't care how high the temperature gets down there, and I don't care how close the magma from the seabed crater is to the soles of your feet."

Lu Chen slammed his fist heavily onto the main console.

"Da Biao, take your men, dive down for me, and use your bare hands and flesh to dig out all that Extreme Pressure Soft Gold for me. Even if you have to use your lives to fill the gap today, you must fill the fifty-ton quota and send it up for me."

In the decompression chamber in the eleven-thousand-meter abyss, Da Biao let out a roar of extreme, wild violence.

"Received! Brothers, the hatch is open. Follow me out to tear the rocks apart with our bare hands!"