94: Moral blackmail? Sorry, I have no morals!

The Fleet did not stop because of the death of the Megalodon, not even for a second.

As they sailed into the deep water zone, the color of the seawater became dark and black, like a vat of aged ink had been spilled.

Suddenly.

"Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!"

Dense and sharp sounds of water breaking came from the seabed.

Countless silver streaks of lightning pierced the water surface; they were schools of Level 3 Sea Beasts—Mutated Swordfish.

These things were three meters long, with bony spikes on their snouts over a meter in length, sharp as freshly ground javelins, and ridiculously fast.

"Pfft! Pfft!"

The fragile wooden civilian Zhenyuan Ships on the periphery instantly suffered.

The school of swordfish was like a volley of arrows, easily piercing the hulls.

"Help! The Zhenyuan Ship is leaking!"

"There's something in the water! Ah—!"

Screams rose and fell, and blood instantly spread across the sea surface.

These beasts not only rammed the hulls but also enjoyed performing tricks, leaping out of the water using their momentum, skewering the unsuspecting survivors on the deck like candied hawthorns.

For a time, the civilian Zhenyuan Ship area in the rear became a slaughterhouse.

Some jumped into the water in despair, only to be dismembered before they could even thrash twice; others desperately rowed to escape but were hunted down by the swordfish school.

Several Zhenyuan Ships that were quickly sinking charged frantically towards the blazing flame and the military fleet, hoping to cling to this life-saving straw.

"Major Lu! Please save us!"

"The blazing flame has cannons! Why aren't you firing!"

"You are soldiers! How can you stand by and watch us die!"

Cries and curses drifted over with the sea breeze, sounding gratingly harsh.

The blazing flame Main Control Room.

Zhou Hai pressed hard on the console, watching the women and children struggling in the bloody water on the monitor. His fingers left white marks on the metal surface, and a flicker of distress crossed his eyes.

"Lu Sheng, should we..."

"No."

Lu Sheng sat in the command chair, without even lifting his eyelids, his voice as cold as ice shards.

"The number of swordfish is too high, and they are scattered underwater."

"Using autocannons to swat mosquitoes is meaningless, besides wasting ammunition."

He raised his head, and the calmness in his eyes was chilling.

"Tell them."

"The mission of the blazing flame is to be the vanguard, not their nanny."

"Anyone who dares to breach the blazing flame's defensive line will be treated as an enemy attack and immediately sunk."

Zhou Hai's body stiffened.

The order was too absolute, too ruthless.

But looking at Lu Sheng's unquestionable gaze, he finally gritted his teeth and picked up the communicator.

"This is the blazing flame. All civilian Zhenyuan Ships listen up: maintain your course and evade on your own! Any approach will be considered an attack! Repeat, will be considered an attack!"

As soon as the broadcast finished, a wave of desperate wailing erupted in the rear.

"Beasts! You beasts who stand by and watch us die!"

"I curse you to die a terrible death!"

The curses were utterly vicious, colder than the sea breeze.

Zhao Ze stood at the autocannon position, listening to the insults, and fiercely spat on the deck: "Damn it, these sons of bitches! Why weren't they cheering when we killed the Megalodon? Now that they're dying, they remember we're soldiers? A bunch of ungrateful wretches!"

Lu Sheng ignored the noise.

The great migration of a hundred thousand people was inherently a survival of the fittest selection process.

Stop just to save a few people?

If The Fleet lost speed and was surrounded by Sea Beasts drawn by the scent of blood, the casualties wouldn't be a few hundred, but total annihilation.

Compassion cannot command troops.

In the apocalypse, the greatest mercy is leading the majority to survive.

"Accelerate."

Lu Sheng gave the order.

The blazing flame's engine roared, cutting through the waves, fiercely throwing the cries and blood behind it into the churning wake.

Aboard the military flagship Zhenyuan Ship, Chen Yan listened to the report, silent for a long time, unaware that the cigarette between his fingers had burned down to his skin.

"General, Lu Sheng..." Qin Yue hesitated.

"He did the right thing."

Chen Yan extinguished the cigarette butt, his voice hoarse. "We are the vanguard, not nannies. If we don't even have this realization, these hundred thousand people won't make it to the West."

"Pass down the order: all Zhenyuan Ships maintain formation and proceed at full speed!"

...Two days later.

The Fleet sailed into a strange sea area.

The previously turbulent sea surface suddenly became smooth like a mirror, without even a ripple, dead silent enough to cause panic.

Thick white fog rose all around.

The fog was abnormally white, viscous and damp, instantly dropping visibility to less than ten meters, as if everyone had been stuffed into a giant ball of cotton.

"Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle..."

In the blazing flame Main Control Room, all the screens instantly turned to static.

In the radar scan section, the cursor jumped frantically, finally settling on a chaotic waveform.

"Magnetic anomaly! Navigation failure!"

Engineer Liu hammered the keyboard, sweat pouring down his face, his voice strained: "The compass is spinning wildly, the pointer is going crazy, we... are lost."

A suppressed panic silently spread through The Fleet.

This wasn't just a matter of not seeing the way.

In the communication channel, amidst the usual noisy static, Chen Yan's deep and solemn voice suddenly came through.

"Brother Lu, be careful."

"Three civilian Zhenyuan Ships on the outer perimeter watch suddenly vanished."

"Vanished?" Lu Sheng frowned, turning a Tactical Pen in his hand. "Sunk?"

"No, they disappeared."

Chen Yan's voice carried a hint of chill. "No distress calls, no explosions, not even the sound of splashing water. It was as if they were... swallowed whole by this fog."

A silent, soundless disappearance.

That was the most terrifying thing.

The unknown is often more frightening than facing death directly.

Lu Sheng stood up and walked to the bow of the Zhenyuan Ship.

Everything around him was a vast expanse of white, terribly silent. He couldn't even hear the sound of waves hitting the hull, as if the entire world consisted only of this lonely Zhenyuan Ship, floating in nothingness.

"Playing tricks."

Lu Sheng snorted coldly, closed his eyes briefly, and then abruptly opened them.

"Buzz—"

Golden vertical pupils instantly filled his eye sockets.

Dragon Eyes, activate!

The originally sky-obscuring fog instantly became thin as gauze in his golden field of vision.

His sight pierced through the white fog, through the sea surface, straight into the depths underwater.

The next second.

Lu Sheng's pupils contracted slightly.

He saw countless translucent creatures densely floating beneath the calm water surface.

They looked like giant jellyfish, their bells the size of millstones, emitting a faint phosphorescence in the water.

The most bizarre thing was that the translucent bells were not smooth; instead, they bore patterns resembling distorted, agonizing human faces!

Countless slender, transparent tentacles were silently adhering to the bottoms of the civilian Zhenyuan Ships.

They secreted a colorless mucus that was silently corroding the hull planks, more potent than sulfuric acid.

And deeper down, the wreckage of the few civilian Zhenyuan Ships that had just vanished silently hovered in the water.

The people on the Zhenyuan Ships were not dead.

They were tightly wrapped by the tentacles, and tiny stinging tubes were embedded in the back of their heads, seemingly sucking out something.

The expressions on their faces were frozen in a strange tranquility, some even sporting smiles, as if they were having a beautiful dream they never wanted to wake from.

Killing people while destroying their spirit.

[Target: Elite Sea Beast—Ghost Face Jellyfish (Level 3 Swarm Sea Beast)]

[Special Skills: Hallucinogenic Toxin, Strong Acid Corrosion, Brain Marrow Absorption]

[Weakness: Fear of Fire, Central Ganglion of the Bell]

"So it's these things."

Lu Sheng curved his lips into a cold arc.

A wicked creature proficient in both physical and psychic attacks.

It uses the fog to create panic, then uses illusions to make people drop their guard, and finally sucks their brain marrow dry while they are having a pleasant dream.

These beasts certainly know how to eat with flavor.

"All blazing flame ordinary crew members, immediately put on gas masks! Do not remove them without orders!"

Lu Sheng's voice boomed through the broadcast in the dead silence of the fog, causing the surrounding mist to churn.

"There's something nasty under the water."

With a single-handed gesture, the dragon devouring spear appeared in his grasp, its tip pointing directly at the seemingly calm abyss below.

"Prepare for battle!"

PS: Today's update (4/50).